Movement Mistakes: The Burpee - Dissecting a Fat Loss Staple

One could argue the burpee has become to most popular movement in the fitness world. Loved by few, hated by many, you would be hard pressed to find anyone that has never heard of this staple in fat loss and general programming. Memes, bumper stickers, t-shirts, you name it. Burpees are everywhere.

I work with a lot of fat loss clients, so I regularly include burpees in my programming as they are very taxing from a conditioning perspective. I'm not a huge fan of them on a personal level (I don't know many who are), but as far as bang for your metabolic buck, they are hard to beat.

As with many mainstream movements, burpees are butchered more often than the victims of Dexter Morgan. Walk into a gym anywhere and you inevitably see someone violently throwing their body to the ground and sloppily peeling themself off the floor with no rhyme or reason to how and why.

What a Burpee Is

To avoid going into a detailed explanation myself, in Becoming a Supple Leopard, Kelly Starrett describes the burpee as a push up, squat, and vertical jump layered into one seamless movement.

Taking this into consideration, before we incorporate this movement into any program we need to establish a reasonable competency in each of these three movements. The individual technique points of each goes beyond the scope of this post, so just understand you should at least know how to preform a decent push up, squat, and vertical jump (This includes correct landing mechanics. Ninja landing!).

What a Burpee Is Not

Instead of explaining what a moving train wreck looks like in detail, I'll just show you an example:

Obviously this is an exaggerated example, but you get the point. Here are a few things to make note of at various points through the video.

• Anterior weight shift (:01 and :04). This will totally fry your quads and low back.
• Knees moving too far forward increasing shear forces in the knee joint (:02 and :06).
• Unstable position at top and bottom of push up.
• Excessive lumbar flexion placing undue stress on the low back (:06)

All of these faults make for a sore lower back and knees, not to mention you looking just plain silly.

What a Correct Burpee Looks Like 

 
 As with any complex movement, it helps to separate into steps.

1. Begin with a hip hinge. Push the hips back by visualizing spreading the hip bones apart.
2. Keep the chest puffed out and low back flat until the hands touch down flat on the floor. This ensures you maintain a more neutral spine.
3. Jump the feet back at the same time into push up position. DO NOT allow your hips to sag down toward the floor. At the top of the push up your core should be stiff, glutes tight, and you should be actively pressing your body away from the floor. 
4. Lower the body to the floor as a unit chest first. If you struggle with push ups, this is the perfect opportunity to work on the eccentric (lowering) portion of the movement, which many struggle with. 
5. On the way up, simply push up quickly and replace the feet with the hands. The feet now should rest where your hands used to. Now you are essentially in the bottom position of a squat. The feet should be flat and shins close to vertical.
6. Stand up or jump into the air. I didn't jump because, well, I forgot. But you get the idea. Ninja landing!

Modifications
Many don't possess the requisite mobility or basic movement skills to preform a true burpee correctly. If this is the case, continue to teach/learn these basic skills and modify the movement until basic competency is achieved. I use two basic modifications:

1. Decrease the range of motion with a step.

2. Try taking a wider stance.

Just like a sumo deadlift, a wider stance will allow a trainee with less hip and ankle mobility to get down to the floor without stressing the knees and low back.

Summary

The above tips should help you move through the burpee with much more efficiency. By being more efficient and moving correctly, you will waste far less energy, be at lower risk of injury, and improve your overall performance.

So to wrap up, remember these points:

• Strive to master the squat, push up, and proper jumping mechanics first.
• Break the movement down into steps.
• Modify when necessary.

Have fun with your burpees!