In the spirit of trying new things for the new year (and being desperate to prevent injury this year), I am going to do 30 burpees every day. I stumbled on a Runner's World article where the author talks about her progression over the course of 15 days. I will be using her description of the burpee (squat, kick-out, pushup, squat, jump). I know there are many variations, but I can do 30 pushups and I can do 30 squats, so now it's just the dreaded part of putting it with the kickouts. I like that she progressed from 3 sets of 10 burpees with a one minute rest, then dropped 15 seconds of rest every three days.

For reference this will be my schedule:

• Jan 3: 10 burpees, 1 min rest, 10 burpees, 1 min rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 4: 10 burpees, 1 min rest, 10 burpees, 1 min rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 5: 10 burpees, 1 min rest, 10 burpees, 1 min rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 6: 10 burpees, 45 sec rest, 10 burpees, 45 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 7: 10 burpees, 45 sec rest, 10 burpees, 45 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 8: 10 burpees, 45 sec rest, 10 burpees, 45 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 9: 10 burpees, 30 sec rest, 10 burpees, 30 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 10: 10 burpees, 30 sec rest, 10 burpees, 30 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 11: 10 burpees, 30 sec rest, 10 burpees, 30 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 12: 10 burpees, 15 sec rest, 10 burpees, 15 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 13: 10 burpees, 15 sec rest, 10 burpees, 15 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 14: 10 burpees, 15 sec rest, 10 burpees, 15 sec rest, 10 burpees
• Jan 15: 30 burpees

If I can continue this until the end of the month, I'll explore adding something more to this. But for now, it's day 1 of this self-imposed challenge, and we'll see how long it lasts.

Update - 2018-01-21

I did not complete this challenge. I got through Jan 10, and then I just stopped making the time to do them. I'm not even sure that I was doing anything for my body. I really do loathe burpees. No matter how many I do, how often I do them, or what else I mix them with... I never really feel like I make any progress at getting better with them. I always end with a massive headache, and it just doesn't make me feel good.

Now I'm off to find a different exercise I can attempt to do for 30 days (or so).