Full Body · None
How to do
Burpees
The conditioning tax. A squat, a plank, a push-up and a jump strung together, which is why a modest number of reps raises your heart rate faster than almost anything else in the pool.
| Movement pattern | Full Body |
| Measured in | reps |
| Equipment | None |
| Effort weight in Alea | 1.8 per rep |
| Appears from | D4 exercise die upward |
How to do it
Setup
Stand tall with your feet about hip-width apart and enough clear floor in front of you to lie down. Nothing else is required, which is exactly why it is the exercise people dread in hotel rooms.
The movement
Squat down and plant your hands on the floor. Jump or step your feet back into a plank, keeping the hips level. Perform a push-up if you are doing the full version. Jump or step the feet back toward your hands, then stand and jump, reaching overhead. Land softly with bent knees and go straight into the next rep.
Common mistakes
- Hips sagging or piking in the plank phase, which turns it into a flop rather than a rep
- Landing stiff-legged from the jump instead of absorbing through bent knees
- Rushing the transitions so much that the push-up disappears entirely
- Holding your breath, which is what makes burpees feel unsurvivable at rep fifteen
Too hard? Scale it down
Step the feet back and in rather than jumping them, and drop the jump at the top for a simple stand. That removes both plyometric elements and leaves a perfectly good full-body movement. Elevating the hands on a bench reduces the push-up load as well.
Too easy? Scale it up
Add the push-up if you were skipping it, add a tuck jump at the top, or simply compress the rest between reps.
Where this sits in the Alea pool
Alea draws exercises from an ordered pool of twenty, and the die size slices from the top of that list. Burpees is number 4 of 20, so it enters the draw once your exercise die reaches D4. Below that, you will never roll it.
Its effort weight is 1.8 per rep, which the app uses when it builds 100-rep sessions and tailored workouts, so a session containing burpees carries fewer total reps than one built from lighter movements.
Roll it now in your browser, or set your dice and let it come up on its own.
General information, not medical or fitness advice. Stop if you feel pain or dizziness, use the easier variation when in doubt, and see the full training disclaimer before starting.
Let the dice pick it for you
Alea draws burpees at random alongside nineteen other bodyweight movements. Free, no account needed.
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Related
Burpees FAQ
Do burpees need to include a push-up?
Not necessarily. Definitions vary and Alea does not police it. The push-up version is harder and more complete; the version without is still a full-body conditioning movement.
Why are burpees so exhausting?
They combine a large range of motion, most of your muscle mass, and repeated changes between standing and lying down, which is very demanding on the cardiovascular system. That is the point.
How many burpees is a good set?
Alea will draw anywhere from 5 to 75. Ten unbroken is respectable, twenty is hard for most people, and fifty is a genuinely serious effort regardless of training age.