Can You Survive the Ultimate Burpee Challenge?
Burpees are one of the toughest conditioning moves you can do at the gym—so why not try a challenge that stacks 10 killer variations all in one workout?
This Ultimate Burpee Challenge is not for the faint of heart. The routine is also definitely not one that you should be doing casually, either—think of this as a once-a-month, work-up-to-it demolisher that you can use to spice up your training.
Don’t give the full series a go without mastering the basic burpee form. Make sure to watch the video above and follow these tips before trying out the more complicated variations. As always, you should push yourself, but don’t go beyond your limits. Burpees can get risky for your wrists and chest as you fatigue, especially if you’re hitting the ground without control. If you find yourself losing steam through the workout, scale back and use the adjusted versions provided below, or bow out.
The Ultimate Burpee Challenge
You’ll perform 10 reps of each of the 10 burpee variations (except the final deconstructed burpee, which is multiple moves all in one). Rest as much as you need between sets, but try to finish all 10 reps of each variation consecutively without breaking.
1. Competition Burpees
How you do it:
What it works:
The competition burpee is a full body strength movement and is a great test of your true level of functional fitness. In every rep you’ll work your chest, quads, glutes, hamstrings, abs, shoulders and triceps. In addition to the strength work, you’ll also seriously tax your cardiovascular health as your heart will be racing to pump blood with each rep.
After 10 reps, you’ll be breathing heavy.
What if it’s too hard?
Elevation is your friend. Try bench burpees instead:
Oftentimes, the hardest part of burpees is the up and down of the body and head, which might cause you to get dizzy. To make things easier on yourself, start with a bench in front of you and don’t go all the way down to the ground.
As your body adjusts to the conditioning and strength of this movement, you can speed up and make your way to the ground.
2. Pushup Burpees
How you do it:
What it works:
You’re targeting your chest, shoulders and core muscles. Coming to the dead stop and nailing the pushup prolongs the time it takes to do these burpees, which makes them more taxing.
What if it’s too hard?
Go with knee pushup burpees.
After doing 10 reps of the competition burpees, you might already feel drained. Don’t let your ego get you into trouble by insisting on pumping out sloppy pushups—that could tear up your shoulders and get you hurt. Make things easier by going with your knees on the ground while you do the push-up.
3. Reverse Burpees
How you do it:
What it works:
You are going to work every muscle in your body with this movement, but to be specific; you are really going to target your core. The rolling fast and sitting up forces your abs to contract and after a few reps, your core will be screaming.
What if it’s too hard?
Use your hands as shown here:
As you sit up and drive your knees forward, bring your hands to the ground and give yourself a little boost so that you can stand up. Or if that is still too difficult, try to cross your feet before you stand up. The angle of your shoes hitting the ground while crossed will help your balance and allow you stand up faster.
4. Pistol Burpees
How you do it:
You should be at the bottom of a pistol squat.
What it works:
This works your coordination, and it’s an extreme test of lower body mobility and single leg strength. In order to do a pistol squat, your body will demand great mobility with your hip and ankle joints. Then when you have the stand up on one leg, your glutes will be supporting your entire body which is a real test of lower body strength and power.
This burpee will not only have you sweating, but you’ll have to rack your brain and seriously tap into your lower body strength.
What if it’s too hard?
Try this push-off version instead:
Start slow, and use your other leg to help “cheat” you up. Use the opposite leg (the one not doing the pistol squat) to help you balance and cheat you up a little bit so that you can stand up.
Use your other leg as somewhat of a training wheel and as you get better with the pistol squats, take that leg out of the equation.
5. Half-Burpee
How you do it:
What it works:
The half burpee is a full body strength movement and a great test of your true level of functional fitness. In every rep you’ll work your shoulders quads, glutes, hamstrings, abs, shoulders and triceps. This halfway point serves as somewhat of a break from the other variations, so try to crank them out faster to boost your heart rate.
What if it’s too hard?
Elevation is your friend. Do bench burpees.
Start with a bench in front of you and don’t go all the way down to the ground. rather just place your hands on the bench and use that for your base. As your body adjusts to the conditioning and strength of this movement you can slowly take it down lower and lower to the ground.
6. Super Burpees
How you do it:
What it works:
What does this not work?
You’re going to get all of the benefits of a burpee (full body strength and conditioning) while targeting your core, challenging your cardiovascular system, and testing your explosiveness as you perform the knee tuck.
So yeah, you are going to work a lot in this one movement. It might look overcomplicated, but after a few reps you’ll get the hang of it.
What if it’s too hard?
Try this modified bench version instead.
Instead of hitting your chest to the ground and doing a full pushup, just skip the pushup and do a half-burpee. Also, skip out on the knee tuck jumps if your knees aren’t really having it. Instead just do a regular bodyweight squat.
7. Side Plank Rotation Burpee
How you do it:
What it works:
This specific burpee targets your obliques, and your shoulder stability, and posterior chain (your backside) mobility.
Keeping your core stable while moving your limbs is another challenge with this movement. In time you’ll get more stable with this and you’ll feel more confident while balancing in the 1-arm push-up position.
What if it’s too hard?
Once, again, elevation is your friend. Get back on the bench for this modified version.
Make things easier on yourself, start with a bench in front of you and don’t go all the way down to the ground. As your body adjusts to the conditioning and strength of this movement you can slowly take it down lower and lower to the ground.
8. Double Knee Tuck Burpee
How you do it:
What it works:
The double knee tuck really works your core and hip strength. Each time you shoot your feet back and forth you engage your core muscles and your hip flexors. This is real test of how explosive you can be—and it’s a great way to get sweating fast.
What if it’s too hard?
Slow it down and try this modification instead.
Allow your feet to touch the ground. This move can get tricky and tiring, so take that little rest and allow your feet to touch the ground after you drive your feet back towards your hands.
If you get to the top of the burpee and decide that a jumping knee tuck isn’t for you, perform one high knee in place instead. This will be less jarring on your knees and allow you to do the move slower.
9. Reverse V-Up Burpee
How you do it:
What it works:
Talk about some coordination and core work!
With each v-up you do, you’ll be targeting your lower abs and hip flexor muscles. This will both condition and build strength with your core muscles. Then when you add the reverse burpee to that, you’ll need more coordination with your feet and lower body strength as you stand up and jump.
What if it’s too hard?
Modify with a bent knee v-up.
Perform a bent knee v-up instead of the standard full v-up. This will make it a little bit easier on your abs and allow you to recover faster between reps. If the reverse burpee is too hard for you, cheat a little bit by pushing off the ground with both hands.
10. Deconstructed Burpee
How you do it:
You’re only doing 1 rep of this move—but that doesn’t mean you’re shortchanging yourself on the work.
The deconstructed burpee is:
Then you’re done!
What it works:
The pushups will work your chest, core, shoulder and tricep muscles. The double knee tucks will work your hip flexors, shoulders, triceps and cardiovascular system. The squat jumps will work your butt, quads, calves, and all of your lower body muscles as well as your cardiovascular system.
What if it’s too hard?
Split the move up into its component parts.
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