Alternatives To Burpees For Hikers

Burpees are the most overrated exercise in the world of fitness. So many people hate doing them. They are uncomfortable for many people. And there are many better options out there. But all too often, I see hikers getting recommended to do them..

So, to help, today I explore some simple alternatives a hiker can use to burpees, which will be much more beneficial at improving their strength, fitness, and power.

Mentioned In Video:

• High box push up
• Overhead Press
• Interval Workout For Hikers

Video Transcript:

​[0:00] In today's video, we're talking through some simple alternatives to burpees

[0:04] if you're a hiker or a mountaineer in training. Now, this video was coming through the question that I got the other day, just asking, Hey, I see you don't recommend burpees, but my trainer always has me doing them. Do you have any alternatives? And if you've followed my stuff for a while, you may realize that I hate burpees. I honestly think they are the most overused exercise and overrated exercise in the entire fitness industry. Trainers love them because they're easy for them to prescribe. They'll get people tired and people will think they're working really hard, so they're great for them. But in all honesty, there's just so many better options out there. And I do often see hikers and mountaineers getting recommended burpees for one reason or another, and it just drives me nuts. But typically, whenever I talk about burpees and saying, look, I'm not a big fan of it, people will come back to you saying, okay, what are alternatives? What can I do instead? So that's what I want to share today. Now, the issue with burpees, just before we get into that, is number one, a lot of people don't enjoy them. Exercise doesn't have to be easy all the time, but we don't want to be doing things we hate. And I cannot tell you the amount of hikers I first start working with that they say in their intake, please don't make me do burpees. I hate them.

[1:22] If something you hate, you don't have to be doing it. Number two, you know, a lot of people and a lot of hikers struggle with things like knee pain, hip pain, or whatever it may be, and burpees, you know, cannot be amazing for us. But probably the worst thing about burpees is they're kind of that jack-of-all-trades master at none. In the sense, people say, hey, it will do all of these things. It'll improve your strength and improve your fitness and improve your power.

[1:46] You can do much better in all of those areas in all honesty there are much better alternatives to develop your strength your cardio and your power so when it comes down to burpees if you want an alternative the first thing you want to ask yourself is what are you actually trying to improve because any exercise you're doing in your training you should have an outcome that you're trying to improve are you trying to improve your strength are you trying to improve your climbing? Are you trying to improve your power? What are you doing?

[2:15] So ask yourself that question and I'm going to give alternatives for each of those things. If you really like burpees or your trainer has asked you to do burpees for quadriceps strength because when we're doing that jump up on a burpee, the quads are doing a lot of work. Well, there's lots of other options where we can look at building on strength in this area. We may do squats or lunges or step downs or step ups. Any of those options, if we keep it slow and controlled and challenge it with our weight, is it going to be much more effective to your quadriceps strength?

[2:45] Alternatively if you were doing upper body strength and you're like hey i like this exercise because the chest and the shoulders are getting really tired well again you may want to just look at something like a push-up variation you know the full push-up or a box push-up or an incline push-up there's a lot of different variations but this if we can keep it slow and controlled and give ourselves a challenge it's going to be much more effective than that tiny little push-up you get on burping or if you don't like this you could do something like an overhead press with a pack of dumbbells or a barbell just pushing up and down above your head. Very, very simple. Again, if we can just keep this control and do traditional strength training and challenge the weight, it's going to be so much more effective.

[3:26] Alternately, you may say, I really like burpees because it gets the heart rate up really high and I can really push it and I get really sweaty or whatever it may be. And that's fine. But I would argue that you can get much better benefits for your cardio if you did something which doesn't involve you going through all these weird movements which doesn't involve restricting your breathing like burpee does and which you can just focus on just pushing your speed and pushing your intensity so typical examples of this might be a stationary bike or the elliptical or the rower or the slayer or going up and down on a set of stairs or whatever it may be any of these options are going to be much more effective and i would absolutely argue that if you came down you got a hiker doing a specific interval session on a bike, where we're going fast and slow at different interval periods at the prescribed time, it's going to be so much more effective for your fitness and your cardio and

[4:16] your hiking than simply just doing a bunch of burpees until it can't move. And if you did want an idea around that, I'll share a really, really good example in the video description.

[4:27] And then finally, if you're using burpee because you're like, I want to improve power, I've heard power is really good for me. And because burpee has a squat, has a jump, it'll improve my power. Well, just do the jumping portion. Don't worry about the burpees. Just do jump squats. Leap up in the air, get explosive, develop that power. That will be really effective. And one of the keys to power is we want to be doing this low repetitions and lots of reps. So we're not doing in the typical burpee fashion where you do rep and rep and rep and get really tired and really exhausted and you can barely move and barely get off the ground, but do three or four repetitions at a time, jump really, really high, and then have a bit of a rest. That is going to be so much more effective for your power than doing a bunch of burpees.

[5:10] Now, I fully understand if you're a hiker and maybe you're working in a class environment or you're working with a trainer, it can be a little bit tricky to approach this because some trainers just aren't burpees. So I really recommend you just have a one-to-one conversation. If you're with a trainer, just sit them down and say, hey, look, I get it, but I just hate burpees. Can we do something else? What are we trying to get out of this exercise? And once you know, then choose an option out of this.

[5:35] Alternatively, if you're in a group fitness environment, again, have a word to the coach and then just change them for yourself. Don't get emptied, just get sucked back into this exercise, which you may not love, you may not enjoy, your body not enjoyed or whatever it is. So ultimately, when it comes down to it, burpees for hikers,

[5:50] I don't think there's really any reason for any hiker to be doing them. There's so many better alternatives and it may seem a bit backwards breaking things up like that as opposed to doing this all-in-one exercise, but I promise you, if you take your different elements of fitness, hone in on them, concentrate on them, and train them properly, it is going to be exponentially more effective for you, your fitness, your strength, and your hiking. So if you've been wondering about burpees and you want some other options, hope that gives you a few ideas, and hopefully that gets you out of the trap of endless burpees, which never, never, never stops.
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