I’ve done burpees daily since December 22, 2011, at 40 years of age, starting with 10 a day, building to over 50 per day. I haven’t missed a day or burpee.

I started them with a friend and they became one of my top daily habits—the first I simply started from scratch and never stopped.

Why burpees?

Top burpee values:

1. They put me in the best shape of my life
   1. Even at 45+ years old
   2. After a lifetime of athleticism including playing Ultimate Frisbee at the Nationals and Worlds level
2. Zero cost
3. Zero equipment
4. Negligible risk of injury
5. Can learn them in seconds
6. Fitness experts nominate them as single best exercise
7. Minutes per day
8. Can do them anywhere, any time, in any weather
9. Don’t interfere with any other workouts
10. Can work at any level—just do as many or as few as you want
11. Many variations can work specific parts of body
12. They make you feel great
13. Teach discipline, dedication, drive, and focus

If you know of any other exercise with these advantages, please tell me. In the meantime, I don’t see how you can beat daily burpees.

Since our behavior defines so much of our identities to others—that’s what they see of us—our habits form the foundations of our identities. So twice-daily exercise like burpees, which get your blood pumping and lungs working, keep you fit, force discipline, and motivate eating healthy (for me at least, who wants to eat junk after exercising?), influence how the world sees you a lot, despite taking only a few minutes a day.

Since behavior affects how we feel, burpees help create a baseline of health, confidence, calmness, capability, and so on. It’s hard to start each burpee set, but it’s harder to feel listless, lazy, or depressed after. They jump-start my physical and emotional state every time. There is nothing like a tool you can rely on to do that that needs no equipment, works in any weather, has almost no risk of injury, and, … you can click through the posts to see the other benefits.

This series covers many of my different views on burpees and my habit of doing them. My goal is to help others create habits that help them become the person they want. In my case, burpees help with fitness, health, calm, confidence, being capable, discipline, dedication, responsibility, motivation, and others.

Click on the links below to read on.

• Burpees: the one year review
• Video: the first and last word on improving yourself
• How to begin a workout routine to last: start with joy
• Who knew a one-minute-a-day workout could do so much?
• More on burpees
• Burpee six-month review
• 120 burpees yesterday! 10,000 burpees at 2×20 per day!
• Video: I recorded my burpee sidchas
• Burpees: the Two Year Review!
• Three years of burpees
• More benefits of burpees
• Another reason to share your passions
• You call exercise torture? I call it glory.
• What I think about when I exercise
• The most important parts of any exercise or diet
• I Do Burpees Daily Because I’m Lazy and Full of Excuses
• I felt miserable this morning. Then I got out of it.
• 70,000 burpees!
• 80,000 burpees!
• 90,000 burpees!
• 100,000 burpees
• My calisthenics, September 2018
• Year 8, Day 1 of Daily Burpees
• Year 9, day 1. Nearly 150,000.
• 150,000 burpees
• 175,000 burpees
• Ten years (3,652 consecutive days)
• 200,000 burpees

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