Who the Fck invented Burpees?

The Burpee is named for a physiologist named Royal Huddleston Burpee. For his Ph.D. thesis at Columbia University in 1940, he invented the exercise as a way to assess the fitness of non-active adults. Burpee made participants perform only four Burpees at a time, and he actually specified that the movement should not be performed for a high number of repetitions. He was testing  generally unfit people and he warned that Burpees could be harmful to the knees and back and detrimental to those without proper core strength.

Well, F you Royal Burpee!

Okay, not really, but man, they are HARD.  As the NYX Endurance athlete prepares for September BINGO, we are ramping up your burpees.  See, depending on which card you chose or which card your coach chose for you,  there is a day with 100, 200 or 400 burpees in one day.  Right? You can all thank Laura for this insanity. 

So we are training for our day of burpees.  Much like we are building up to 200/500 or 1000 squats, 100/250 or 350 push-ups, each week we add more so when the DAY comes we crush them, don't get injured and possible just survive.

Personally, I am absorbing the squats, push-ups, wall sits, planks pretty well but not the burpees they still feel just as hard as day 1.   Why is that?  Because they target your entire body- upper, lower and core + cardio.  The cardio + lung workout is a bonus.  They are anaerobic, the respiratory and circulatory systems are working hard to compensate for the lack of oxygen in the muscles, that is what HURTS SO GOOD.  I have found if you yell FU Larua, that helps a bit. 

When recently asked,  'will this help my Ironman?" The answer is yes!  Going anaerobic is good, and something few triathletes do ever and think how easy other strength moves feel after burpees.  

And in case you were wondering what the Guinness Record?  The most burpees in 12 hours is 5,657.  So NYX Bingo players, NO COMPLAINING on your burpee day.