No Burpees In the Grotto - by Jeffrey Dettelis

   The hated burpee. The exercise that no one would choose to do on their own. I have exercised and worked in gyms and training studios for DECADES. I cannot recall ever seeing a gym member choose to do burpees on their own. Furthermore, the real kick in the pants is I have worked shoulder to shoulder with DOZENS of personal trainers and fitness instructors and I cannot recall ever seeing them do burpees as part of their own training routine. Then somebody tell me why the Hell are trainers and instructors making clients do burpees? I will tell you... THEY ARE L-A-Z-Y. 

   Burpees are a lazy trainers best friend. The easiest way to fool someone into thinking they had an effective workout is make them sweat and gasp for air. The burpee can easily accomplish both. Jump and flop around like a fish out of water, throw in a half-ass push up and hope for the best. What's more disturbing is 9 out of 10 times the people being asked to perform burpees are the general population demographic. People in poor condition that are just getting started to folks in average shape. They more than likely do not have the strength, balance, conditioning or explosiveness to perform one adequate burpee much less a series of 10 or more. From what I've witnessed, these burpee victims are asked to perform the burpees in a pre-fatigued state (usually from series after series of other inappropriate useless exercises) which is a recipe for INJURY. Back strain, twisted ankle, sprained knee or jacked up wrist. Whatever the goal is for doing burpees, I can think of dozens of alternate more effective and safer exercise choices. 

What really burns my bacon is when a trainer uses burpees as a form of punishment. You showed up late, do 10 burpees. You didn't perform well enough, do 10 burpees. Stop talking, do 10 burpees. You didn't reach you goal, do ten burpees. Hey lazy trainer maybe your crappy training is the problem and not the clients. Get your lazy ineffective arse flopping & jumping and give me 10 burpees! But that would never happen because you know how stupid burpees are. If you think it's your job to punish people (let's have no illusions burpees are punishment) then maybe you should have made the left at Albuquerque.

   I come across burpees as exercises in routines from so many of the Pinterest, Oxygen, Men's Health and the other long list of sub par online exercise resources. I get it, they need to write a routine that will give you the illusion of hard work so you will come back and read next weeks magical workout routine. Well the same applies to trainers and instructors and I get it. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Don't be a lazy trainer. Know your clientele. Don't punish them, inspire them. Don't break them, build them up. They deserve better.

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