100 Singles Challenge

Anyone who recently read Dan John’s Blood on the Barbell entry, do you recall the 100 singles workout idea. I did it today as a test to see how tough it was, but more importantly, how tough i was. I finished it in one hour, and it was pretty bad, the trick of it is how long it seems, you know you get to 25 reps and it feels like a good workout but you know your only a quarter of the way there. the last thirty probably take as long as the first seventy, rest periods grow as you have trouble just willing yourself to the bar, let alone lifting it.

The first 73 reps i did power clean and press, then after two failed attempts at 74 i had to drop 30 pounds and move to snatches. I guess my delts just quit on me. It seemed to last forever and only two hours later im already starting to feel DOMS settling in.

The only thing i told myself that kept me going was that i could look back and say, “yeah i tried that once, wouldn’t recommend it unless you wanna get your ass kicked”. It will kick your ass, but you will come out better afterwards. Good thing to try if you wanna kick your ass, and mix some things up a lil in the gym. Chamos!

Keep us posted on how you feel and if it helped you. I’ve considered trying it. I’ll have to do it this weekend. I’d be interested to hear if it helped you breakthrough a plateau or helped you get stronger?

So you did 100 singles in an hour? Less than one minute rest between sets? That is a little insane if you ask me, I thought he said it would take over two hours or something like that. I’m sure the DOMS will be crazy and I’m not sure it will help you in the long run, but you can tell us that. Do you plan to take some time off from the gym now?

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
Anyone who recently read Dan John’s Blood on the Barbell entry, do you recall the 100 singles workout idea. I did it today as a test to see how tough it was, but more importantly, how tough i was. I finished it in one hour, and it was pretty bad, the trick of it is how long it seems, you know you get to 25 reps and it feels like a good workout but you know your only a quarter of the way there. the last thirty probably take as long as the first seventy, rest periods grow as you have trouble just willing yourself to the bar, let alone lifting it.

The first 73 reps i did power clean and press, then after two failed attempts at 74 i had to drop 30 pounds and move to snatches. I guess my delts just quit on me. It seemed to last forever and only two hours later im already starting to feel DOMS settling in.

The only thing i told myself that kept me going was that i could look back and say, “yeah i tried that once, wouldn’t recommend it unless you wanna get your ass kicked”. It will kick your ass, but you will come out better afterwards. Good thing to try if you wanna kick your ass, and mix some things up a lil in the gym. Chamos![/quote]

yes, please keep us posted on results if you or anyone else plan to continue to do this w/ any kind of regularity. I would imagine that it wouldn’t do much for strength since the loads have to be lightened so much, but would do wonders for endurance and perhaps also hypertrophy (?)

i think this type of training would be great for all kinds of athletes, esp. combat. If I was still wrestling or doing judo, I would be all over this.

How sore are you? I’m really curious to hear how your doing.

[quote]jit07 wrote:
Keep us posted on how you feel and if it helped you. I’ve considered trying it. I’ll have to do it this weekend. I’d be interested to hear if it helped you breakthrough a plateau or helped you get stronger?[/quote]

Ill check as soon as i can,a but not for another couple of days when the soreness wears off

[quote]StandTall wrote:
So you did 100 singles in an hour? Less than one minute rest between sets? That is a little insane if you ask me, I thought he said it would take over two hours or something like that. I’m sure the DOMS will be crazy and I’m not sure it will help you in the long run, but you can tell us that. Do you plan to take some time off from the gym now?

That One Guy wrote:
Anyone who recently read Dan John’s Blood on the Barbell entry, do you recall the 100 singles workout idea. I did it today as a test to see how tough it was, but more importantly, how tough i was. I finished it in one hour, and it was pretty bad, the trick of it is how long it seems, you know you get to 25 reps and it feels like a good workout but you know your only a quarter of the way there. the last thirty probably take as long as the first seventy, rest periods grow as you have trouble just willing yourself to the bar, let alone lifting it.

