As an executive at the YMCA, he used the movement to assess cardiovascular health by measuring a subject's heart rate before and after they performed just four reps.

Royal Huddleston Burpee developed the four-count movement as part of his 1940 PhD thesis in applied physiology at Columbia University.

The original 1930s movement lacked both the jump and the push-up. The military later added these intense variations to challenge recruits during World War II.

He designed the initial test to require only four repetitions, warning that doing the movement in high volumes could be dangerous for those lacking core strength.