Burpees: how to do one, the easier versions, and what the training studies found

A burpee is a squat, a plank and a jump strung into one rep. You drop your hands to the floor, jump or step your feet back into a high plank, bring them back in, and stand up, usually with a jump. Some versions add a push-up at the bottom; some leave the jump out. Because every rep takes you from standing to the floor and back, a set of burpees gets your heart rate up fast, and that's why they turn up in short interval workouts.

This page covers how to do one, the easier and harder versions, what the training studies found, how many people manage in a three-minute test, the faults, and where burpees fit in a week. The push-up part has its own page: how to do push-ups.

How to do a burpee

1. Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart.
2. Squat down and put your hands flat on the floor just in front of your feet, shoulder width apart.
3. Jump or step your feet back into a high plank: hands under your shoulders and one straight line from your head to your heels.
4. Add a push-up if you're doing that version: chest to the floor and back up, body still in one line.
5. Jump or step your feet back in toward your hands, landing with your knees bent.
6. Stand up, and for the full version jump with your arms overhead. Land softly and go straight into the next rep.

The plank in step three is the same straight line as a plank, on your hands instead of your forearms. Keep your hips from sagging as your feet land behind you.

Easier and harder versions

• Step-back burpee. Step one foot back, then the other, and step them back in. No jumps at either end. This is the place to start.
• Hands on a bench. Put your hands on a bench or a sturdy box instead of the floor. The higher the surface, the less far you have to go down.
• No push-up, no jump. Down to the plank and back up to standing. This version is often called a squat thrust.
• Full burpee. Jump back, push-up, jump in, jump up.
• Harder still. A tuck jump at the top, knees toward your chest, or a mountain climber or two in the plank before you jump back in.

Move up a version when you can keep the plank straight and land softly on every rep of a set, not when you can go faster.

What the training studies found

The studies tested burpees inside short interval workouts, alone or mixed with similar exercises. Three trials:

• Four weeks of 20-second rounds. In 22 recreationally active women, one group trained four days a week for four weeks with one set of eight 20-second rounds of a single exercise, burpees, jumping jacks, mountain climbers or squat thrusts, with 10 seconds of rest between rounds. Aerobic fitness (peak oxygen uptake) rose about 8%, in line with the about 7% of a group doing 30 minutes on a treadmill. The interval group also improved its muscular endurance, push-ups by 135% and sit-ups by 64%, which the authors count as the added benefit over the treadmill. A third group that didn't train showed no significant changes.¹
• Eleven minutes, three times a week. In 19 healthy, inactive young adults, nine trained for six weeks, 18 sessions, with burpees, high knees, split squat jumps and squat jumps, 60 seconds each at a pace they found challenging, with walking between. After training their peak oxygen uptake was higher than the group that didn't train. Leg endurance, grip strength and vertical jump didn't change in either group.²
• Against an hour of usual training. In 26 college-aged Army ROTC cadets, one group did 4 to 7 sets of 30-second all-out burpees with four minutes of active recovery, three days a week for four weeks, and the other did about 60 minutes of their typical physical training. Neither group changed in aerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity or the Army fitness test. The authors' reading: the burpee sessions sustained fitness despite their short duration. One lab measure of muscle mitochondrial function got worse in the burpee group.³

Read together: short bursts of burpees and similar moves raised aerobic fitness in two small trials of inactive or recreationally active young adults, and held it level in cadets who already were. No trial lasted longer than six weeks, the groups were small, and the results here are about fitness, not body weight or shape.

How hard a burpee interval is

• Close to sprint cycling. In 11 moderately trained college-aged adults, 8 men and 3 women, four 30-second all-out bouts of modified burpees with four minutes of active recovery averaged about 78% of peak oxygen uptake and 85% of peak heart rate. All-out sprint cycling on the same plan averaged about 80% and 87%; the differences weren't significant.⁴
• Easier to like than a hard run. In 18 moderately active young adults, one session each, ten 5-second burpee efforts with 35 seconds of rest were rated more enjoyable and were preferred over six minutes of running at about 85% of peak heart rate. Sprint intervals in the same study were rated hardest and least pleasant. Muscle soreness two days later was lower after the run than after the burpees.⁵

So a burpee interval counts as hard work for your heart and lungs even though it's done with body weight, and in that study the burpee version was rated more enjoyable than a hard steady run and felt less unpleasant than sprint intervals.

How many burpees is a lot?

A large set of numbers comes from the three-minute burpee test, as many as you can in three minutes of a burpee with no push-up and no jump, just a clap overhead at the top. In 9,833 university students aged 18 to 25 in Poland, Great Britain, Hungary and Serbia, 5,971 men and 3,862 women, men averaged about 57 and women about 49. The top man did 82 and the top woman 73. About two-thirds of each group landed in the average band: 47 to 66 for men, 37 to 60 for women.⁶

That's a test, not a target. Those were young students going flat out; your first useful number is the count you can do in a 20-second round with the plank still straight.

The common faults, and a fix for each

• Hips sagging in the plank. Brace before your feet land, and land them a little wider if the line breaks.
• Hands too far forward. Put them down close to your feet, so the plank lands with your hands under your shoulders.
• Stiff landings. Land the jump with your knees bent and your heels coming down, quietly.
• A push-up that's a flop. If your chest hits the floor before your hips do, drop the push-up or do it from a bench.
• Racing the clock. When the plank or the landing gets sloppy, slow down or switch to the step-back version for the rest of the round.
• Pushing through something that hurts. Being out of breath is the point; a sharp or lasting hurt in a wrist, a shoulder or a knee isn't. Stop, and see a doctor or a physical therapist.

Sets, rounds and where they go

• As a finisher after lifting: eight rounds of 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off, the format of the first trial above, about four minutes. Lift first; cardio and lifting explains why the order matters.
• On a day without the gym: a short circuit, burpees with high knees and squat jumps, a minute each at a pace that's hard but steady, with a walk between, about eleven minutes like the second trial.
• As practice when you're new: three sets of five step-back burpees, resting as long as you need.
• Progress one thing at a time: a few more reps per round, then more rounds, then a harder version. (Progressive overload covers the options.)

Count burpees as conditioning, not as your strength work. They don't replace squats, presses and rows; they sit beside them.

If you'd rather not plan it alone

Burpees fit anywhere, which is the problem: where they go in a week that already holds lifting, work and everything else is the part a page can't do. Coaching is the version where your workouts are built around the days you actually have, and a weekly call looks at the week you just had and rebuilds the next one. Coaching for a week that doesn't hold still explains how that works, and here's how to apply. Otherwise: at the end of your next session, do eight 20-second rounds of step-back burpees, and write down how many you did in each.