Burpee Your Way To A Fitter Body: Weight Loss And Other Health Benefits

Burpees are a challenging and extremely effective workout. Known as the fat-fryer, this exercise works almost every muscle in your body, right from your legs to the chest. It is a kind of an aerobic exercise that combines strength training to build your muscles and also burn your calories. The exercise was developed by an American physiologist in the 1930s as a quick way to assess fitness. There are many ways to perform a burpee, depending on the goal of your workout.

How to do it?

A beginner level burpee comprises of three types of moves: squat, jump and push-up. To do this exercise,

Step 1: Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms at your sides.

Step 2: Push your hips back, bend your knees, and lower your body into a squat.

Step 3: Place your hands on the floor directly in front of, and just inside, your feet. Shift your weight onto them.

Step 4: Jump your feet back to softly land on the toe ends of your feet in a plank position. Your body should form a straight line from your head to heels. Be careful not to let your back sag or your hips stick up in the air, as both can keep you from effectively working your core.

Step 5: Jump your feet back to front so that they land just outside of your hands.

Step 6: Reach your arms over head and explosively jump up into the air.

Step 7: Land and immediately lower back into a squat for your next rep.

Benefits of Burpees

While people commonly perform burpees for everyday fitness, this exercise offers a plethora of benefits to the doer.

1. Builds strength

The squats and pushups that a burpee requires are classic strength building exercises, that increase your muscle bulk significantly.

Good for endurance: Burpees are a high load exercise, performed in quick succession. They require a person to use his complete body weight which means that muscular endurance grows while performing this exercise. Additionally, doing this workout trains your heart and lungs into more activity, allowing your body to work even under lesser supply of oxygen.
 

2. Full body fat loss

Burpees move your arms, back, chest, core and legs. If your aim is to lose fat, there is no exercise better than this to burn your calories rapidly. This is because the large number of muscles used ensure large calorie expenditure. Moreover, burpees are a high-intensity workout, and so even small routines are effective in quickly attacking the calories.

3. Combats ageing

As we age, our bodies lose strength. Burpees allow our body to build and store strength to combat this loss of muscle mass, making us look and feel younger. This enables us to perform everyday activities like lifting heavy things and climbing the stairs better.

Also read benefits of exercising on an empty stomach.

Types of Burpees

This power-exercise can be made to suit different fitness needs by making small variations. Some of the most commonly performed types if burpees, aside from the regular one, are:

1. Pull up

The pull-up burpee helps in strengthening a person's back and quadriceps. To do this exercise, stand under a pull up bar. Drop your hands down and push your feet back into the push-up position. Now push your feet in front and when you jump, pull the bar to lift your body up. Your chin should reach above the bar. This will mark the completion of one rep.

2. Broad Jump

This variant of the burpee is effective for your quadriceps, hamstring muscles and calves. To do this workout, drop and place your hands on the floor outside your feet while you are in the standing position. Now jump your feet back so you're in the top of a pushup position, then back to between your hands. Powerfully jump forwards as far as you can, swinging your arms by your side for momentum. Land and continue straight into the next rep.

3. Push up

In this simple variant, as you push your legs back into the push-up plank position, also perform the regular pushup by pushing your chest to the floor. Now jump your feet back to between your hands and then jump up, clapping your hands overhead.

Burpees are a sure-fast way to lose belly fat and build muscle strength. Try this exercise today to increase your fitness

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