It’s really difficult to take the easy way out here. Either you did 8 mins of burpees or you didn’t. It would be very difficult to not work hard.
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For sure; that’s an indirect method that’s very much in line with the concept “hard stuff just makes you better!”
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You look a lot like the guy in the video. Did that bias you?
I heartily agree with you both–progressive overload is key, although I believe that after a point progressive overload becomes harder with many bodyweight-only movements due to overcoming the diminished returns principle. For some movements progressing through harder variations is sufficient, for others adding weight may be more preferable to keep the intensity at a challenging level. From my own personal experience, burpees are quite humbling and there’s certainly muscle-building potential there; however, if getting as big as possible and focusing almost solely on hypertrophy is the primary goal then there’s probably a bit more bang for your bodyweight buck elsewhere.
With all that being said I have a healthy respect for burpees, and if they are programmed intelligently they are a fantastic movement that will challenge many. There’s not many other movements that offer as much value for the whole body than the burpee and it’s certainly a great movement that shouldn’t be slept on. After watching the video, I really want to incorporate burpees more into my workouts again from time to time, programming them as either conditioning work or especially finishers like those Zulu burpees wow @ChongLordUno
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I love going down rabbit holes with training, and emphasizing one thing to see what happens. In my experience, if you choose something far removed from your current routine, you’ll see great results if you push it hard. I found this most recently with weight vest work. Strap one on, and do high rep push ups, pull ups, and squats. No barbell. Push hard for increasing rep totals and pace. I got leaner and stronger. Why? I had to adapt to a new type of training, and my body and mind had to come along for the ride by building new muscle and mental fortitude.
The “problem”, if you want to call it that, is that you will adapt and changes come slower or completely stall. Once you’re completely adapted to doing a weight-vested “Murph”, it’s really hard to squeeze more and more out of it. Heavier vest? Keep trimming time off your workout? Sure, but eventually these will fizzle. Also, at least in my case, it starts to open the door to overuse injuries and mental burn outs.
That said, you can definitely use burpees to get strong and conditioned at a high level. I did them extensively in the Summer of 2021 and had great results. Eventually I started to get some wrist issues and began eyeing other training protocols. But I still do them, and they may be the king of a single calisthenics move. Especially burpee pull ups.
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Thanks for this, Lee!
I am interested in including a burpee “set” to failure in my full body HIT workout (warmup, legs, back, chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs and calves - in that order, 1-2 sets per musclegroup). Your video sure gave suggestions on how to reach that in no time!
Question is where do I preferably apply the burpee set in my routine with dumbbells and resistance bands (for hypertrophy purposes)? I am considering it as a pre-exhaust before chest - or as an intensifier after a set of flyes and/or dumbbell presses. This will also pre-exhaust (warm up) the shoulders and triceps to follow.
Also, what burpee version would best suit a beginner at burpees?
Another question is - have you ever tried a slow rep version of burpees for extended TUT - or do you consider this counterproductive?
Thanks in advance and do keep up the inspiring work! Yes, I believe you are living proof of burpees as a natural tool for great muscle development!
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My anecdotal evidence of 30+ years in gyms tells me that for most gym goers, barbells and dumbbells’ do barely nothing other than make them feel pumped after the first year of training. I dont see many people laying down muscle tissue.
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Lets just do 50 regular ones but in 2minute time limit 
Asking things like these i always considered dumb, because you are basically asking everyone to be able to do something you enjoy doing daily and then kind of making them look bad because their focus is different.
Its like me saying if you cant survive a 3min round in a cage with me, why do u even train. Just because my cardio is fighting and yours is burpees, it doesnt mean we should compare ourselves to each other.
Everyone who does anything in a sport will always be able to find one thing he does better and then just ask from everyone to repeat that.
Just because i can run uphill for longer than most powerlifters, doesnt really change the fact that they are strong and i am…less strong 
Asking these opposite activities to be done is kind of like masking what we cant with an option of our choice of what we can do better.
At the end of the day - if the topic is building muscle, then there is no point to do any contests of activities - all that matters is height, weight, and pictures of muscle built, isnt it?
So if the beef is about - does this or that build muscle, then just do the thing and show how much muscle can you build in 6 months, for example.
If we take you, for example, since you already have a solid base, not to ruin your fun, but i am pretty sure that you wont be gaining any noticable size by doing bodyweight and burpee workouts from today to 6 months in the future.
There is also a problem with progression. If you did those 100 navy seals, there is no real point to do 100 ever again. So there should be videos of you doing burpees and exercises in odd numbers also. Like, after 100, there should be “this 103 navy seal burpee workout with 456 lunges will build your muscle” .
I really like the Iron Wolf stuff but i was always super unclear on the progression as he seems to be doing simmilar numbers in different combinations, but even if the different movements somehow trigger novel stimulus, it still has to improve at some point. Till this day i have never seen Wolf doing 111 or 76 of anything. Probably that is the reason why he hasnt grown an ounce of muscle like ever. Not to shit on the guys amazing endurance which i admire(and i do his stuff also) you shouldnt ignore the fact that the dude looks just like any dude who does some pushups at home. Like average 17 year old in a MMA gym looks exactly like him so that is my biggest skepticism of the idea that he can show you how to build muscle, cuz… he hasnt built any.
