Hate Burpees? Here's How to Love Challenging Exercises

I talk about the phenomenon of doing too much too soon quite often in my articles, videos, and podcast episodes. But the problem with going from zero to pushing yourself as hard as your body will allow is that it's not enjoyable. It also leaves you feeling exhausted and depressed about your current physical fitness.

Of course, if you do persist, and you put yourself through these brutal workouts a few more times over weeks and months, you'll undoubtedly feel improvements in your fitness. But you'll also develop aches and pains (or maybe even an injury) and eventually need to take a break. Or, worse, you might deem the experiment a failure and go back to your previously scheduled sedentary lifestyle.

What if I told you there's a way to ease yourself into an exercise like burpees?

But what if I told you there's another way? There's a way to ease yourself into challenging exercises (like burpees) and fitness routines. Would you be willing to give it a try?

Good! I thought you might.

Slow down your burpees

The first thing I usually have to convince a new fitness client to do is slow the heck down.

We often refer to the too-fast pace as being “comfortably uncomfortable.” It's a pace that gives us the feeling of getting a good workout because it causes suffering. Yet it's also something we can actually do because the suffering isn’t unbearable. But there are a few problems with this pace.

• It deceives you into believing you're getting greater benefits than you would if you slowed down
• Intensity isn't the best way to maximize your fitness time
• It isn’t fun (at least not at first) unless you're a masochist
• It leads to injury and burnout

Let’s look at the difference between walking briskly (not a mosey) and running at a comfortably uncomfortable pace (not an all-out sprint).

• You can take a brisk walk without changing clothes
• You can stack brisk walking with other activities like running errands
• Brisk walking burns only slightly fewer calories per minute than moderate-intensity running does

Let’s apply the same idea to burpees.

If you watch someone doing burpees (or attend a boot camp workout that includes them), you might assume this exercise is all about speed. That's often because we're more focused on getting our workout done and over with than getting the most benefit out of it. Another factor is AMRAP.

You write that number on the chalkboard in the gym, post it on social media, and silently calculate whether you deserve a maple-mocha-frappe-latte or not.

AMRAP stands for “as many reps as possible” in a given...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips