A Love Letter to Your Least Favorite Movement

A Love Letter to Your Least Favorite Movement

Dear Burpee (or Why I’ve Stopped Trying to Make You Love Me Back)

Dear Burpee,

We need to talk.

I know I said I hated you. I’ve said it loudly, repeatedly, and occasionally while lying face-down on the gym floor questioning my life choices. I’ve called you names that would make an elite regionals functional fitness announcer blush. I’ve pretended not to see you written on the whiteboard, as if refusing to acknowledge your existence might make you disappear.

But here’s the thing I’m finally ready to admit after all these years: I don’t actually want you to change.

The Truth About Hate (It’s Complicated)

See, I grew up in a fitness culture that insisted I needed to “fall in love” with exercise. Every movement should be joyful. Every workout should leave me energized. If I didn’t love it, I was doing it wrong, or it was wrong for me, or I needed to find my “why,” or consume more motivational content featuring people doing handstands on beaches.

But you, Burpee? You taught me something revolutionary: some things are valuable precisely because they’re hard. Not hard in a “I’ll grow to love this” way. Hard in a “this will always be terrible, and I’ll do it anyway” way.

The Wisdom of Deliberate Discomfort

Modern life has become an optimization Olympics. We optimize our sleep, our nutrition, our productivity, our leisure time. We’ve got apps that optimize our apps. And somewhere in all that optimization, we’ve lost something essential: the ability to do hard things simply because they’re hard.

You remind me—every single time—that I’m stronger than I think I am. Not in that vapid inspirational-poster way. In the visceral, undeniable, “I-wanted-to-stop-at-rep-7-but-did-10” way.

What This Means for Everyone Who Hates Something Here

Here’s my challenge to you, dear reader: identify the movement that makes your soul leave your body. Wall balls? Double-unders? Running? That thing where we flip the heavy tire?

Good. Now keep doing it.

Not because you’ll learn to love it (you might not). Not because it’ll get easier (it might, but probably not). Do it because functional fitness isn’t about finding movements that feel good. It’s about building a version of yourself that can handle things that don’t.

The Unexpected Gift

You know what’s wild, Burpee? You’ve become my measuring stick for everything else. Difficult conversation with my boss? I’ve done burpees. Intimidating project at work? I’ve done burpees. Life throwing absolute chaos at me? I’ve gotten up and down off this floor more times than I can count.

You’ve taught me that “I don’t want to” and “I can’t” are different sentences. And that the gap between them is where all the growth lives.

To Anyone Considering Joining Us

We promise you’ll find movements you love here. The satisfying click of a barbell lockout. The rhythm of rowing. The unexpected grace of a kettlebell swing done right.

But we also promise you’ll find movements that humble you, frustrate you, and make you wonder why you pay money for this.

That’s not a bug. That’s the entire point.

Because six months from now, when life throws you something hard (and it will), you won’t need motivation. You won’t need the perfect conditions. You’ll just need the knowledge that you’ve done hard things before, and you can do them again.

Reluctantly yours,

Everyone Who’s Ever Finished a Burpee Workout

P.S. — I still hate you. But I respect the hell out of you.