Rather than everyone's updates getting scattered across te various posts, this will be the place to post your progress and feedback.
I went for a different approach today: I should add it doesn't matter too much how you attack the challenge I think, as king as all roads lead to Rome rather than Resus.
Havng done the strict pace sprint approach with sets of 10 the past couple of days I did diametrically the opposite today and incorporated the burpees into doing the Freeletics benchmark workout 'Aphrodite', which is: 50 burpees, 50 squats, 50 situps decreasing by 10 reps each round for rounds in total, so: 50 of each, 40, 30, 20, 10 for a total of 150 reps of each exercise. It's supposed to be done for time but as my conditioning is in the toilet at the moment I was happy just to get through without dying or puking. I did it in 55:02.
Interestingly after the first round, the burpees were less of a killer than the situps. I broke eveyrthing bar the squats into sets of 10 and even though I was just grinding them out, was getting the burpees in abut 39 seconds a set.
going to have such DOMS over the weekend, I can see now. And get zero sympathy as per usual.
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In order to avoid yesterday's oxygen crisis, this morning l took a more pragmatic approach and stripped it to a bare minimum. Only three sets of three reps. Surprisingly easy, and l still jumped higher than that YouTube guy (someone should tell him).
I'll do what l did with running distances and expand as l go. Left knee seems fine with all that circus.
It's not really a particularly knee damaging exercise, in truth. Yes there is a small jump but it is a lot less impact than running, say. It is the ghastly oxygen debt that I find the hardest bit.
'My dodgy knees' has been the number one excuse for people bailing though. Which I read as a euphemism for '100 burpees, you have got to be ****ing joking!'
if you are flat on the deck at the bottom of the move and in the air at the top of the move, your technique is fine. 2 sets of 3 is a great start and we all have to be slow before we can get faster. Well done.
sub 10 minutes is already seriously impressive work. Well done you. Go to the top of the class and take a gold star.
Surprisingly after yesterday's brutality I have arisen this morning with only a minor bit of aching in my upper abdominals from those situps and front delts, presumably from the pushup bit of the burpees. i can feel my hamstrings a bit, but nothing like the agonising DOMS i was expecting. Maybe it will kick in later. It is usually the second day that is worse.
I am going to play it safe today and do a quick upper body workout that doesn't tax any of those parts too heavily then just do the 3 sets of 10 for time
Today I managed 3 lots of 10 seconds with 1 minute recoveries. I did 9,10 and 9 in the time. I didn’t get to Rome but I didnt get to Resus either so that’s progress.
As for your painchasing- you get the giant star of amazing extrodinariness from me 💫
hmm. Did descending sets of Pullups and pushups from 25 to 5. Tried burpees and my arms just wouldn't get me off the floor for the first one. Having a little break and some BCAAs
Blimy I can’t do 1 pull up so bit awestruck at your descending sets!
I’m now concerned that my burpees aren’t up to scratch if my time was ok.....I’m not usually a gold star for fitness ever-lol! Does your burpee have a press-up too? Maybe that’s why my time is too optimistic
There are different standards but for our purposes as long as your chest is on the floor at the bottom and your feet are off the floor and you clap overhead at the top it’s a good rep. I just drop to the floor. Which is probably why myshoulders ache today
I’ve not started yet My rib cage is so sore Dunno,if it's from being dragged about the countryside by the dog,for the past few days, or the stuff I did at the gym. Running on top of that,so maybe a combo of all three I was doing TRX or summink
Oh 🤓. No it ain’t it’s killing meeeee. I feel like I was run over by a truck 😫. It’s the bottom end of my ribs 😬 I was doing some sort of hanging down forward facing ab crunches and rows or flys. Dunno 🤷♀️ 😃 The gym guy is assessing my level based on post session aches. Cos I’ve not had any he’s upped the ante 😁
I will have another bash at the burpees today I just couldn’t do the pike bit where you jump back into the hunched position before the final jump up. Oooh man it hurt
Just going to Lidl, which is a hike, and I will haul back the shopping - bag over each shoulder styleeeee. Need some grub as t’cupboard’s bare. I could take the bike I suppose but could be there and back in the time it takes to extricate the bike from my husband’s shed. He barricades the bikes in for some reason 🤔🤨
Uurggh. The day ran away with me a bit and I just realised I still had not done my burpees, so made myself do them before it got any later. The muscle aches have really started in earnest now and the aching abs particularly made it hard work. Also doing burpees for time shirtly after eating half a dozen oysters is not to be advised.
3 sets of 10, 34 seconds each. Was obvious from the outset that wasnt going to hit tempo today so just ground them out. sometimes you just have to get the work done, as they say.
Right, literally could not get out of bed this morning as both abs and glutes in agony so couldn’t compensate with either for failure of other to get me to upright sitting position.
Had to eventually roll onto knees on floor and push up off bed with arms.
But no matter. Ibuprofen, coffee and bacon and eggs and it’s on to the next one.
I am proceeding with my alternate days low volume tempo sessions and higher volume slower paced aerobic sessions.
Today, if anyone wants to join me, is:400m rum,25 burpees, 400m Run, 50 squats. Repeat 3 Times and finish with a 400m run.
Do the runs fast: at 400m pace not jogging along at 5k pace. Take breaks as needed during the burpees but try to keep them to a minimum and don’t go at sprint pace but do try and get through them in decent time.
I moved from 3x3 to 3x4 yesterday, gearing up for 3x5 today. Breathing more tolerant, some muscle ache but all is together, for now. I agree, pain mostly comes from literary dropping down on my arms, then sniffing the floor. Jump back and enthusiastic clap seem alright.
