Muscles Targeted: The burpee box jump is an explosive and challenging exercise that combines the popular burpee with a plyometric box jump.This is an excellent full body strength training and cardiovascular exercise that burns lots of calories while working all of the large muscles in the body. When performing the burpee, you will be targeting the muscles of the abs and core, chest, shoulders and arms. The box jump portion works your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes (butt muscles) and calves. This exercise is demanding but it’s a perfect movement to include in your CrossFit WOD (workout of the day) if you really want to get an awesome workout while toning and tightening your entire physique!
Exercise Instructions:
- Step 1: Stand a few feet in front of a stable box (strong enough to withstand your weight) with your feet positioned shoulder width apart and your arms resting at your sides. Choose a small box that is not too high when first starting out.
- Step 2: Bend your hips and knees and place your hands on the ground with your palms facing the ground.
- Step 3: When you have your hands securely positioned on the ground, move your legs behind your and get into a push-up position.
- Step 4: Perform a complete push-up.
- Step 5: With your hands still on the ground, reverse the motion and get back into a squat position with your feet securely planted on the ground.
- Step 6: Explode up and jump onto the box. Focus on landing in the middle part on top of the box.
- Step 7: Using one leg at a time, slowly and carefully step back down to the ground and repeat the movement for the desired number of repetitions.
When performing burpee box jumps, it is important to use explosiveness movements to get the most out of this exercise, but it’s also important to go slow enough to avoid injury. It will take some time to get the movement down correctly, so start off with very slow and controlled reps to make sure your technique is correct. Using explosive exercises like this really challenges your muscles and enables you to gain even more strength and endurance from the workout.
Things To Avoid:
- Landing on top of the box in a very deep squatting position. When doing the box jump, it is very important to ensure that your center mass is relatively high to ensure proper balance and safety. This can be achieved by extending your hips. Otherwise, you will end up in a deep squat with your butt touching the calves. This creates a lot of pressure in the connective tissues and thereby increasing your chances of possibly injuring ligaments and tendons.
- Not keeping your core muscles tight. When doing the burpee, it is very important to ensure your core is engaged. This is important because it prevents too much stress from being placed on your lower back and spine. It also helps to keep your abdominals tight.
- Not performing a full push-up. When doing the burpee, make sure you do a complete push-up and go all the way down and then back up. This will help to fully engage the muscles in your chest, shoulders and triceps while also providing a little momentum to get back up into position before executing the box jump.
- Not breathing correctly. Don’t forget to breathe in the proper manner when performing burpee box jumps. This is a very taxing full body exercise that requires a lot of energy to do it. If you do not breathe correctly, you will tire out way too quickly and could possibly faint from the high level of exertion.
Reps and Sets: When doing burpee box jumps, the number of reps and sets will depend on your level of fitness and your level of experience with this specific type of movement. If you are a beginner, start with just a few repetitions and work your way up as you get more fit and strong. Advanced individuals can try doing up to 20 reps of 3-4 sets. Rest periods should be in the range of 60-120 seconds between sets to ensure you recover fully. You can even include the burpee box jump with 3-4 other exercises to create an unbelievable CrossFit WOD that will hit lots of different muscle groups while burning tons of calories!
