Table of Contents
Burpees are high-intensity workouts combining elements of strength, endurance training, and cardiovascular conditioning. You start with a standing position, followed by a squat, a push-up, and ends with a jump. To enjoy the full benefits of a burpee, we’ve outlined a very detailed step-by-step way of doing it safely and effectively without injuries.
The exercise simultaneously engages multiple muscle groups like the pectoralis, quads, triceps, hamstrings, shoulder muscles, abdominals, etc. You literally engage all muscle groups in your body, both the gravity and antigravity muscles.
Burpees not only boost your cardiovascular health, but they also have several other health benefits such as the promotion of blood and oxygen circulation, boosting metabolic rate, weight management, etc. You may check out our previous article for a list of 10 health benefits of burpees you stand to get by including them in your routine or fitness plan. In this article, we’ll delve into the benefits of a burpee in relation to gender.
Kindly keep in touch by signing up for our newsletter:
How effective is a burpee?
Burpees are so effective that right from the time of invention, they were used as a test of physical fitness. They were used by the US military for the same purpose during the Second World War. As high-intensity interval training(HIIT) exercises, they certainly result in effective caloric expenditure.
They can burn as much as 10 – 15 calories per minute depending on a person’s weight and fitness level, according to research.
By quickly ramping up your heart rate, they quickly get you to your fat-burn target heart rate for weight loss. Their level of effectiveness is acknowledged both in fitness and scientific research. In comparison to other exercises, they stand out for their compactness and versatility. They work up almost all muscles in your body rather than isolated muscle groups as seen in most other exercises.
5 benefits of burpees for women.
Burpees have earned their place as one of the most effective full-body exercises. They not only build your cardiovascular efficiency and endurance but are proven means of strength training, fat burn, and general fitness. For these reasons, women stand to benefit a lot by incorporating it into their workout routines. Some of the unique benefits for women as per healthcrust experts are:
1. Prevention of pelvic organ prolapse(POP): POP is known to affect about 40% of women. It’s a predominant condition in women than men by a whole lot. While burpees may not be suitable if you already have a POP, as an effective calisthenic exercise in firming up your whole body, they may help lower the risk of a POP in women. Heavy weight lifting, on the other hand, may put you at risk of POP.
2. Pregnancy and labor: Women who engage in burpees before pregnancy have bodies that are better prepared to handle the stress of gestation and labor than those who don’t.
3. Reversing pregnancy-induced weight gain: As an effective weight loss workout, burpees are ideal for reversing pregnancy-induced weight gain and restoration of pre-pregnancy fitness level.
4. Belly fat burning: Your abdominal muscles are heavily engaged in some phases of burpees. This includes pulling your knees towards your chest during the jump phase, the push-up phase, planking, going from planking to squatting, and vice versa. In this way, burpees help burn abdominal fat.
5. Correction of Rectus abdominis diastasis: With the full involvement of your abdominal muscles in burpee workouts, they may help strengthen your rectus abdominis and reduce pregnancy-induced diastasis of the muscle group.
*Note that burpees may not be safe for you during pregnancy. I consider it too stressful to do with a baby inside of you if not outrightly dangerous.
Benefits of burpees for men.
As a sedentary lifestyle has been attributed to infertility in men, burpees are expected to be the right exercise that can boost sperm quality and increase fertility in men as published in the National Library of Medicine (NLM). This is aside from the fact exercises like burpees boost stamina for sexual activities in both genders.
Burpees are effective in building strong muscles and endurance. They help in weight loss and the improvement of body composition as men burn more fat doing burpees than in low-intensity workouts. Conclusively, burpees stand out as a powerful tool for men who are aiming to achieve their fitness goals through strength training and effective weight loss strategies.
Benefits of a burpee for weight loss
The principle of weight loss is a very simple and straightforward one. It requires everyone to burn more calories than they are consuming. The more active you get, the more calories you burn. This is exactly where exercising for weight loss comes in and burpees are among the top-rated workouts for burning calories.
You start burning the highest number of calories by the time you reach your fat-burn heart rate zone. Burpees are sure ways of ramping up your heart rate so fast that you easily get to your fat burn heart rate zone within seconds. The longer you maintain your heart rate within that zone, the more calories you stand to burn and by extension the more weight you lose.
In fact, burpees have been noted to be the number 1 calisthenic exercise for weight loss. (source)
How many burpees a day?
In considering how many burpees you’ll need daily it’s essential to do this in the light of your fitness level and objectives. For a starter, it is counterproductive to attempt 100 burpees daily whereas a well-rounded and experienced fitness enthusiast can do that without hassles or muscle sourness.
It is a safe practice to start small and build up to higher repetitions as your body adapts and gets used to the drill. You may start with 10-20 burpees daily and keep adding to the number of repetitions over time,
Integrating burpees into your daily workout routine and alternating it with days of lighter workouts and rest days enhances repair and recovery while promoting gains in fitness. This also ensures you meet all other objectives for engaging in burpees in a well-rounded fitness and strength-building program.
100 burpees benefits.
The benefits of burpees have been well discussed here and in a previous article as mentioned earlier. These are the same benefits you can expect with burpees regardless of reps. However, higher reps like 100 burpees daily shorten the time between starting out and seeing those benefits.
Increasing the number of reps has been particularly noted to be key for muscle building. This also applies to weight loss, improving body composition, and cardiovascular efficiency among all other benefits offered by the drill.
Nevertheless, you mustn’t raise to 100 burpees or more in one attempt till you are fit for that marathon. You may break it into 20-30 burpees at a time adding up to 100 in a day.
Benefits of 50 burpees a day
50 burpees a day don’t come with additional benefits aside from the already stated benefits of this exercise. However, the lower repetitions are particularly beneficial for those just starting burpees. This is because it gives their body time to adapt to the intensity of the exercise.
Adaptation is key to avoiding injuries and burnout while benefiting from the exercise. As stated earlier in this article, you may even start with much less than 50 burpees daily and build from there. The number of reps your body can tolerate depends on your fitness and endurance level.