What does burpee mean?
A burpee is a full-body calisthenic exercise that combines several movements into one fluid sequence: from a standing position, the exerciser drops into a squat, kicks the feet back into a plank, returns to the squat, and finishes with a vertical jump, often with arms raised overhead. Repeated in rapid succession, burpees build strength, endurance, and cardiovascular fitness simultaneously, which is why they appear so frequently in boot camps, CrossFit workouts, military training, and home fitness routines. The exercise is named after Royal Huddleston Burpee, an American physiologist who devised it in the 1930s as part of a physical fitness assessment, and his surname has since become inseparable from the movement. In everyday speech the noun almost always appears in its plural form — people talk about doing 'twenty burpees' or surviving a 'burpee challenge' — and the word carries connotations of intensity and exertion, since even fit individuals tend to find long sets of burpees punishing. Simple, equipment-free, and notoriously demanding, the burpee has become one of the most recognized exercises in modern fitness culture.
nounA full-body calisthenic exercise performed by dropping from standing into a squat, kicking the legs back into a plank position, returning to a squat, and jumping up with arms raised.
- A full-body conditioning exercise involving a squat, plank, and jump, typically repeated in rapid succession.
"She powered through fifty burpees in under five minutes."
"The coach made us do twenty burpees at the start of every class."
"CrossFit workouts often feature high-repetition burpee sets that test both strength and endurance."
Standard plural; nearly always the form used in practice, since the exercise is described in terms of repetitions.
"She managed forty consecutive burpees before collapsing onto the mat."
The burpee was invented in the 1930s by an American physiologist named Royal Huddleston Burpee as a quick fitness test — and it now bears his name in gyms worldwide.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of burpee
The word 'burpee' is an eponym derived from the surname of Royal Huddleston Burpee, an American physiologist who created the exercise in the 1930s as a component of a physical fitness test he developed while working on his doctoral research at Columbia University. Originally intended as an efficient way to assess agility and coordination, the movement gained widespread adoption during World War II, when the United States military incorporated it into training and fitness evaluations. As the exercise spread through military, athletic, and later civilian fitness communities, the name of its inventor became permanently attached to it, entering general English usage by the mid-twentieth century.
How burpee is actually used
Usually used in the plural ('do burpees') when referring to repetitions of the exercise. The word is informal-to-neutral in register, common in fitness contexts.
Easily confused with burpee
A squat thrust omits the final vertical jump that defines a burpee, though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.