fbpx
account My cart 0
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The Better Than Burpees Exercise

fat loss

I don’t hate them as much as some claim and I’m not infatuated as much as others like to use them. To me, burpees are just an exercise that can be useful in certain contexts. It requires good hip mobility, core stability, upper and lower body power, and conditioning. All things that sound great. 

However, some people lack these qualities and probably shouldn’t be just using burpees because they want to get a good sweat on and others need to know we can develop these qualities over time. For many of my clients I found another exercise that shares a lot of qualities of the burpee but has way more ways to regress and progress the movement. 

That is thrusters!

If you are unfamiliar, a thruster is simply a squat and press combined. If you break it down, a thruster is pretty close to a standing burpee, but more mobility demands on the upper body. I love thrusters because we can manipulate so many qualities of them to make them accessible to any fitness level while giving a very powerful total body exercise and conditioning exercise. 

Like burpees, you don’t need a lot of time or space to get A TON from them. 

Let’s talk about first making them more accessible to people who do lack some mobility and are just starting their fitness journey. How can we modify thrusters to make them appropriate? 

-Reduce the range of motion: only go down as far in the squat as people can do well

-Slow the movement down and aim for more repetitions at first

-Use loading positions such as an Ultimate Sandbag Arc Press or single arm kettlebell/dumbbell press to help those who lack proper mobility. We can even reverse the movement to be a squat and row if people have real issues with their shoulders as Cory Cripe shows below….

Unlike how most people progress burpees (just doing ridiculous repetitions of them losing the essence of the movement) we can progress thrusters in lots of different ways. 

-We can get into a deeper squat

-Increase the demands of the upper body by going to two arms

-Move faster

-Do more receptions in less time

-Change the stance to increase the demands on the body. When we move to a lunge, split squat, or sprinter stance, we increase the stability, strength, and metabolic effects of the movement. Even more so when we combine it with an Arc Press movement because our bodies have to react to the weight more so. 

-Press at different positions, instead of using the drive up to press, we could press at upon lowering ourselves into the movement. This greatly increases the whole body demands of thrusters. 

What you all of a sudden see is an exercise that has many different benefits, but more importantly can be used in such a variety of ways of making the exercise more difficult, or more accessible. Movements like these can be incredibly beneficial for those with limited time or we can add to a home program that allows us to accomplish a lot without a lot of equipment, time or space. 

If you want to find out much more, don’t miss the last two weeks to sign-up for our upcoming “Why Fitness Is Failing Fat Loss” CEU online Masterclass. This week you can save 15% on the class and sign-up HERE  with code “coach15” (all participants will receive recordings of the classes)