Friday, May 9, 2014

Egressions #142-143


142. Start with a walkout for beginners. Via FitSugar.
143. End with a pullup for the very advanced. Via The Post Game.

Not a fan of adding weights to load burpees, probably my ideal burpee progression is:

  • walk out burpee
  • kick out burpee ← i am here
  • kick out burpee with pushup ← i can do these but only like seven
  • kick out burpee with pushup and pullup

I've always been meh about burpees. I don't think they're hell, I just think they're awkward. But since I'm on my way to doing forty-four of them, I've figured out a lot about them. To wit: burpees are about vertical movement, horizontal movement, and the transitional passage on the drum between vertical and horizontal, and that last part is the awkward part. If you think about it, what makes awkward is not knowing where it's coming from. Now I know. Well, this.

ETA: So we have been continuing to talk about burpees on facebook, and what I mean about the transition between horizontal and vertical (nevermind the passage on the drum, that's from Howard's End) is the squat. You know that burpees are also called squat thrusts, right? Well, you can technically transition from horizontal to vertical by just folding forward and kicking straight out, tremendous energy saver, haha, also quite decent for your core strength. But. Squat. And the lower you squat, the smoother your transition. So really we are talking about:

  • squat and walk out, and walk back in and don't forget jump!
  • squat and kick out, kick back in and jump
  • squat and kick out, pushup, kick back in and jump
  • squat and kick out, pushup, kick back in, jump and pullup

And actually the squat is a natural landing for the jump, so it flows in a nice loop.