I find that a lot gets done around my house. Cleaning gets done, emails get written and sent, laundry gets folded, students get responded to, and shopping lists get conducted. The impetus to these things happening is very simple and the same in every case. I put on my workout clothes.
As part of my never ending quest to not end up looking like a balloon with pants on, I work out five times a week. Not only does it help with that, but it also assuages any guilt I feel about eating bad food or drinking beer.
But before I work out, I stall, I hesitate, I walk around in shorts and a T shirt and find things to do. Though my workouts usually take about 30-35 minutes, I usually block off an hour because I know it takes me so long to get to it.
One of the exercises I do most often is a little slice of hell called ‘the burpee’. If you’re in a self-loathing mood or your body does something to piss you off, then I suggest doing a few burpees to get back at it. How, you ask?
Stand on the floor with legs shoulder width. Squat down and put your hands palm-down on the floor in front of you. Now kick your legs back so that you’re in a plank position. While you’re in this position, torture yourself by doing a push up. Then bring your legs back so that you’re in the same squat position as before. Stand up and hop into the air. A burpee.
Now, I can understand the birth of the push up and the sit up. Someone was lying on the ground and when they sat up they realized ‘hey, this works my belly muscles’. Another person was lying on their stomach and pushed themselves up realizing, ‘wait a tic, that will make my chest bigger’. You can find similar motivation with pullups (someone sneaking into a house by window – ‘hey, this works out my whole upper body!’).
What I can’t figure out is how the burpee was born. It is a wholly unnatural activity. And, what with burpees on my workout list today, I am sitting here now in my shorts and T shirt looking up the history of the burpee.
Royal Huddleston Burpee invented them in 1939. Burpee was a PhD candidate in physiology and was executive director of the YMCA in New York City. His thesis centered around how to determine someone’s level of physical fitness. He developed a list of ten exercises to do just that. One of them was an exercise he invented called the burpee. His didn’t have a push up in the middle, some sociopath added that later on.
The burpee might have drifted into the land of information lost in academia had a small event called World War II not broken out. With so many draftees and enlistees suddenly being needed to enter military service, the armed forces needed a way to gauge their physical condition. They were lucky that Burpee’s list did just that. And just like that, millions of American men lived their whole lives with a severe hatred of burpees and probably Adolf Hitler.
It’s good to know that so many men were tortured as I am about to be. Misery does love company. However, my time is getting short, so I have to go. Wish me luck. And don’t do any burpees if you can manage.
