The true story of Burpee

burpee is undoubtedly one of the most used exercises in the fitness community today. Mainly, by students and professionals who seek to lose weight or improve their cardiorespiratory capacity.

But today we are not going to talk about the benefits or tips of techniques, what we are going to do is find out how this exercise came about and how it became world famous, being used from CrossFit box to dozens of armed forces from different nations.

The first findings about the practice are related to the doctoral thesis in Applied Physiology at Columbia University. Royal Huddleston Burpee (now you know where the name came from), in the late 1930s. When he was trying to create a strategy to improve and assess the physical ability of different people.

In the early 1940s the burpee became very popular in several countries, influenced by the inclusion of the movement in the process of physical evaluation of the American army, simulating our TAF (Physical Fitness Test).

Here in Brazil, we have a movement very similar to the American burpee, the half-sucked one, which was also very popular due to the use of the armed forces.

The burpee that we currently use, is a “polished” version and adjusted by the United States Marine Corps, in order to optimize the Marines in combat situations.

The militarization of the burpee today, goes far beyond evaluating or improving the physical fitness of the military. Today, one of the functions of the exercise is basically: (1) rapid protection from a sudden enemy attack (lying on the ground); and (2) quick counterattack, in order to eliminate the enemy (get up from the ground).

Because it is a very complete exercise, working practically the whole body, and stimulating various physical qualities in a single movement, the burpee easily entered the fitness universe, especially at Crossfit.

Crossfit used the burpee as a didactic strategy (punishment for some), using the exercise as a way to “guide” students to arrive at the scheduled time of training … or you already know, “will pay in burpee” for the delay.

But one thing is for sure, CrossFit was one of the biggest spreaders of the burpee, making it a basic exercise in anyone’s routine, from the advanced to the beginner.

In summary, Royal H. Burpee’s doctoral thesis never imagined that it would become so popular worldwide, of course, due to the militarization process through the US Navy and the implementation on the fitness scene by CrossFit, in addition to other later events, such as : Spartan Races, Civilian Military Combine, among others.

Now that you know a little more about the history of burpee, just put it into practice.