Kind of reminds me of Greg Doucette who being a pro and everything, with all due respect, advocates maingaining but havent built shit since the times he actually bulked.
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There’s nothing athletic about a burpee
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Even tho i like burpees i have to somewhat agree…
Burpees do not really translate/convert not sure how to say this in english but the idea is that you do one thing and then different things improve because of that.
The movement is all over the place and it doesnt really do much for anything in sports. There is a takedown defence called a Sprawl, which is simmilar to the first second of a burpee but you always really need to do it just once, so idk if doing burpees is more efficient than actually sprawling while getting taken down.
Thats the reason why athletes use dragging and pushing and sprinting. Even sledgehammer work. Those movements translate better to athletic activities.
Its kind of like benchpress - its cool exercise but outside the gym is kind of a weird movement - pushing things while being on your back. Hip hinges, squats, overhead presses - yea. But nothing is simmilar to benching, and thats the reason why lots of athletes dont focus much on that. Prowler pushing and even battleropes will be more useful.
Being good at burpees make you good at burpees. It doesnt improve your strenght or cardio in an activity thats NOT burpees. I know this because i train a dude from French Forreign Legion and he can do every Iron Wolf video and he doesnt even sweat doing it. Now when you spar with him and he has to punch hard, not stomp his feet slowly on the ground and just do slow movements, he actually gasses out in 90 seconds so much he cant even see anything anymore. So what we do with him is try to get this slow “stomp stomp stomp burpee” mentality out and get some explosiveness in him. Dont get me wrong - 100 navy seals is hard as shit. The question is - did the 100 navy seals made you be able to punch harder? Longer? Did your bench or overhead press improve? Can you push a sled for longer or faster now?
I believe that @j4gga2 means that burpees is not athletic is just this fact that doing burpees do not make you better at doing anything thats an actual sport or activity which is what athleticism means, imo.
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Yeah my thoughts more or less exactly echo yours
Athleticism is two things, depending on your lens:
- The ability to express the greatest array of movement options given a certain task and environment.
- Being able to move quickly, fluidly and effortlessly
Burpees cater nothing toward either of those, which is why people great at burpees don’t make great athletes, and why great athletes probably aren’t busting out 100s of burpees
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I want to post this here, because this thread was the inspiration behind my plan and I feel it could be beneficial to the conversation.
I’m planning on doing challenges a-la @ChongLordUno on non lifting days and while I’m out of town over the next few weeks. I did my first burpee ever yesterday. I then started a timer for 10 mins and proceeded to do as many as I possibly could in those ten minutes. Got to 101, and it was rough.
I’ll be in a fairly decent calorie deficit for the next 6-8 weeks, which is about the time limit I want to put on this “test”. I just finished up building the monolith and the scale topped out at 213.5. I weigh roughly 209 now, about a week and a half later. On lifting days I’ll be following the Guaranteed Muscle Mass program, which I’ve had some success with before. My goal is to stay familiar with form on my main lifts, get some highish intensity reps in and meaningful volume with the amrap/50% sets and 350 sets. Lifting days will be sporadic, so I’m going to use burpees as an avenue for a brand new stimulus while I’m away from the weights.
My first thoughts are that this is going to be a lot like the 10k swing challenge. The first 2-3 weeks are going to be brutal, time/reps are going to steadily improve and I’ll see some significant initial growth. After I start to acclimate to the work and improve work capacity, the gains will ween off until I start to stagnate. I think I remember reading @heretolog say something like this about the 10k swing challenge. The first 2 - 2.5 weeks are where all the gains are.
I also don’t plan on doing just straight burpees. Some days I may throw in grace after, or a few hundred swings… who knows. I feel like the majority of the improvements will happen in the first month, and that’s why I want to set an end date. I want to milk the new stimulus, get what I want out of them and then move on.
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In a counter, what originally sold me on burpees was Brian Alsruhe discussing how getting up off the floor is a fundamental life skill, and, ultimately, a burpee is simply a “get up off the floor” drill.
I see it similar to a sprawl drill in wrestling. Get down, get up, be quick about it.
But perhaps we’re running into a “no true scotsman” issue regarding what is and is not a burpee.
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I accept that as a valid reason for sure.
If we’re still talking about athletic development, I would say that there are definitely better ways to train “getting off the floor,” but I could see burpees having some use for people who otherwise wouldn’t get any exposure to falling and getting back up. Again though, there are options I’d probably choose first
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Maybe I’m being pedantic, but isn’t this just “doing pushups”? I don’t think that standing up between clusters of reps adds anything from a muscle building perspective.
Seems like all of these burpee variations amount to “do a few pushups, stand up, do a few more, stand up, etc.” Will those pushups help some people grow muscle? Yeah, sure.
Concur, but also because, in general, something tailored specifically to the demands of an athlete will always be better than a general prescription. “Burpee” is the broad spectrum antibiotic.
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Definitions again!
“Athletic” is so specific. I always thought of athletes as folks that could run faster (<60m), change direction and jump higher than me.
A powerlifter needs none of those things, but competes in an objective sport. They’re clearly athletes, but my eyeball test wouldn’t consider even the best in the world to be “athletic.”
Bias and context make this an entertaining discussion.
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I always like playing this game when people say things like “built to perform like a mixed martial artist”
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Just think of all those push ups as the filling in a big burpee sandwich