To Burpee or Not to Burpee

That is the question.  One I pondered as I saw for another week the neverending rounds of burpees in this week's exercise program........

The world is divided on this basic question.  More important than the Kevin Rudd or Julia Guillard debate, dare I say it, more important than deciding on having a Tim Tam or not....burpees have an effect of dividing groups into the cheer squad and the groaning brigade.


Burpees, upon a minor amount of research, are thought to be  named after a Lieutenant Thomas Burpee who developed the move for his soldiers as a way to keep warm and to develop fitness.

So lets look at the pros and cons.....

PROS or "I LOVE BURPEES, GIVE ME MORE"

Burpees will burn calories like an exploding sun.  This exercise will get your heart rate up high, and is an all body workout for strength AND agility.  Plus it gets you warm on a cold day in a record amount of time and makes you look good at gym.  It's a TAKE ANYWHERE exercise, no equipment needed, do anywhere, although I suspect if you started popping out burpees in Bourke St Mall, you'd get some funny looks. It's a good sculpting tool for shoulders and back, abs, thighs and butt!

 

 

CONS or " PLEASE PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING JUST NOT BURPEES"

 

I literally couldn't find any valid reason to not do burpees, apart from injuries like shoulders etc.  But if you have clearance from a doctor to exercise, no valid reason.  Dammit.  So I compiled my own.

1.  It's hard work!.

2. You sweat like you've been trekking through the jungle on a 50 degree day and it rained on you. Torrentially.

3.It's REALLY hard work!

4 They hurt after a while.

5. It's really REALLY hard work!

Ok see?  No valid reason. Unless you are Chuck Norris. Dammit.

Where do I stand?  Well after the first round of 4 sets of 25, I sat in the THIS IS TOTALLY GUT WRENCHING brigade.  But now after completing a total of 300 burpees in a week, I've come to not mind them much at all, at least I don't dread them and feel I have achieved something when I get through them! So I'm leaning towards the....liking them camp.

So even after the poorly formed arguments here, if you still want to do a burpee, here is a quick tutorial.....

 Finally, I'd like to show you with the Queen of the Burpee, someone I admire immensely and find inspirational....Julie Hoffman.  This AMAZING woman chose burpees to raise money for Heartkids and to make a world record attempt.