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Different sports and exercises produce different physiques. Runners become skinny if they run long distances or bulky if they do sprint work, track cyclists have big legs, rowers build large chests.

I wonder what physique would be produced by a routine based primarily on burpees, over a long period of time.

I understand that different people have different natural body shapes and respond to exercises at different rates.

tmaj
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    Your question is based on assumptions that lack evidence. For example, "rowers build large chests". While this may be your observation, it's not rooted in fact. – rrirower Sep 25 '16 at 21:56
  • @rrirower You raise an important point, however I don't believe it invalidates the question. Patterns and averages exist even if there is no scientific paper (that you about). – tmaj Sep 26 '16 at 01:16
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    Rowers usually have visually large chests because they have to balance their massive back muscles and quads. – John Sep 26 '16 at 07:09
  • @JJosaur The context of the OP question implies that specific sports affect the development of specific body parts. I'm confused by your comment. It implies that if a person rows, he/she will develop a large chest. Can you explain further? – rrirower Sep 26 '16 at 12:28
  • Hopefully we can agree that rowing (indoors) works primarily the lats and quads (though I understand it is pretty much a full body activity), Rowing outdoors requires stabilisation and strength in chest to pull into the start of the stroke while holding oars out of water, this balances the back exercise and develops a chest to match (and prevent hunchback). Generally, a high performance rower body will have most muscle packed on at upper legs, chest and back but if you walk up to them you will most likely only notice their wide chest, hence: all rowers have huge chests. – John Sep 26 '16 at 13:11
  • All anecdotal evidence on my comment above: I was on the rowing team for school/uni and every rower I met at county/country level had roughly the same build. The older the guys, the larger the chest (which apparently was to do with training using older/different boats?) – John Sep 26 '16 at 13:13
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    @JJosaur I think you're making generalizations just like the one that is posed as part of this question. – rrirower Sep 26 '16 at 16:25

2 Answers2

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It's hard to conclude. As you have already mentioned, people have different body types, also they follow different workout and diet plans. For examples, soldiers, gymnasts, track athletes. All hey do, are free hand workouts, and they are all different when it comes to what they do in their respective workout times, and their body shapes differ. Even 2 people following the same set of exercises won't look the same. If you want to find in general, you can look up some links, but that would be again the author's perception, not something that could be used as a guideline.

xCodeZone
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It's a really general question so I'll keep my answer general by sticking my the sports-science mantra:

"If you want to get good at X, practice by doing X and a lesser amount of Y; where Y is functionally similar to X."

If you want to get good at running 1 mile, then run 1 mile a lot. Throw in some short printing exercise and a few slower 2 mile runs and you have a pretty good regime which will improve your 1-mile time.

The is the very basic principle behind programming for sports. You don't see rowers spending most of their time on the bench-press, because they are rowing. If I was training for a running race and spent all my time on the cross trainer had did a couple runs then I wouldn't do as well as someone who did the opposite.

What will doing burpees develop (muscles)?

You will get good at doing burpees and find them easier as your mind develops the connections required to execute a burpee without thinking about the motions and balance. You will develop your brain (sort of)

Next, burpees consist of a squat-thrust followed by a squat-jump. Both are variations of performing a squat but both aren't really as good as just a pure, full-depth, ass-to-grass, bodyweight squat.

Problem is, burpees don't really provide any significant resistance or work to ANY part of your body, there is a lot of stabilising going on and movement but for the most-part you are just moving fast. You won't develop any specific type of physique that can be categoried using normal descriptions (lean/bulky/ripped)

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John
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  • Its better to answer this question by stating that any specific exercise will not lead to any specific physique. Only your macronutrient and diet intake will dictat that, and your activity level. It is irrelevant of the exercise. – Muntasir Alam Oct 02 '16 at 02:28
  • I can understand why you think that but its not true. Diets can influence the number on the scales and how much fat you have but what muscle you build depends on the exercise you do. If you have an answer and can back it up then go ahead and answer the question. – John Oct 03 '16 at 07:16
  • What you say is true of course, but depends on diet once again. No one is arguing that doing a a specific exercise wont build a specific muscle is, the point is that one should be less focused on doing specific exercises and just do full body movements with keeping a diet in check. Your claim that you won't develop any specific type of physique is dependant on nutritional intake and cannot be simply left as is. – Muntasir Alam Oct 03 '16 at 13:46
  • I'm struggling with your continuity in your comments: "Its better to answer this question by stating that any specific exercise will not lead to any specific physique " followed by "No one is arguing that doing a a specific exercise wont build a specific muscle". The question does not mention nutrition so I chose ignore it as a variable in my answer. – John Oct 03 '16 at 14:41
  • The way I worded it indeed is confusing, apologies. I was simply saying that specific exercises will build a specific muscle, but only with proper nutrition in place, which is way your bolded statement in the answer is not necessarily true, you cant just "ignore" nutrition. – Muntasir Alam Oct 03 '16 at 14:43
  • I'm fully behind the idea that exercise is basically worthless if your diet is not well balanced to back it up, no persuasion needed there. However, this question asked "If I only do burpees, what will my physique change to over time?" replace burpees with "run 10k 5 times a week" or "do Olympic lifting for 5 hours each day". This is not a nutrition question and so my answer does not need to include it, there are already a million nutrition questions on here. – John Oct 03 '16 at 14:51