1939. The world is about to find itself a beautiful fish to fry.
And yet, in the United States, someone is thinking of something else.
Someone is plotting in the darkness of a university gym with the futuristic goal of making the future suffer generations of crossfitter around the world.
The detail of the dark has been inserted only for dramaturgical purposes.
Index
Who to curse when you burpee
It's simple: Mr. Royal Huddleston Burpee.
What then - poor - deserves only a small part of your curses.
RH Burpee was the physiologist who invented a movement that partly had the structure of the burpee as we know it.
The purpose of this found her? Certainly not that of bringing death and destruction to the box (which Royal probably could not have known what they were), but having a physical test to assess the state of form cardiovascular of the man on the street - and certainly not of the professional athlete.
The evaluation would have taken place with a movement in 4 parts.
Burpee, if we really have to represent him as the villain of the situation, was actually a bad one with a good heart: and firmly opposed the high repetitions of his movement.
It's bad for your back and knees, he said.
Burpee put his test into a thesis, and won a doctorate from Columbia University.
But you, who are a loser, will do better keep giving us in with those reps, saving your energy for nobler punch muscles.
By the way, do you know how many calories burn by shaking them and cursing them at the same time?
At the origin of the Burpee
Originally the burpee - which still did not have a name - consisted of four movements to be executed in sequence:
- Squat descent and placement of hands on the ground
- Jump with feet back and plank
- Jump with feet forward (return to their initial position)
- Return to standing position.
The good doctor would have measured your pulse before and after the test, and voila: end of suffering, you can go home.
Human cruelty and the evolution of the burpee
Place that the burpee does not have a really standard execution - varying this from gym to gym, from coach to coach, from video on YT to video on YT, and based on athlete's fatigue, meteorological conditions, inclination of the earth's axis and favor of the gods - over the years the movement became a sequence in six parts:
The execution of the burpee
- Down in squats, and placement of hands in front, right at the side of the feet
- Jump with both feet in plank position
- Eccentric movement of the push up - the chest must touch the ground
- Return to the plank position: pushing with the arms, or with that "snake" movement that makes the shivering purists of the Calisthenics
- Jump and return of the feet to the initial position
- Explosive jump in upright position and throwing arms overhead
Why does the burpee hurt so much?
Because from the fitness test of Doctor Burpee, to be carried out in the calm of a laboratory while wearing a woolen tank top and light socks, now this movement has become a punishment.
To be performed regularly at high reps.
Look at the poor people who, thinking of switching to a new erotic webcam, found themselves members of a Spartan Race. The regulation states that if you can't overcome an obstacle, you are touched by 30 burpee.
No wool vest, but a layer of mud and pain to cover you.
Some CrossFit® box around the world they give you the burpee penalty if you present yourself late for the lesson.
A curiosity, to feel less alone: already in 1942 the squat thrust (as the movement was called) were included by the American army among the tests to be overcome to be enlisted and go to save Europe (the cat to peel of introduction). It had to be done for 20 seconds straight.
In the 1946 the request had risen to a minute in a row: 41 reps were considered an excellent result, 27 one miserable.
Do you want to die even more badly?
There are some variants of the burpee. I only name them, a little perversion is enough to imagine them:
- Burpee box jump
- Burpee with handlebar
- Burpee over BB
- Burpee pull ups
Speaking of Instagram: if you haven't done so yet, follow the profile of CrossMag.
The 5 benefits from the burpee
I always have the effect of talking about benefits in articles that describe real torture instruments: I expect someone to come and see me at home to pay me.
Anyway, here you are the five benefits of the burpee.
1) is an honorary member of the high intensity exercises and, as such, consumes calories like a furnace.
2) is a versatile exercise, and you can use it as a cardio, as an element of a HIIT circuit or for pure metabolic conditioning.
3) is a fantastic example of an exercise that trains the force functional.
4) is great for conditioning "Fast", and you can use it to speed up your preparation for sporting events (Spartan, swimming or triathlon competitions, trekking ...)
5) is a free body exercise, so you can do it anywhere. What an ass.
I recently read an article entitled "Why the burpee must be your favorite exercise".
Ok, this time I'm going to wait for the author below.
Muscles affected by the exercise
The burpee - which is none other than a combination of body movements performed in sequence - stimulates the entire muscle structure of the body.
I thigh muscles, the pectoral, the dorsal, the deltoids, the muscles of the arms: all are involved in the exercise. A series of ancillary muscles and stabilizers also get their stimulation part.
Finally, running long runs puts a strain on them
- Lungs
- Sweat glands
- Patience
- Pain receptors
Joke. Did you understand.
WODs that include burpees - that is, when you get sick in the box
These are just a few examples, and I have no doubt that your coach (or whoever for it) will surely come out with even more disastrous variations.
1) AMRAP 7 minutes
You think you can make it seven uninterrupted minutes of burpee?
2) 150 burpee
There is no stopwatch to watch - take what you need and concentrate. Your only opponent is your body.
3) Death for burpee
A classic. It's a variation on the EMOM theme.
First minute: a burpee. Second minute: two. Third minute ...
4) The dirty Trentino
10 exercises, 30 reps each.
Box jump, jumping pull up, swings, lunges, elbow knees, push press, back extension, wall ball, burpee (there are, there are, they were waiting for me to be cooked enough), and double under.
