All New Way to Burpee

Re-Creating the Burpee with DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training

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Is there one particular exercise that has gotten as popular as the burpee in the last five years? It has tormented most of us at one point or another in our lives. You remember, maybe they were called squat thrusts when you were in physical education, other burpees. Some people would love to get into a heated debate upon the RIGHT name, but I think it isn’t the biggest deal. 

However, distinguishing the two may help some. If you believe the recent articles (you could read about the history of the burpee HERE), Royal H. Burpee invented the four step squat thrust test….

“Burpee Dluginski says that the movement her grandfather invented has been known as a squat thrust, a four-count burpee, a front-leaning rest, and a military burpee over time. The original exercise was simple:

Squat down and place both hands on the floor in front of you.
Jump feet back into plank position
Jump feet forward.
Return to standing.

To administer the fitness test, Burpee Dluginksi says that her grandfather took five different heart rate measurements before and after four burpees were performed and came up with an equation that accurately assessed the heart’s efficiency at pumping blood—a good measure of overall fitness.”

The more modern burpee has added a push-up and a jump to the equation. So, if it helps, a squat thrust is without a jump or push-up, a burpee has the push-up and jump. Knowing the differences may help some. For one, you need to see the initial intent wasn’t to do the squat thrust really fast it is done today. In fact, it was done at a much slower tempo.

“But Burpee never intended his movement to be performed in such high volumes. In fact, Burpee Dluginski says that her grandfather rewrote the foreword to the 1946 edition of his book to explain that he believed that the military’s modification to his fitness test is strenuous and suitable only for those already in good cardiovascular health. According to Burpee Dluginski, her grandfather didn’t like how burpees came to be used — he believed that high reps of the movement could be bad for knees or dangerous to the back, especially for anyone who lacked core strength.

In short, Burpee never intended his modest, four-count move to be used as a particularly hard-core way to get in shape”

There are other ways to progress the squat thrust or burpee, but my point is that you shouldn’t be using them simply to slaughter people, but again, another opportunity to teach them about quality movement.

Great, so how does DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training fit into this equation? Most people simply advance burpees by trying to do them faster or just more of them. However, like many of our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises, we would rather layer complexity. Adding more diverse movement actually can greatly elevate your overall movement, performance, and fitness results. 

Having new variations is one thing, but programming is another. Select ONE. For your workout you are going to work off a 20% rule. In speaking with DVRT Master, Troy Anderson, 20% is a HUGE increase in a workout. Imagine if you had a 20% raise at work, your house expanded by 20%, your insurance covered 20% more! You would be psyched! Yet, most people miss how much 20% can be in their workouts, in other words, BIG!

So, we have two ways we are going to progress with a single DVRT Ultimate Sandbag burpee variation. 

Repetition Protocol:

Week 1: 10 sets of 5

Week 2: 9 sets of 6

Week 3: 8 sets of 7

Week 4: 7 sets of 8

Week 5: 6 sets of 9

Week 6: 7 sets of 10

What happens? Doing more work in a set raises the perceived challenge and the actual challenge of repeated efforts. From a total work stand point the weeks build up to week 4 where the total reps are the same, but because of the set/rep schemes, it will seem more challenging. The volume drops for one week in week 5 and then your about 20% jump occurs in the last week. You can then repeat this with a NEW DVRT Ultimate Sandbag burpee variation. 

Time Protocol: 

This one can be relatively simple in format. Aim to perform 10 sets of 5 of one DVRT Ultimate Sandbag burpee variation. Record the time. The next time, try to beat your time and record once again. Once you are able to improve upon your time by 20% then you increase the repetitions by 1. Doesn’t sound like much, but this will add up quickly. 

Try to add this to either at the end of your DVRT Ultimate Sandbag workouts, or if you need a fast and focused workout make it your primary session for the day. 

Want to see more great DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training programs like this? Check out our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag downloadable programs HERE. Months worth of programming done for YOU!