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Friday, October 21. 2022

It's Burpee Day

All calisthenics are fairly intense, but the Burpee is up there. Burpee basics, re-posted:



Posted by Bird Dog in Physical Fitness at 14:38 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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Since you bring up calisthenics again, I'll ask the same (unanswered) question from a previous post:

In your day-to-day life, where exactly are you applying all this hard-earned endurance?
What makes you think you won't have enough endurance for those activities if you build up more strength?
Why do you think getting your squat and deadlift up will hamper your ability to do things like burpees?
#1 RJP on 2021-03-17 20:45 (Reply)
"All calisthenics are fairly intense."

Really? Compared to what? Are 10 jumping jacks "fairly intense"? Is doing 3 burpees "fairly intense"? What's more intense, 20 air squats or 20 squats with a heavy (1.5X body weight) barbell on your back?

Perhaps it's the COVID.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/how-does-coronavirus-affect-the-brain

...and the cure may be The Barbell Prescription.

My take is slightly different than RJP's.

While I agree with RJP that (1) improving your strength - especially in DL and SQ - will almost certainly enhance your ability to perform calisthenics, and (2) his inference that improving your strength will improve your endurance (at least for rep counts in perhaps the 20-50 range - that's a very crude estimate), I do have some things to add:

(1) Depending on your goal (what you intend to apply your "fitness" to), you need to tailor your program to the qualities you need (strength vs speed vs fat loss vs endurance vs ???). Being greedy and trying to max out each quality at the same time won't work (I know from experience).

(2) If all calisthenics are fairly intense, why are you doing them on your recovery days?????

(3) For RJP to ponder: I agree that for a certain rep range that's not too high (let's say 25 - 50 reps) increasing MxS will increase your endurance (example: as measured by increasing your pushups from 25 to 40 because your BP max increased). Where that breaks down (the late Jack LaLane ?sp is a great example) is with really high rep counts which is probably more a function of energy pathway development and a shift in muscle fiber type and greater efficiency of movement or technique. Those are just my observations from years of observing jacked up dudes arriving for spec ops training and gassing out. I acknowledge that on the hypertrophy vs strength scale, many of these jacked up guys have more hypertrophy (and hence more body mass to lug around) than strength (I think you recognize that Mr Universe is strong, but has disproportionate mass to strength ratio when compared to a power or old lifter in a weight class category).

On the other hand, a certain minimum strength is needed for many activities, i.e. if you're loading kegs of beer on a truck and you can't even pull the keg off the ground, all the endurance in the world won't help.
#2 mike on 2021-03-17 21:55 (Reply)
I don't really have any argument against anything you say there, mike. Only observation is that it would be very likely that if the jacked up dudes had spent, say, 3-4 weeks pushing a prowler around before showing up, they would have had enough endurance to do whatever they are called upon to do. Plus they would have the strength that others lack.

In any case, my questions to BD still stand (Ever notice how he never answers these types of questions?).
#2.1 RJP on 2021-03-18 01:59 (Reply)
Which question, specifically?
#2.1.1 Bird Dog on 2021-03-18 08:13 (Reply)
The ones in my first comment above.
#2.1.1.1 RJP on 2021-03-18 10:35 (Reply)
Burpees are a great travel exercise. If stuck in a hotel with no gym, or not much time, burpee intervals are a good quick total body way to get the blood flowing.

Also a good warm up prior to lifting etc.
#3 riv on 2021-03-19 13:45 (Reply)
I think RJP believes the squat (or fill in the blank) is the only legitimate exercise and therefor all other exercise especially aerobic exercise is a waste of time.
#4 StupidMe on 2022-10-21 16:57 (Reply)
No, I just think they are the most useful and beneficial of exercises. I have in several posts stated that aerobic exercises have their place and that I try to regularly get some HIIT work in. What bothers me is that most people focus just about exclusively on aerobics and calisthenics, excluding any real attempt to add strength, which, in my opinion, is more generally useful and benefcial than pure endurance. Squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, chin ups and just a couple of other exercises are all you need to get very strong.

Since BD won't, maybe you can answer my questions from my post at the top of this thread?
#4.1 RJP on 2022-10-21 18:05 (Reply)
Sure. In 2004 I had my right lower lobe of my lung removed. Because I was a runner/jogger my entire life my lung capacity was at 138% prior to the operation and about 102% afterwards. In 2014 I had the upper left lobe removed which brought me to 77%. All that running paid off.
#4.1.1 StupidMe on 2022-10-21 18:35 (Reply)
I'm sorry you had to go through that and glad to hear you are doing as well as, if not better than, what could be expected.

However, your anecdote doesn't address my questions about day to day life. I can produce examples where strength training has helped people avoid an injury, reduce the impact of an injury, or speed up recovery from an injury or illness. I can also produce examples where gaining strength has greatly improved a person's day to day life (Standing Up to Acting Old: Ann B.), for one.

In general, dedicated runners tend to be on the lighter side when it comes to body weight. If you come down with an illnes or are involved in an accident that leaves you bedridden for a while, which do you suppose is more advantageous in that situation, less body mass or more (up to a point, of course)?

Running and calesthenics also do little to nothing about two of the biggest scourges of aging; sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass) and osteoporosis (loss of bone mass). Weight training directly addresses both of those issues, with, again, squats, deadlifts, and the other big compound lifts being the most efficient and effective exercises. See Load Dem Bones and the research paper discussed in that article Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health.
#4.1.1.1 RJP on 2022-10-22 01:25 (Reply)
my 2 cents on all this. It doesn't hurt to be stronger than weaker. But i disagree that running and calisthenics don't do anything to preserve bone mass or muscle mass (OK maybe a heavy lifter would lose muscle mass if just doing push-ups); but for most people doing a lot of calisthenics will drastically slow age-related declines.
And that's really the point. Doing something is so much better than doing nothing; people should do what they enjoy doing - that greatly increases the likelihood they will keep doing it. If you like to lift heavy, go ahead. Those of us who prefer to run and/or do rigorous calisthenics will be just fine as well, until cancer gets us (but we're probably more likely to avoid heart disease as well).
#4.1.1.1.1 b k on 2022-10-22 19:58 (Reply)
Learned to be a pro at “bends and thrusts” burpees in 1972. A fun time at MCRD San Diego. I could and did do hundreds at a time.
The experience was enhanced by having 70 or 80 of my peers participating. Sometimes did them in the sand. This made a nice hole.
Some years later I took a physical fitness test as part of a law enforcement application. I couldn’t help but get the highest score.
#5 Paul J on 2022-10-24 08:38 (Reply)

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