The Burpee

Welcome to this week's Fit Tip Friday!This is the 30th Fit Tip Friday Newsletter. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has continued to read and share this newsletter for the last 30 weeks. Creating and sharing this content has been something I look forward to each week, and I pray it has encouraged you in some way along your body-stewardship journey.For the 30th newsletter, I want to spotlight perhaps the most effective bodyweight exercise there is. And, truthfully, this is my absolute favorite all-around movement. The Burpee.  

(Layman's Fitness Video Instructional Page)

How to Do a Burpee

The Burpee is the ultimate bodyweight exercise. It is infamous for being a dreadedly effective movement. It is the Megazord of bodyweight movements.  

Photo Cred: https://screenrant.com/power-rangers-tv-spot-megazord/

It takes a High Push-Up Position Hold, a Body Squat, and a Push-Up, fuses them all together, adds a jump in at the end for extra power, and creates a bodyweight super monster that can stand up to any evil and malicious opponent that threatens your body stewardship. And the best part of the Burpee is that no equipment is required. Period. The Burpee is a scalable full-body workout that can be done anywhere, anytime, and in any place. 

The Burpee is an advanced movement, and if you are not familiar with it, I'd encourage you to try some of the regressed variations (made easier) of the movement before going for the Burpee proper. The link to the LF Burpee Instructional Page has regressed burpee variations as well as progressed ones (made harder).  

A Personal Burpee Story

Maybe I should attempt to explain my affinity for burpees. It's not often that someone out there has an affection for the notorious exercise, and I feel as though I owe an explanation. In the fall of 2020, I hit a personal plateau with fitness.This plateau wasn't physical as much as it was mental. In that season, I had lost interest and my zeal for regular exercise. 2020 certainly had its own challenges. But from an exercise perspective, I had set a variety of elaborate goals throughout 2020 that all fizzled out. I was caught in a cycle of setting a grand exercise goal, planning it out, energetically starting the plan for a few weeks, and then before long I either gave up or my interest waned. 

This process of starting and quitting, and starting and quitting, and starting and quitting repeated for several months, and before long I became discouraged. And discouragement lead me to the bleak peak of my plateau. I needed to know that I could finish what I started. I needed a new plan, but a simple one. Effective, but not overly complex. How could I whittle exercise down to one of its smallest atoms and commit to it regularly?That's where the burpee came in. So, in October 2020 I set a goal to complete 50 burpees every morning. I didn't tell my friends or my coworkers about this goal. I think I may have casually told my wife and a few family members I was doing it, but I kept it close to the chest and committed to it every day.  Day after day I finished my set of 50 burpees in the morning before I left for work. There were rough patches along the way. My body was sore for the first few days, and my mind wanted to rebel against completing the grueling exercise each morning. But the soreness passed by the end of the first week and the burpee settled into my morning routine. And most importantly, I did it regularly and consistently every single day that month. My strength grew in increments. Before long I was able to do burpees in sets of 10, then 12, then 15, then 18, then 20, etc... I was more energetic throughout the day. My lungs felt stronger. My whole body benefited from the sets of burpees. But perhaps the most important gain I made was a slow lesson in diligence and perserverence in both completing a plan and using my body regularly. One burpee after another taught me just a little more about what it meant to steward my body, and I slowly became encouraged. This simple goal had its desired affect. I was able to finish it, and by the end of the month I had completed over 1,500 burpees. The encouragement created personal momentum. I was reminded that it is possible to finish what I set out to accomplish. I set another goal in November, where I decided to experiment with the Paleo diet for a month, and I finished that too.  

This momentum carried into 2021, where I finally decided to put pen to paper on a business that had been in my head since 2018. I figured with a little bit of work on the business each day without fail, it would finally get off the ground.Layman's Fitness was finally initiated and created.I don't give the burpee exclusive credit for Layman's Fitness by any means. The Lord's hand was in all of this. He is the One who put Layman's Fitness in motion and deserves all glory for any impact this may have on other people. But He certainly used the burpee to kickstart my motivation and get me on the right path. The burpee is symbolic for me. My affection for the exercise is really an affection for a season in my life where I went from a flat plateau to a long and exciting road up a higher mountain. The burpee marked a transitory time from discouragement to encouragement.Ontop of the bleak pleak of personal plateaus, it can be an arid place of discouragement. But with a restart and recalibration around a simple plan, you may find yourself off the flat lands and onto something more exciting, and perhaps even more challenging.