Long dismissed as the most dreaded exercise in any fitness class, the burpee has a surprisingly practical history rooted in military fitness testing – and, according to fitness professionals, its unpopularity is closely tied to why it works so well.
Few exercises attract as much groaning in a gym or fitness class as the burpee, the compound stop-drop-and-plank movement that combines strength and cardiovascular training in a matter of seconds. Originally developed by American physiologist Royal Huddleston Burpee in the late 1930s, the exercise was later adopted by the US Army in 1942 as part of its physical fitness testing. Fitness instructors argue that the very qualities that make burpees so exhausting are also what make them so effective. Understood properly, they say, burpees can offer significant fitness benefits in a very short space of time.
From fitness test to full-body workout
The burpee’s origins are more modest than the version most people know today. Royal Burpee developed the movement as a simple four-count fitness assessment, rather than as an endurance exercise, and the original version did not include a push-up or a jump. The more demanding variation now common in gyms and fitness classes evolved later, shaped by military training and the wider fitness industry.
Once the US Army incorporated the burpee into its fitness testing in 1942, expectations for performance became notably rigorous. According to the Army’s own standards, completing 10 burpees in 20 seconds is considered “fair,” while 13 or more is rated “excellent.” To be judged fit enough for what the Army described as “the rigor of war,” soldiers were expected to perform between 40 and 50 burpees without pausing, maintaining an easy, steady rhythm throughout.
Why the exercise is so widely disliked
Burpees are what is known as a compound movement, engaging multiple muscle groups simultaneously, and a calisthenic exercise, meaning they rely on body weight and gravity for resistance rather than external weights or machines. The exercise recruits muscles throughout the body, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, calves, chest, shoulders, triceps and abdominal muscles.
Because so many muscle groups are activated at once, the body’s oxygen demand increases rapidly, heart rate climbs quickly, and muscles tend to fatigue faster than during more isolated exercises. Breathing becomes noticeably harder as a result. In short, burpees are demanding precisely because they force the body to do a great deal of work in a very short period.
The same difficulty brings the benefit
Fitness professionals point out that the qualities that make burpees unpleasant are also what make them useful. As a full-body movement, burpees combine strength training and cardiovascular exercise simultaneously, helping to build both muscular endurance and aerobic fitness at the same time. Because they elevate the heart rate so quickly, they are frequently included in high-intensity interval training (HIIT) programmes, where the goal is to maximise calorie expenditure within a short period.
Research into high-intensity bodyweight exercises has shown that movements such as burpees can improve cardiorespiratory fitness, particularly when performed consistently as part of a structured interval-training programme. Sports scientists also describe burpees as a functional exercise, since they train several movement patterns, including squatting, planking, pushing and jumping, that mirror the demands of everyday activity and athletic performance more broadly.
Burpees also require no equipment, which has made them a popular choice for home workouts, military fitness training, sports conditioning and circuit training alike.
Doing burpees safely
Fitness professionals recommend maintaining a neutral spine throughout the movement and landing softly after the jump, in order to reduce unnecessary stress on the lower back and joints. However, burpees are not suitable for everyone. People with existing knee, shoulder, wrist or lower back injuries may need to use alternative exercises or modified versions of the movement to avoid aggravating those conditions.
For beginners, several modifications can make the exercise more manageable. These include stepping the feet back instead of jumping, omitting the push-up altogether, or replacing the final jump with simply standing up. At the other end of the scale, more advanced variations exist for those looking to increase the training stimulus, including the burpee box jump, burpee pull-up, one-legged burpee and weighted burpee.
Whether the goal is military-standard fitness or simply climbing a flight of stairs without losing breath, fitness instructors argue that burpees, done correctly, remain one of the most efficient full-body exercises available.
