The burpee is the all-round move in a metcon. Learn chest to floor, jump and clap overhead – with rhythm instead of rush, and without wrecking your shoulders.
The burpee is a push-up, a jump and a clap in one: you go down until your chest touches the floor, jump your feet under your body, jump up and clap overhead. It appears in almost every CrossFit metcon because it delivers whole-body load without equipment.
The honest answer: burpees are a hard endurance stimulus. In a study of ten trained men and 13 exercise programmes, mean oxygen consumption during burpees (3 × 10, averaged over work and rest) was 22.9 ml per kg per minute – only the battle rope programme was higher at 24.6 [1]. For comparison: one MET (resting rate) equals 3.5 ml/kg/min, so 22.9 is about six and a half times resting. You feel that in your lungs.
A practical problem: there is no single "the" burpee – standards differ by workout and gym (experience). So read the movement standard in every workout.
Realistically: the form sticks in one or two sessions; fitness for a set of 50 takes weeks (experience).
Hands under shoulders, body a straight line from head to heel, hips not piked up. Brace your trunk.
Milestone: 10 holds of 10 seconds each without sagging.
Lower under control until your chest touches the floor, then press up. Elbows point about 45° back, not at a right angle to the side. Use an external cue: "push the floor away", not "tense the chest" – this improves execution and retention according to a meta-analysis [2].
Milestone: 10 reps without arching the back or sagging the belly.
Jump or step both feet forward from the floor position, as close to the hands as possible. This is where many lose time: the closer the feet land, the easier the stand-up.
Milestone: 10 reps with the feet landing next to the hands and the back staying long.
From the squat jump up, both feet leave the ground and the hands clap overhead (depending on the workout: clap on a line above the forehead or above the head).
Milestone: 5 reps with a soft landing through the knees.
Set breath and tempo: one to two breaths per rep, a steady beat rather than a sprint. Only then increase set length: 10, 20, 30.
Milestone: 20 burpees unbroken at the same beat.
Burpees are harmless as long as form holds – and tricky when the rep count gets large. In an 8-week beginner cohort of 168 participants, 14.9 % were injured, most often lower back (25 %) and knee (21.4 %) [3]. Repeated load with poor form is exactly what back and wrists dislike.
One warning that counts in the beginner phase: a small case series from one hospital (11 cases of rhabdomyolysis – massive muscle breakdown – among 523 injured CrossFitters) named dark urine as the most common symptom (90.9 %), and just over half (54.5 %, six people) of those affected were beginners [4]. This does not prove a cause and is rare – but after an unusually hard workout with extreme muscle pain plus dark urine: get it checked medically, do not "train through".
This guide explains and motivates but does not replace supervised training. Have your form filmed from the side or checked by a coach once.
Take the pause, not the burpee. If you plan 40 burpees in a WOD and pause for two breaths after every 10, you usually finish faster than someone who pushes through and bursts at 25 (practice value). And one comfort: in a small study of 32 men (CrossFit novices and competition-experienced athletes), CrossFit experience explained performance in two test WODs best, ahead of VO₂max or anaerobic peak power [5]. Repetition beats talent (experience).
From standing into the push-up position, chest to the floor, back up, jump the feet close to the hands, jump and clap overhead. Both feet must leave the ground and the hands meet above. Always check the standard in the specific workout.
We do not quote a figure per burpee without a source. What is known: mean oxygen consumption in one study was 22.9 ml/kg/min, which is comparatively high [1]. Calorie use depends on weight, pace and variant.
With clean form they are uncritical, with a hollow back and belly drop they are not. The lower back is a common injury site for beginners [3]. Keep the trunk braced and stop the set when form drifts.
Two to three sessions per week of 20 to 50 clean reps are enough at the start (experience). High volumes need more recovery – muscles and joints often need 48 to 72 hours.
Because you alternately support, press up and jump your body weight – a whole-body stimulus with no rest. In the study, oxygen uptake was higher than for squats or deadlifts at 75 % of the maximum [1].
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