I Did 50 Burpees Every Day For 30 Days and Here’s What Happened

Like all good fitness challenges, it begins with an Instagram post. My friend Julie, a bona fide badass and stand-up paddleboard champion, testified she was going to attempt 50 burpees a day for 30 periods, inspired by a smuggler who noticed a huge improvement in her overall fitness after the completion of a similar challenge. “Who’s in it with me? ” Julie expected in her post, and I knew I was bolt. I labeled my scamper partner in the remarks and volunteered her to join the challenge as well because that’s the kind of friend I am. We’d start the next day( theoretically ).

At the risk of ruining the suspense, I’ll give away the ending: we did it. We did 50 burpees a period for 30 periods and even banked some other chumps to join us as well. Here are the key takeaways :

#1. Starting is the Hardest Constituent

Burpees aren’t easy. Doing 50 burpees in a day at once is very difficult, and I’m not even going to lie about it. Throughout my 30 -day challenge, however, I probably devoted more age agonizing overcoming them done than I did actually doing them. There was always an accessible excuse for procrastinating: too hot, too tired, more sore, too busy, extremely hungry, too full, too good a “hairs-breadth” date to get sweaty. Once I came that first set of 10 done on any yielded daylight, though, I knew I was in the clear – really a few minutes away from having one more day of momentum behind me. I learned to get started on my daily dosage of burpees the second I thought about it. Don’t pass go, don’t collect $200, don’t run through the list of apologies or predict that I’ll do them later – simply draw my whisker back and hit the deck.

#2. Momentum is Everything

I’m not talking about the physical impetus of doing a burpee – I’m talking about the metaphorical momentum of doing something every day. That entire “we’ll start tomorrow” thing? It made us three days after committing to the challenge to actually start. But once “were having” the first day under our loops, it got a little easier every day. I exited 11 dates in a row and felt kind of unstoppable . . . until I croaked camping, that is. After a seven-hour drive, I decided to skip a day. Over the course of the following seven days, I merely did my 50 burpees a day once, even after I was back home with air conditioning and an indoor shower. Breaking my 11 -day momentum had behavior more superpower than I apprehended. The good report? I started back up again and noted my impetus. I tacked six extra eras onto the end of my challenge and moved closer.

#3. Burpees Might be the Most Efficient Exercise on Earth

I’ve run two marathons, I’ve finished a handful of triathlons, and I teach Megaformer classifies twice a week. Until this challenge, however, every time I’ve done burpees has generally are members of a HIIT class. Isolating burpees as their own workout foreground how they target every muscle in my figure and get my heart rate through the ceiling. My entire body was sore for the entire first week. I worked up a sincere sweat every single time, even on epoch 30. The next time I’m traveling somewhere without enormous gym access or precisely need to cram a good workout into a short amount of experience, my go-to move is definitely going to be burpees. Spates of them.

#4. OMG, My Arms

MY ARMS, you guys. So sore. I did a push-up at the bottom of every burpee, and it turns out that 50 push-ups are a lot on its own, much less combined with the other elements of a burpee. During the first got a couple of epochs, my appendages were sorer than they’ve been in a while( I actually hope my boot-camp instructors aren’t read this right now ), and that soreness lasted into the second week. Ouch. The flip side? My arms gazed significantly more colors on day 30 than they did one day one. The above photo is from about era 20 of the new challenges, and I almost accused the photographer of photoshopping someone else’s weapons onto my figure when I saw it. I tend to put on muscle quite readily, but even I was surprised by the end of the challenge. If you’re precisely looking to increase muscle tone in your arms, though, you might want to consider burpees( on burpees on burpees ).

#5. Maintaining Good Form Aids

I’m not claiming my burpee is picture-perfect, but 1,500 reps last-minute, I learned two jokes that stirred perfect chassis slightly more accessible. The first is to avoid locking out the shoulders when you shoot back into timber sentiment, but instead to keep the arms fully engaged so you’re previously halfway down into your push-up by the time your toes stumbled the field behind you. The second is to be really intentional about engaging the abs during the course of its squat-thrust component of the members of the movement( jumping the hoof from timber plight up to to meet the sides ), which not only protects the lower back but becomes the part movement more powerful and controlled. Remember how I said my abs and weapons were sore for a full week? These “tricks” are likely to thank for that.

#6. It Takes Less Time Than You Think

Fifty sounds like a big number. Most people’s initial reaction upon hearing that I was doing 50 burpees daylight was something along the lines of, “That’s so many! It’s impossible for me! ” I didn’t time myself every day, but of the times I did define a stopwatch, don’t think it ever took me longer than eight times.

I conceive the fastest set was about five-and-a-half instants so I transgress it down into five aims of 10, taking as much or as little remainder between each creates as I needed( typically less than a time ). Once I realized that even on my slowest, most unmotivated daytimes I could get it to be done in order to less than 10 times, it felt easier. “It will be completed in eight minutes” was often the pep talk I gave myself when I debated stalling. Considering the fitness helps( find numerals two and three ), eight-or-fewer minutes per day actually seems like a bargain.

#7. Accountability Helps

My friend Julie roped me into the challenge, I roped my go marriage in, and between all of us, we got a few more pals invited to take part in. Several of us announced daily time-lapse videos in our Instagram narrations of our burpees, and more than once, I was invited to skip a period but knew I’d have hell to pay the next time I opened my DM inbox. I leveraged IRL accountability to my advantage as well, planning “burpee dates” after a yoga class or a short run, letting my workout partner for the day know I’d be doing 50 burpees after our workout( and usually persuasion them to do some or all of the burpees with me ).

Related: Get Stronger Every Day With This 100 -Burpee Challenge

CONCLUSION:

Doing 50 burpees a day for 30 days was both harder and easier than I believed – I was truly surprised at how quickly I could get it done every day and what an efficient full-body workout it was. I was also surprised at how much the new challenges came in my premier – how much hour I wasted dreading it, how I overpower myself up for lag behind, and how the mental workout of learning to exactly get it done was probably just as valuable as the physical workout of knocking out 1,500 burpees in a month. That’s the thing I been fucking loving challenges like this: you never know what the takeaway is likely to be. This time it was shredded forearms and a refreshed appreciation for the sacrament of starting. I’m not sure what the next challenge is likely to be or what the takeaway will be at that time, but I have a feeling there are more of these challenges in my future. Who’s in?

Anna Quinlan