Burpee rep counter: count complete reps and see where the pace drops.

How can I count burpees automatically from a video?

Film the set from the side with enough floor in shot for the full prone position and enough headroom for the finish, then upload the clip and mark where the effort starts and ends. The counter follows the vertical movement of the hips: one confirmed repetition needs a complete descent to the floor and a complete return to standing, in that order, within a plausible time window. That is why a rep can be missed even though you performed it — if the hips leave the frame at the bottom, if another athlete crosses in front of you at the wrong moment, or if the camera is angled so steeply that the floor position and the standing position look the same. Fix the framing rather than the count: a set filmed cleanly counts cleanly.

• The burpee counter’s exact rule, next to every other station — the rep counter.

What the burpee rubric checks

Before scoring, ScoreRep looks for a clear descent, push-up phase and terminal hip extension. The technique criteria then cover total range, cadence, movement control and the loss of pace across the set.

The result is intended to show whether the complete cycle remained visible and how repeatability changed with fatigue.

• Range from standing to floor and back
• Rep cadence
• Control through descent and ascent
• Pace consistency across the effort

Does this burpee rep count?

ScoreRep answers that in two separate steps. First, the clip has to read as a burpee at all: every check in the table below has to pass, and a reading the camera could not take counts as a fail, never as a pass. A clip that fails is returned unranked with the reason attached, rather than scored low against the wrong rubric, and no template can override a failed check.

Second, the scoring criteria award points. Falling short of a full-marks threshold costs points, not the rep. Every number here is read from version 1 of the burpee rubric, the same file the scoring engine runs.

• Compare the burpee standard with the other 29 movements on the movement standards page.
• How the rep counter decides between a valid rep and a no-rep, station by station.

Which burpee habits break the count or the pace?

Burpees are usually lost to rhythm rather than to strength. Each of the habits below either costs a confirmed rep or costs the seconds that decide a long effort.

• Standing up fully and pausing before the next descent — the most expensive habit in any long set. Start the next rep as you finish the current one.
• A chest-to-floor position that gets shallower rep after rep, which turns confirmed reps into uncertain ones.
• Stepping down and jumping up inconsistently, so no two reps take the same time and the cadence trace becomes noise.
• Drifting forward across the floor until the athlete leaves the framed area and the count stops being reliable.
• Sprinting the first twenty reps of a hundred-rep effort, then paying for it with a pace that never recovers.

Keep the complete body in frame

Use a side or oblique view with enough floor area for the full prone position and enough headroom for the finish. Camera movement and people crossing the frame can create false transitions.

Mark the phone position if you plan to repeat the test, because a comparison only means something when the framing is the same.

How do I hold burpee pace over a long set?

Pick a cadence you can hold for the whole effort and start slower than feels necessary. In a hundred-rep effort the athlete who opens at a rep every two seconds and finishes at a rep every four has usually lost more time to the slowdown than the steady athlete ever conceded at the start. Breathing is the practical limiter, so choose a breath pattern and let it set the rhythm rather than the other way round. Keep the movement small and repeatable: step down and step up if the effort is long, save the jump-back for short sets, and land in the same spot each rep so you are not travelling across the floor. Then use the cadence trace afterwards to check whether the plan survived contact with fatigue, and adjust the opening pace next time rather than trying to hold on harder.

Is 20 burpees in a minute good?

There is no reliable average for burpees: published numbers mix different standards, different set lengths and self-reported counts. What ScoreRep can give you is the exact line its own scoring draws. Cadence is worth 30 of the 100 technique points, measured as confirmed reps divided by the length of the analysed clip, so pauses count against it. Full cadence marks need 0.4 or more reps per second — 24 burpees a minute, held for the whole clip.

The table applies those bands to the sets people most often ask about. A long set scoring lower on cadence than a one-minute test is expected, not a failure: nobody holds a sprint pace for ten minutes, and the rubric scores the slowdown separately — full consistency marks need the peak speed of the hips rising on the last rep to be within 15% of the first.

The same bands answer how long ten burpees take: 25 seconds at the full-marks pace, 40 seconds at the slowest pace that still earns more than the minimum cadence points.

What is a 4-count, 8-count or 10-count burpee?

The number is how many steps a coach calls out per rep, not how many reps you do. A 4-count burpee is squat and hands down, kick back to a plank, feet back in, stand up: there is no push-up and usually no jump. An 8-count burpee adds the push-up and normally a jump of the feet out and back in from the plank, so one 8-count rep is roughly twice the work of a 4-count one. Higher counts such as 10 or 22 are not standardised; they name local or military variants that bolt on extra push-ups, jacks or jumps, so ask whoever programmed the workout which steps are included before you compare scores.

Whatever the count, ScoreRep treats one floor-to-standing cycle as one rep. The burpee rubric only scores a clip as a burpee when it sees a push-up phase and a descent to the floor, so a 4-count set is reported as not looking like a burpee rather than marked down. That is deliberate: a squat thrust and a burpee are different exercises, and a score that mixed them would not be comparable.

What muscles do burpees work, and why are they so hard?

A burpee works the legs and hips in the squat and the jump, the chest, shoulders and triceps in the push-up, and the trunk in holding a plank between the two. It does not hit every muscle: there is almost no pulling, so the back and biceps get little work, and the hamstrings are not loaded through a long range. Pair burpees with a pull and a hinge if they are a large part of your training.

They feel hard because every rep moves the whole body from the floor to standing and back, using big muscle groups in quick succession with no point where any of them fully rests. Heart rate and breathing climb faster than in most single movements at the same rep speed, which is also why the pace you can hold for one minute collapses over ten.

How many burpees a day, and how should you progress?

Twenty burpees a day is a reasonable habit for general conditioning; a hundred a day is a large volume of push-ups and landings, and the wrists, shoulders and knees usually complain before the heart and lungs do. Burpees on their own will improve your conditioning at burpees, but they will not build much strength or replace a balanced programme. If you take on a daily challenge, keep at least some days easy, stop if a joint starts to hurt, and judge progress on whether the reps stay complete, not only on the total.

Progress the movement before the volume, and the volume before the speed:

• Step back and step in, with hands on a box or bench if the floor is too far.
• Step back and step in from the floor, standing fully at the top.
• Jump back and jump in, keeping the plank solid.
• Add the push-up — from here the clip is scored as a burpee.
• Add the jump at the top, then build the set length before you chase a faster pace.

Does automatic counting work for burpee variations?

It depends on whether the variation still produces the signal the counter is looking for, which is a complete descent to the floor followed by a complete return to standing. Variations that keep that shape and add something at the top — a jump, a reach to a target — usually still count, because the underlying cycle is unchanged. Variations that travel, such as broad jumps or lateral movement over an obstacle, need the whole travelled distance inside the frame or the athlete simply leaves the tracked area, and some are configured as their own stations rather than as burpees. What the counter cannot do is judge an event-specific standard on your behalf: whether the chest touched, whether the target was reached, whether both feet cleared the bar. Those remain questions for a human judge.

Define the movement standard first

Burpee standards vary between training sessions and competitions. Decide whether the workout requires a jump, target, lateral movement or bar crossing before comparing the automated count with an official result.