MOVEmber - Burpees
Updated: Feb 14
American Ninja Warrior Jimmy Choi, who lives with Parkinson's and Team Fox are encouraging everyone to MOVE in November!
Join in the MOVEmber fun
Pick an exercise (pushups, sit-ups, burpees, etc) and do a rep on November 1 and add another rep each day for the month. I am sure Jimmy will include some amazingly difficult challenges along the way, it will be fun to watch!
Living with PD and coaching others living with the disease has taught me a few things. 1) It's a movement disorder - You got to move! 2) You do what you can do, and what you learn over time is that you can do more than you thought you can do!
Taking that in mind, I wanted to use this opportunity to help showcase the incredible achievements of those living with PD around the globe. By concentrating on what we CAN do and not what we CANNOT DO, we will celebrate our successes by challenging ourselves to do one of the most hated and feared exercises out there - The Burpee.
Where did the Burpee come from?
In the late 1930s, Royal H. Burpee was at Columbia University working on his doctoral dissertation. He created the Burpee (initially called the squat thrust) as a way to measure fitness. He never envisioned it to be used the way it is today with many repetitions. He had people do 4! The original Burpee did not include a pushup, nor a jump.
Celebrating success
By simplifying the Burpee to its individual components, we can define a Burpee for virtually anyone to do. I chose to label the categories based on Ski slopes as follows:
Green (Bunny slope):
May be confined to a chair
Balance issues
Haven’t exercised in years
Blue (Beginner Slope):
May struggle to get up and down from the floor
May not be comfortable jumping in place
Red (Intermediate Slope):
May need to go slowly, or have knee, hip issues
Not comfortable with “snappy” movements
Black (Expert Slope):
Little to no balance issues
Exercises frequently
Comfortable with difficult exercises and physical challenges
Each level has corresponding example videos on YouTube. Before starting the challenge, please review the category definitions (more detailed than above) included on the YouTube playlist page linked below for each category.
Challenging Parkinson's You Tube Playlists
Share the fun
As you complete your daily burpees, please share on social media, utilizing #movember4pd, #outburpeepd, #GoTeamFox and tag @jcfoxninja with your posts to help spread the word!