The first 73 reps i did power clean and press, then after two failed attempts at 74 i had to drop 30 pounds and move to snatches. I guess my delts just quit on me. It seemed to last forever and only two hours later im already starting to feel DOMS settling in.

The only thing i told myself that kept me going was that i could look back and say, “yeah i tried that once, wouldn’t recommend it unless you wanna get your ass kicked”. It will kick your ass, but you will come out better afterwards. Good thing to try if you wanna kick your ass, and mix some things up a lil in the gym. Chamos!

[/quote]

Yeah the first reps were taken with only like twenty seconds rest, the last reps had about a minute and a half or so, i didn’t count the rest times just whenever i naturally felt i could go again.

I was isolated in my backyard and refused to go inside to rest or check time at all b/c i might wimp out. I was surprised as well that i did it in just under an hour.

[quote]jm89074 wrote:
yes, please keep us posted on results if you or anyone else plan to continue to do this w/ any kind of regularity. I would imagine that it wouldn’t do much for strength since the loads have to be lightened so much, but would do wonders for endurance and perhaps also hypertrophy (?)

i think this type of training would be great for all kinds of athletes, esp. combat. If I was still wrestling or doing judo, I would be all over this. [/quote]

it’s 100 SINGLES. as in REP MAXES. No there is no way i will do this with regularity, maybe ill never do it again i don’t think i could get myself to do it again. It was just a test of my mental toughness, a self test really. Again, just so you can really feel the impact " i did 100 1 rep maxes in just under an hour"

[quote]jit07 wrote:
How sore are you? I’m really curious to hear how your doing.[/quote]

I’m pretty sore right now, not unlike anything i’ve felt before but probably a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 but i believe this is because i do have olympic moves in my regular routine. If you do not regularly do olympic moves in your routine, you will probably not get out of bed the next morning, i assure you.

I remember the first workout where i started regularly incorporating olympic moves, i did only 15 singles over the course of my workout and my entire trapezius, from the top of my neck, to my mid back was very sore. Right now my lats, lower back,delts,hamstrings and my neck, are sore.

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
jm89074 wrote:
yes, please keep us posted on results if you or anyone else plan to continue to do this w/ any kind of regularity. I would imagine that it wouldn’t do much for strength since the loads have to be lightened so much, but would do wonders for endurance and perhaps also hypertrophy (?)

i think this type of training would be great for all kinds of athletes, esp. combat. If I was still wrestling or doing judo, I would be all over this.

it’s 100 SINGLES. as in REP MAXES. No there is no way i will do this with regularity, maybe ill never do it again i don’t think i could get myself to do it again. It was just a test of my mental toughness, a self test really. Again, just so you can really feel the impact " i did 100 1 rep maxes in just under an hour"[/quote]

No, you don’t want to be doing rep maxes. Brooks Kubik wrote about this, and his recommendation was to take about 85% of your 1RM and take about 1 minute of rest between each rep. You can increase the rest later if you need to. The idea is to use the same weight for the same lift. It’ll probably take about 1.5 hours.

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
jm89074 wrote:
yes, please keep us posted on results if you or anyone else plan to continue to do this w/ any kind of regularity. I would imagine that it wouldn’t do much for strength since the loads have to be lightened so much, but would do wonders for endurance and perhaps also hypertrophy (?)

i think this type of training would be great for all kinds of athletes, esp. combat. If I was still wrestling or doing judo, I would be all over this.

it’s 100 SINGLES. as in REP MAXES. No there is no way i will do this with regularity, maybe ill never do it again i don’t think i could get myself to do it again. It was just a test of my mental toughness, a self test really. Again, just so you can really feel the impact " i did 100 1 rep maxes in just under an hour"

No, you don’t want to be doing rep maxes. Brooks Kubik wrote about this, and his recommendation was to take about 85% of your 1RM and take about 1 minute of rest between each rep. You can increase the rest later if you need to. The idea is to use the same weight for the same lift. It’ll probably take about 1.5 hours. [/quote]

yeah i exaggerated a bit i apologize but i think he had the idea that it was like a 100rep set with a light weight. my bad everyone

my faux pas indeed. maybe my borderline ADD prevented me from catching that it was max reps.

with the heavier load than i thought, perhaps this could be a great strength boost/plateau buster.

and you’re also right, i don’t know what I was thinking that this would be repeated any time soon or at all. i don’t know that I would ever try it in the first place.

