On December 22, 2011, a friend and I challenged ourselves to do ten burpees a day for thirty days.

As I had aged out of playing ultimate at the level I wanted to, squeezed enough sense of accomplishment from running marathons that I wanted, and didn’t want to pay to use the gym down the block, which I might not go to in the rain and required changing, reshowering, and rechanging, an effective bodyweight exercise appealed to me.

Needing no equipment, spotter, training, weather, or other potential impediment, I could do burpees anywhere, any time, without restriction.

With practice I increased the daily number and kept going past that month, in time adding stretches and other exercises to work muscles burpees didn’t. Now I do daily morning and evening sets of burpee-based calisthenics, doing more than 50 burpees per day.

I haven’t missed a day or burpee since then. I’ve done them on six continents, through injury, 3-day water-only fasts, in and out of relationships, sickness, etc.

I think the sidcha increased my threshold for injury and sickness. Probably my hardest set was the fifty I did after finishing the 2014 marathon, though some I did after late dinners, full of food and alcohol may have felt harder.

In any case, at a total cost of about $0.00, taking about ten percent the time the average American spends watching TV, and leading to eating and other habits that have saved me time and money, burpees have probably returned more on my investment of effort than anything else, though cold showers and making-my-bed-and-crossing-the-room-to-turn-off-my-alarm-in-under-a-minute compare. All these sidchas save time and money and return fitness, self-awareness, and more.

I’ll hit 150,000 cumulative burpees in a few months.

Care to join me in the sidcha?

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