The Terrible Trinity:  Burpees, Gutbusters and the Statue of Liberty

Okay…I know this won’t come as a shock to anyone reading this blog or any of my posts on the NLXF Facebook wall, but I really don’t like most of the exercises we do in class on Tuesday and Thursday, our “cardio and strength training” days.  But there are three that I really, really, especially, and completely dislike:  Burpees, Gutbusters and the Statue of Liberty.  I fondly refer to them as the “Terrible Trinity.”

Each of these exercises is designed to provide a complete body workout by working a multitude of muscle groups with each series of movements.  There is no other set of exercises we do at NLXF, with the possible exception of Bear Crawls, that so frustrates me, so torments me, so demoralizes me as these three.  They are hard.  They frequently defeat me.  And they always make me sore.  Individually, they remind me of how far I have yet to go on my fitness journey.  Collectively, well, let’s just say that they make a root canal look like a walk in the park.

Today we did FOUR MINUTES of burpees in a flurry of 30 second sets scattered throughout the workout.  To be honest, I was ecstatic after my first 30 second set…I did FIVE decent burpees.  True, they will never be as good as Nick’s or as fluid as Kristen’s but for me…well they were pretty darn decent.  I was so excited that I shared this happy news with both Creed and Ryan.  Creed gave me a BIG beautiful smile and a high five.  Ryan hit me with his signature chiseled glare and told me I should be doing at least eight.  Sigh…and he wonders why I like Creed way more better than him.

I feel that each of these exercises deserves further discussion and exploration.  In this installment I consider the Burpee.  Now…I know I’ve posted some of this material before but here’s the deal:

1. not everyone read last year’s post

2. we have lots of new people this session

3. I’m hoping that Jake Lewis will finally realize that I already know LOTS about Burpees and he will cease posting information about them on my Facebook wall and instead, send me love notes…I don’t think it’s fair Erin Hinton is getting all the love.

 

So…here we go:  My tribute to the Burpee.

Prior to my enrollment in NLXF I was a Burpee Virgin.  Somehow, I had managed to live more than 50 years in pure ignorance of their existence.  I sure as hell had never done one.  And I’m pretty sure I could have happily lived another 50 years blissfully unaware of them.

Sadly, all of that changed in October 2011.   I distinctly remember the exact moment Burpees entered my life.  It was week three of my first NLXF session.  Ryan announced near the end of a Thursday class that we would do Burpees.  And by the way, he doesn’t just say the word Burpees…he ROARS the word Burpees, making the U-R sound resonate like the engine of a small aircraft taking flight.  Then he demonstrated one.   You can imagine the look of shock on my face as I watched this exercise unfold before me.  I looked around.  Surely this was some kind of cruel hoax and in a minute everyone would start laughing and tell Ryan that was a pretty good trick.  But no one did.  Everyone just started flopping to the floor and then pushing themselves up to a jump, repeating the entire process over and over again. 

So I jumped in, too.  I had no problem hitting the floor; that was the easy part.  It was the getting back up just using my arms and toes and then leaping up again that created the all the problems.  By the time I was done my knees were bruised, my arms hurt and I HATED Ryan; I didn’t talk to him for two days.

What are they, you may ask?  Well first, a bit of history.  The exercise was named in the 1930s for American physiologist Royal H. Burpee who developed the Burpee Exercise as part of his PhD thesis as a “quick and simple way to assess agility, coordination and strength.”  Royal’s “invention” required simply that the exerciser move a “large load over a long distance in a short amount of time.”

A CURSE ON YOU AND ALL YOUR OFFSPRING DR. BURPEE!

Of course the true irony is that Dr. Burpees research didn’t remain obscure like 90% of that carried on by most academician annually, my own included. The US military LOVED The Burpee and immediately adopted it as a way to assess the fitness level of recruits during WWII. And then atheletic teams adopted it as well.  I don’t care if Navy Seals and the Green Bay Packers do them; I Hate Burpees (although I LOVE watching Clay Matthews [insert big swoon and sigh] do them before a game J).

For the unenlightened, a Burpee is pretty much the most work you can do just using your body for resistance.  It begins from a standing position. From there you simply prepare to die.  You move to a squat and then fling your full body weight all the way to the floor by way of a single quick plyometric move in order to assume a plank position.  From there, in yet another one quick plyometric motion I might add, you return to momentarily to the squat position and from there you “jump up” in order to move your entire body weight off the ground before landing in an upright standing position, eager to begin this sequence from hell once again.

A PLYOMETRIC MOVE!  Just bite me!

I can do the start from a standing positon but from that point on, the entire process becomes a cluster of painful disasters.  Trust me, the only quick motion I’m good at is inserting and withdrawing my Visa card into the ATM machine.  And of course it doesn’t help my process at all to have Ryan hovering over me from start to finish yelling “get lower,” “faster”, or “jump higher.”

Burpees continue to haunt me at NLXF since my first encounter with them four months ago.  I continue to hate them and every single permutation of them that Ryan brings to the NLXF workouts including but not limited to:  the Squatting Burpee, the “Burpee Pushup,” the “Baby” Burpee, the Burpee in our kickboxing gloves while our partner “works the bag,” and my most recent nemesis, the Pyramid Burpee.  I am HIGHLY ANNOYED that Burpees are infiltrating additional workout days.  It used to be that Thursdays were Burpee days.  Not anymore…we do them on Tuesdays…we’ve done them on Wednesdays.  Is nothing is sacred anymore!

Sadly, a recent internet search reveals that there are NUMEROUS variations on The Burpee including these sick and disgusting permutations:

The Jump-over Burpee

The athlete jumps over an obstacle between burpees.

The One-Armed Burpee

The athlete uses only one arm for the whole exercise.

The Parkour burpee

Following one burpee on the ground, the athlete jumps upon a table and performs the second burpee on the table, then jumps back to the initial position. (I’m sorry, but clearly alcohol consumption must be a factor with this one!)

And finally, the Chirpee Burpee

Combine a pull-up from a bar extended from the ceiling with the jump.

I’m guessing that until I see tables and pull up bars in the gym, I’m safe for a little longer!