Innovative Burpee Variation for Work Capacity

July 29, 2009 on 4:21 pm | In Strength Training | 6 Comments

With the fall sports season coming up, it is time to increase the athlete’s conditioning and work capacity.  I am currently tapering down the repetitions for muscle building and utilizing some lighter weight for conditioning and work capacity. 

Many of these athletes already do plenty of running during their summer practices, so it is time for something different to gain the best conditioning results.  I would prefer to avoid fatiguing their legs and hurting their strength numbers.

So, I use primarily full or upper body movements for conditioning during this phase.  Here is one where many of my clients exclaimed “Man, you know its tough when the burpee is the easy part!”

Burpee into Ball Grip Pull Ups

Some of the Benefits:
- Increased work capacity
- Improved conditioning
- Increased Upper body strength
- Added grip aspect

I can see a lot of uses for this when training combat athletes (any athletes that have physical contact as part of their sport: football, wrestling, MMA to name a few.

- Joe Hashey, CSCS -

PS.  This post came out of a request from the survey that you responded to in big numbers!  Feedback is always welcome – Synergy Athletics Survey.   I was actually hesitant posting this because I didn’t want to bury the survey, I just posted it a few hours ago.  However I wanted to get started putting out more content ASAP!

Double PS.  To the 227 votes that were cast already – Thanks to the  people that took time out of their day to vote on that poll. I greatly appreciate it! 

Triple PS.  For the people that voted for more homemade training equipment, I have 2 new videos for you guys coming soon!  Including my new top secret weapon in making homemade equiment, the same thing Pete is doing pull ups from in the video.  Any guesses?