My Fitness HutThe Burpee is one the most basic yet intense bodyweight exercises around. If you can do a pushup and bodyweight squat, then you can do a burpee. Unfortunately, not enough people incorporate the burpee into their fitness programs.

What is a Burpee?

There are a lot of discussions out there concerning what a burpee exactly is. Lets move step by step here.

The first step to learning a full burpee, is to learn how to do a squat thrust, and then a squat thrust with pushup. Both exercises are explained here:

How to Do Squat Thrust Exercises — powered by ExpertVillage.com

First practice the regular squat thrust, without the pushup. Once you can perform 10-20 repetitions with ease, add in the pushup.

The next step is practice the basic squat jump. Here’s a video explaining the movement:

How to Do a Squat Jump — powered by ExpertVillage.com

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

Now, add in the squat jump at the end of a regular squat thrust. Here’s what it looks like:

Finally, add in the pushup to perform a full burpee:

To review, the following is the basic progression you need to take to go from squat thrust to full burpees:

• Squat Thrust
• Squat Thrust with Pushups
• Squat Jump
• Squat Thrust with Squat Jump
• Burpees

Beginner Burpee Program

Choose a level that you can perform with ease, and steadily progress through until you are able to perform a full burpee for reps:

Level One: Start off with a basic pushup and bodyweight squat workout

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 10 reps
• Bodyweight Squat, 20 reps
• Rest 60 Seconds

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

Level Two: Add one more round to the workout

4 rounds of:

• Pushups, 10 reps
• Bodyweight Squat, 20 reps
• Rest 60 Seconds

Level Three: Replace the Bodyweight Squats with Squat Thrust, and drop back to 3 rounds

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 10 reps
• Squat Thrust, 5 reps
• Rest 60 Seconds

Level Four: Perform Squat Thrust with Pushups

3 rounds of:

• Squat Thrust with Pushups, 8 reps
• Rest 60 Seconds

Level Five: Practice the Squat Jump. The Squat Jump is a tough movement. If you’re successful with this exercise, then you’ll be good at burpees. This is why you’ll practice the squat jump for the next four levels.

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 12 reps

• Squat Jump, 4 reps
• Rest 60 Seconds

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

Level Six: Increase repetitions

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 15 reps

• Squat Jump, 5 reps
• Rest 60 Seconds

Level Seven: Drop Rest Periods by 15 seconds

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 15 reps

• Squat Jump, 5 reps
• Rest 45 Seconds

Level Eight: Increase repetitions

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 18 reps

• Squat Jump, 6 reps
• Rest 45 Seconds

Level Nine: Replace the Squat Jump with Squat Thrust with Squat Jump. Return rest periods back to 60 seconds

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 18 reps

• Squat Thrust with Squat Jump, 3 reps
• Rest 60 seconds

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

Level Ten: Drop rest periods by 15 seconds

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 18 reps

• Squat Thrust with Squat Jump, 3 reps
• Rest 45 seconds

Level Eleven: Drop rest periods by 15 seconds

3 rounds of:

• Pushups, 18 reps

• Squat Thrust with Squat Jump, 3 reps
• Rest 30 seconds

Level Twelve: Replace all both exercises with Burpees. Increase repetitions back up to 60 seconds

3 rounds of:

• Burpees, 10 reps

• Rest 60 seconds

Intermediate Burpee Program

Image by Crossfit Litchfield Park

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

So now that you can perform 20-30 Burpees per workout with ease, it’s time to move onto more advanced workouts. One of my favorite methods of training burpees is using Ross Enamait’s Burpee Intervals.

• An interval is where you alternate between a high intensity exercise and a lower intensity exercise for set time periods. The high intensity exercise here is Burpees. The lower intensity exercise is for you to choose.
• Ross’s program consists of alternating Burpees with Shadow Boxing. You perform 30 seconds of Burpees, followed by 30 seconds of Shadowboxing, and repeat as desired.

Ross’s beginner interval workout looks something like this: 4×2 minute intervals with 1 minute rest. In this workout, you alternate between Burpees and Shadowboxing for 2 minutes, followed by a 1 minute rest. In other words:

• Perform 4 rounds of:
  • 30 Seconds Burpees
  • 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
  • 30 Seconds Burpees
  • 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
  • 60 Seconds rest

I have outline an Intermediate Burpee Program based on Ross’s idea:

Level One: Start off with the basic Burpee Interval workout

Perform 4 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 60 Seconds rest

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

Level Two: Perform an extra set of Burpees per round

Perform 4 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 60 Seconds rest

Level Three: Perform one more round.

Perform 5 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 60 Seconds rest

Level Four: Drop rest periods by 15 seconds

Perform 5 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 45 Seconds rest

Level Five: Drop rest periods by 15 seconds

Perform 5 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds rest

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

Level Six: Add one more round

Perform 6 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds rest

Level Seven: Add one more round

Perform 7 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds rest

Level Eight: Drop rest periods by 15 seconds

Perform 7 rounds of:

• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 30 Seconds Shadowboxing
• 30 Seconds Burpees
• 15 Seconds rest

One of the best ways to help you with your intervals is to use the GymBoss Interval Timer. It costs just $19.95, and you can program it to help you keep track of any sort of intervals you may use. Click here to grab yours today.

Click here to Learn over a 100 High Intensity Bodyweight Exercises

Advanced Burpee Program

At this point, you should be in extremely good condition. My suggestion is to use the numerous workout templates that I’ve presented on this website to start developing your own intense burpee program. Here are some great templates to follow:

• Supersets Training with Dive Bomber and Kettlebell Snatch (Scroll below the Video for the Templates)
• 6 Methods to Design an Intense Bodyweight Workout
• 3 More Methods to Design an Intense Bodyweight Workout

One of the best ways of making a workout harder is to use harder variations of an exercise. Here is a video I found that has a lot of Burpee variations:

If you want more information on bodyweight training, you should check out Workout Without Weights. This bodyweight manual will teach you over 100 exercises proven to help you lose fat, build lean muscle mass, improve strength, improve athletic fitness, and aid longevity.

Click here for more information.