How to Do a Burpee and Exercise Every Muscle in Calisthenics

The burpee is a favorite of football coaches and Marine drill instructors for good reason. The exercise is a total body calisthenic exercise that pushes every muscle and pumps your heart to its limit. If you want to do a calisthenic exercise that improve your strength and explosive power then follow these steps to do the burpee exercise.

Instructions

1. Start by standing up with your arms at your side in a clear space. Make sure there are no small stones, bits of glass or other objects that can cut your hands in the area that you're doing the burpee.

2. Squat down, keeping your back straight. Put your hands out in front of you during the squat if you have trouble maintaining balance. Once the back of your thighs touch your calves, put your hands on the ground in front of you.

3. Shoot your legs out behind you from the squat position to a position of full leg extension. The result is the starting "up" position for a pushup.

4. Explosively pull your legs back to the squat position, getting as much of the soles of your feet on the ground as possible. Then, stand up to complete one repetition of the burpee.

5. Modify the burpee with speed to increase the calisthenic value of the exercise by using the exercise to do Tabata sets. Alternatively, put on a weight vest or backpack full of weights to skew the exercise towards the strength side of its advantages.