Amp Up Your Workout with Burpees

Nathane Jackson, strength and conditioning coach and holistic nutritionist, demonstrates an exercise that too many of us get wrong, the burpee. We risk injury every time we attempt it without proper form and Nathane really would like to see fewer injuries. You should be able to do a squat, deadlift, and pushup properly before you even attempt a burpee.

Squeeze your glutes, tighten your core, straighten your spine, and follow Nathane's form. Push back with your hips, stay aligned, use your knees, kick out, do a good pushup, and then explode forward to replace your hands with your feet, and rise up to your jump with flat feet and knees apart. Take it easier and modify it if you aren't ready for the full thing, keeping everything straight and tight.

Need a more detailed explanation? Here it is:

Start in standing position with your posterior pelvic tilt (glutes flexed), your rib cage pulled down (core braced), and neck pulled back creating a double chin. This creates a neutral posture where your spine is straight.

Keeping this neutral posture, push the hamstrings back, hinging at the hips and bending the knees while keeping the knees in line with the big toe or slightly pushed out to the sides, until your hands are firmly on the ground in front of your feet.

Prepare to land. Kick the feet out behind you, landing in a pushup position without hyper-extending the lumbar spine. Shoulders should be directly above the hands with elbow pits facing forward.

Complete a pushup, chest and hips towards the ground and still maintaining flexed glutes, a braced core, and a double chin.

On the concentric phase (the way up) of the pushup, explode into the air while keeping your hands firmly planted on the ground and try to bring your feet under the body, replacing the hands, and landing in a flexed glutes, braced core, double chin position. Body weight should be on mid foot.

From here, shift body weight to balls of feet, keep the knees in line with the big toes or slightly pushed out, swing the arms forward and up, and pushing the ground away from you, jump up by extending the ankle, knee, and hip joint simultaneously.

Land on the balls of the feet with soft knees that are in line with the big toes or slightly pushed out.

Reset and repeat. *Don’t rush the reset.