Do we know the name of the guy who came up with the whole structure of this exercise? Do we know how he/she is doing? Just curious.
Burpee update: unfortunately I didn't manage Saturday and Sunday 😳😟 but I have formed a plan. My plan is this: 5 sets of 30 seconds with 40 seconds of rest in between. In each set I do as many as I can manage, which at the moment is 6 or 7. Today I managed 7, 6, 7, 6, 7. When I can manage 7 in every set I will add another set. Gradually I will increase sets, and reduce rest times, and see how it goes.
I have just been doing sets of ten in no particular time the last couple of days, but as part of larger circuits, so today was 50 hand release pushups, 20 jackknives, 50 squats, 10 burpees, repeated 4 times. In the heat it sucked massive eggs.
Tomorrow I am going to go the other way and just do burpees and see what my 5 minute max stands at currently.
I am beginning to realise this challenge might take rather longer than I anticipated.
The programme I was origially intending to follow is here if anyone wants to do it this way . It is entriely optional. However you get there is fine.
Given that we are a week in and i still haven't got past day 1 you'd think I'd be discouraged but actually quite teh reverse. I feel quite enthusiastic about it.More so than before. I think the fitness gains will start to kick in in another week or so and progress will increase. I am ramping up a lot of other exercise at the same time so will cut myself a bit of slack.
Huge kudos to Juju though, who has already smashed the 3 sets of 10 in 30 seconds and is forging ahead into the 11s and up.
I have found a lot of videos and posts on tips fr shaving seconds off and economising effort to improve performance and save energy on this. Google '100 burpee challenge' or 5 minute burpee challenge and you will find them.
Perhaps we should share our videos of weekly progress?
Well, I did the 50,40,30,20,10 descending ladder of burpees, situps and squats again today. It still felt like I was going to die, but I did it in 42:20 this time, 13 minutes faster than a week ago.
I have hot upon the following strategy once I have passed the fatigue point: do 1 rep fewer than failure, take as many breaths as the number of reps just dine: so the burpees by the end I was doing 2 reps, 2 breaths, 2 reps, 2 breaths and the situps 5 reps, 5 breaths etc.
It may sound like it would slow you down dramatically but I found quite the reverse: I was able to keep going consistently through the sets like that because I was never reaching faiure point.
I ended up not doing my Max burpees in 5 minutes on Tuesday for various reasons and just did 3x 10 again, this time all on the 30 which was at least progress. Box 1 ticked off. Was thinking of doing it today but did a 5 min max squat first and now my legs are jelly (156. The first 50 in under a minute. ever slower thereafter)
I will go for 3 x 11 this evening and maybe tackle the 5 min Max on Saturday. I did find this though. Check out the big bodybuilder guy. He gets 61 reps in 5 minutes. that is quite impressive especially for a guy of his size. I like at the end, while he is trying to get his breath back, he mutter "Not dying: that is the goal."
61 reps is the 5 minute target to beat then. If a huge bodybuilder who does zero cardio can do it then a bunch of distance runners should be able to beat that no probs.
Update! I can already feel that I am getting stronger arms and shoulders. I can now do 7 burpees in every set - 5 sets of 30 seconds, with 40 seconds rest. I was going to add another set. But I have a cold right now so I am going to consolidate what I have achieved, and then add another set next week. I like the fact that it only takes a few minutes, as I am generally hopeless at doing exercise like this at home.
I did my benchmark 50,40,30,20,10 burpee/squat/situp routine again today and finished in 39:51 this time. 2 1/2 minute faster than last week, 16 minutes faster than the week before.
I suspect so few of you have bothered to engage with this challenge or the April one because it isn't running and if it isn't running, what's it got to do wth running? Well, you will probably find that most professional runners, be they Bolt or Brownlee bros, spend a significant amount of their time working on strength and stamina training that isn't running.
Improve you core and improve your engine and you improve your running performance. I have been doing the burpees every day for 2 weeks now and, while they still suck and probably will always suck, my time in doing a lot of them has improved by more than 25 percent, and my recovery time dropped massively.
Reading all the reports I felt a little intimidated, but then I remembered where I am (one of those rare safe havens from trolling ) so I am proud to report after yesterday's start with the suggested 30 second intervals X3 and managing 4-6-5 in the morning and going to Tai chi in the evening I managed 5-6-7 this morning, completed my third run from C25K and still am cycling everywhere today to keep that metabolism up.
brilliant work. No reason to be intimidated. 3 weeks ago I couldn't string 5 burpees together. It all just about starting wherever you start and consistently chipping away at it. Like c25k, like eating an elephant.
you're off to flying start. Your EPOC will be massive.
Further update! Today I managed 50 burpees, 1 set of 8, and 6 sets of 7. Each set is still 30 seconds, with 40 seconds of rest in between. I am going to attempt 7 sets of 7 ( I think the 8 was a fluke today!) for a week, and then move to 5 sets of 10 - but not in 30 seconds.. More like 50 seconds, with 30-40 seconds of rest. It really is getting easier, I can't quite believe I am approaching 50 burpees!
Well, haven't done a burpee max test this week, but I did my benchmark 50/40/30/20/10 burpee/squat/situp workout again this afternoon and despite humidity, finished in 35:51.
I was quite surprised by that time. That is 4 minutes exactly faster than my previous best and a full 20 minutes faster than when I first tried it a month ago.
That to me, suggests that the daily burpees have a positive effect on cardio performance.
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) so I am proud to report after yesterday's start with the suggested 30 second intervals X3 and managing 4-6-5 in the morning and going to Tai chi in the evening I managed 5-6-7 this morning, completed my third run from C25K and still am cycling everywhere today to keep that metabolism up. 
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