The burpee is a deceptively simple movement—highly demanding yet incredibly versatile. One of the reasons it shows up so often in the sport is its ability to pair seamlessly with virtually anything: box jump-overs, pull-ups, broad jumps, and more. What makes burpees challenging isn’t technical complexity; it’s the speed and volume at which they’re typically programmed.
To improve at anything we first must understand the nuances of what makes said thing more efficient.
To level up your game, you need to master three pillars: Mindful Positioning, Pressing Endurance, and Respiratory Control.
Trunk Position Of The Ascent
The biggest mistake athletes make is "snaking" off the floor with a flared ribcage. When your back arches excessively (the "bowed" position), your diaphragm is compressed. You literally cannot take a full breath.
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The Problem: Poor midline strength or a lack of awareness leads to an "extension fault."
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The Fix: Maintain a stacked midline—keeping your pelvis and diaphragm aligned. This allows for maximum lung expansion, keeping your heart rate manageable even as the volume climbs.
Losing Tension On The Floor
Secondly another common movement fault is athletes losing tension on the floor by lifting their feet and flexing through their spine as a way to "relax/reset" on the floor. This position further compresses your diaphragm in to the floor making it harder to breath and also removes the midline tension we create will staying on our toes making it slower and longer to return to our quadraped position to step up.
The "Drop and Pop" Technique
Stop treating the descent like a slow eccentric push-up. You are wasting energy.
The Drop and Pop is about gravity and elasticity. You want to drop to the floor fast, using as little active muscle tension as possible, and "rebound" your chest off the ground back into a quadruped (all-fours) position.
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The Quadruped Reset: Once you pop back to the quadruped position, you have a split second to breathe or adjust before the jump or step-up.
Footwork
Consistency is the antidote to fatigue. If your feet land in a different spot every time, your brain has to work harder. You want to automate your footwork so that when the "pain cave" hits, your body stays on autopilot.
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The Step-Up: Ideal for high-volume or long endurance pieces. It saves the hip flexors and keeps the heart rate lower.
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The Swivel-Step (Jump-Up): Faster and more explosive. Reserved for sprints and short finishers.
The Framework For Improvement
Don’t just do more burpees—do better burpees. Piling volume on top of poor movement isn’t conducive to success. If you want to dominate the next workout that features burpees, start by refining your positions and your breathing, build good movement speed and begin to add volume to build capacity and endurance.
Set a baseline:
100 burpees for time is a great test and metric for providing both average rep speed and also a representation for endurance showing potential speed drop off along with the obvious time for completion as a benchmark number.
Phase 1: Develop The Skill
Focus on the "Drop-Pop" mechanics.
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Accumulate 12-15 Reps: Drop-Pop to quadruped (focus on the rebound).
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Accumulate 10 Reps/Side: Drop-Pop step up
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Accumulate 10 Reps/Side: Drop-Pop & swivel
Phase 2: Develop The Speed
Focus on speed while ensuring you hit all your positions correctly. There is no point in moving fast if it just turns to slop. Your speed is determined by your ability to move correctly if you are finding that your cadence doesn't allow for efficient movement slow down and build from there.
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EMOM 6: 5–6 Bar-Facing Burpees (Focus on smooth, rhythmic footwork).
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10 Bar Facing Burpees @ Fast/Sprint Effort - Rest 1:30 b/t efforts x 3 Sets
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6 BBJO @ Fast/Sprint Effort - Rest 1min b/t efforts x 3 Sets
Phase 3: Develop The Endurance
10 Sets
10 Burpees @ .5-1s faster per rep compared to your "average" rep speed in your 100 rep burpee test.
30s recovery walk b/t sets
If you have not completed a 100 reps for time test average rep speed ranges from 1.8-4s per rep us this as a guidance and move from there.
Set up a metronome which can be easily found as an app via the app store at your target cadence and move to it. If your pace falls off and becomes unsustainable start a 2-3min full recovery time and continue the sets following the rest,
Efficiency is a Skill
Most athletes treat the burpee as a "junk" movement, but at GRIT we know how you do the small things is how you do everything.
Stop leaking power and start moving with intent.
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