Burpee
Floor to plank to jump. The whole body working the whole time, and the most famous conditioning exercise there is.
The movement
Stand
01 Stand
Feet hip-width, ready to drop.
02 Plank
Hands down, feet jump back to a strong plank.
03 Jump
Feet jump in, then leave the floor with arms overhead.
How to do it
Setup
- Stand tall with room to drop forward and jump upward.
- Decide in advance which version you are doing, with or without the push-up at the bottom.
Execution
- Crouch, place your hands on the floor, and jump or step your feet back into a solid plank.
- Do one full push-up if your version includes it.
- Jump your feet back toward your hands, stand up, and finish with a small jump, arms overhead.
- Land softly and move into the next rep at a pace you can keep.
Form cues
- Set a pace you can still hold at rep ten.
- Hold a real plank at the bottom and do not let your hips sag.
Common mistakes
- Flopping onto the floor instead of controlling the way down.
- The plank never really happening, with hips high and corners cut.
- Stiff, loud landings on the jump.
Worth knowing
- Make it easier by stepping back instead of jumping and leaving out the push-up. The movement survives and the impact drops.
General guidance, not medical advice. See how Setkit works.
Notes
The burpee has earned its reputation. It strings a squat, a plank, an optional push-up and a jump into one repeating loop, and your heart has to pay for all of it. No single muscle fails. You just run out of everything at once, which is exactly what makes it good conditioning.
It is also several exercises stacked together, which means several places to cut corners. The reps worth counting hit a genuine plank in the middle and land the jump softly. Anything faster than that is falling down and standing up with extra steps.
Program it in intervals rather than long grim sets. An EMOM of five to eight, or twenty-second Tabata bursts, both work well. Scale it without embarrassment, because step-back burpees with no push-up at a steady rhythm beat collapsing full ones every time.