An Australian Woman Set the World Record For Most Burpees in an Hour, But the Internet Disagrees
Nope.
A Melbourne mum has smashed the world record for the most burpees in 60 minutes by a female. 37-year-old Elizabeth Llorente trained for three months leading up to the feat, soaring past the previous best of 1321 with her 1490-burpee effort. #7News pic.twitter.com/pca4S00HOT
— 7NEWS Melbourne (@7NewsMelbourne) May 6, 2018
For everyone who’s ever done Crossfit it’s a standing joke: Burpees are horrible. A simple but fiendishly taxing exercise, especially if you’re aiming for high reps.
Burpees—named after Royal Burpee, whose name probably made him want to torture people—hit every muscle and drain you like a series of sprints with clapping push-ups at the end. Prisoners do them in lieu of running and end up in dangerously good shape. That’s why it’s so impressive to hear that Australian Elizabeth Llorente did 1490 in an hour. But Barstool (and many others) raised the question: Is she even doing burpees at all? Check out one how-to below.
There is no doubt Elizabeth Llorente is in fantastic physical shape and she’s doing something that might give a lesser woman or man a heart attack. Nobody in their right mind would even try this.
Llorente is close, but regarding form, Barstool’s writer says, “Those [aren’t] burpees. Those aren’t anything. Those are a cheater’s way of getting in the record books and I [don’t] respect it, and therefore, I will not log her world record.”
A lot of people on Twitter agree with that assessment.
https://twitter.com/meili__/status/994369975157710848
That’s literally not a burpee https://t.co/qfwD1iDE7C
— BELA (@sweeterbela) May 10, 2018
Woman breaks burpee record by doing 0 burpees https://t.co/sYERoEXVH9
— Glucose Guardian (@35DBack) May 11, 2018
https://twitter.com/BornSinner23_/status/994433753941463040
You could literally add 500 more tweets just like that.
Apparently, though, the people at Guinness don’t really know what a damn burpee looks like. According to their rules, Elizabeth Llorente’s record is legit. The Washington Post reports:
Having been a personal trainer for nearly eight years, Llorente said, she knows her burpees in the video are different from what people usually do in the gym. Her technique, however, is within Guinness’s standard for the exercise, she said. Under that definition, a completed burpee requires only extending the feet back and for both hands and feet to leave the ground for the final jump, according to BarBend.
That’s all well and good, but she wasn’t even using the form prescribed by Royal H. Burpee—the physiologist who created the exercise:
1. Squat down and put both hands on the floor in front of you
2. Pop your feet backward into a plank position
3. Bring your feet back forward.
4. Stand back up.
For the folks in the back: stand.
No, the push-up isn’t necessary. The jump isn’t necessary, if you’re doing the original. But Royal said you need to stand.
The burpees Llorente did should be reserved for fitter-than-average grandpas.
Regardless, she’s got the record now. Don’t be surprised if everyone is pissed about that the next time you go to Crossfit.