What is Burpee?
The burpee is a full-body weight exercise that combines many different elements in physical fitness. This exercise can be used to build both muscular strength and aerobic capacity.
The basic movement is performed in four steps and known as a four-count burpee:
Step 1: Begin in a standing position.
Step 2: Drop into a squat position with your hands on the ground. ( Count-1)
Step 3: Kick your feet back, while keeping your arms straight. Forming a straight line form your head to your heels. ( Count-2)
Step 4: Quickly jump your feet back to the squat position. ( Count-3)
Step 5: Jump into the air from the squat position. ( Count-4)
History of The Burpee Exercise
A New York-based physiologist named Royal H. Burpee invented the move in the 1930’s as a sort of fitness test. It was a slightly milder version of the grueling exercise we know today and was intended to only be performed 4 times in a row.
In fact, burpee was known to discourage anyone from performing numerous times. Because only 2 copies of Burpee’s original thesis remain, his granddaughter (Sheryl Burpee Dluginski) has made it her mission to explain the actual history behind this tormenting exercise.
Dluginski explains that her grandfather was a huge fitness fanatic.
He wanted to devise a simple way to assess the various fitness levels of everyday individuals utilizing one single test.
In 1939, when Burpee was a PhD candidate at the Teacher’s College at Columbia University, he invented a 4-count movement as an accurate and fast way to evaluate an individual’s level of fitness.
Dluginski states that this 4-count movement was known by many names before it was widely known as just "a burpee". It began as a squat thrust, then a "4-count burpee".