[quote]jm89074 wrote:
my faux pas indeed. maybe my borderline ADD prevented me from catching that it was max reps.

with the heavier load than i thought, perhaps this could be a great strength boost/plateau buster.

and you’re also right, i don’t know what I was thinking that this would be repeated any time soon or at all. i don’t know that I would ever try it in the first place. [/quote]

Yeah almost max reps, im going to recheck my maxes on the power clean and push press seperately to see which it affected more. since i did 73 power clean and push i think it will help my push press more but ill check it out. I think im too chicken shit to try it again but you never know. Just one of those dares and…

yeah, maybe if someone gets enough beers or whatever in you, they could convince or dare you to go again. albeit not in the same day.

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
MikeTheBear wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
jm89074 wrote:
yes, please keep us posted on results if you or anyone else plan to continue to do this w/ any kind of regularity. I would imagine that it wouldn’t do much for strength since the loads have to be lightened so much, but would do wonders for endurance and perhaps also hypertrophy (?)

i think this type of training would be great for all kinds of athletes, esp. combat. If I was still wrestling or doing judo, I would be all over this.

it’s 100 SINGLES. as in REP MAXES. No there is no way i will do this with regularity, maybe ill never do it again i don’t think i could get myself to do it again. It was just a test of my mental toughness, a self test really. Again, just so you can really feel the impact " i did 100 1 rep maxes in just under an hour"

No, you don’t want to be doing rep maxes. Brooks Kubik wrote about this, and his recommendation was to take about 85% of your 1RM and take about 1 minute of rest between each rep. You can increase the rest later if you need to. The idea is to use the same weight for the same lift. It’ll probably take about 1.5 hours.

yeah i exaggerated a bit i apologize but i think he had the idea that it was like a 100rep set with a light weight. my bad everyone[/quote]

No problem. Definitely keep us posted on how this affected these lifts and other lifts.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll try this with assisted pull ups in an effort to increase my pull ups. It can’t hurt.

[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
MikeTheBear wrote:
That One Guy wrote:
jm89074 wrote:
yes, please keep us posted on results if you or anyone else plan to continue to do this w/ any kind of regularity. I would imagine that it wouldn’t do much for strength since the loads have to be lightened so much, but would do wonders for endurance and perhaps also hypertrophy (?)

i think this type of training would be great for all kinds of athletes, esp. combat. If I was still wrestling or doing judo, I would be all over this.

it’s 100 SINGLES. as in REP MAXES. No there is no way i will do this with regularity, maybe ill never do it again i don’t think i could get myself to do it again. It was just a test of my mental toughness, a self test really. Again, just so you can really feel the impact " i did 100 1 rep maxes in just under an hour"

No, you don’t want to be doing rep maxes. Brooks Kubik wrote about this, and his recommendation was to take about 85% of your 1RM and take about 1 minute of rest between each rep. You can increase the rest later if you need to. The idea is to use the same weight for the same lift. It’ll probably take about 1.5 hours.

yeah i exaggerated a bit i apologize but i think he had the idea that it was like a 100rep set with a light weight. my bad everyone

No problem. Definitely keep us posted on how this affected these lifts and other lifts.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll try this with assisted pull ups in an effort to increase my pull ups. It can’t hurt.[/quote]

well technically, it will be painful ha

[quote]jm89074 wrote:
yeah, maybe if someone gets enough beers or whatever in you, they could convince or dare you to go again. albeit not in the same day. [/quote]

I’d hope not in the same day, i’m sure i’d puke after the first three or four

Last night I was supposed to have a heavy squat day, but I could tell that it wasn’t going to go very well since I’d been sick for three days and I’d been in the sun hiking for the previous 2 1/2 hours with a baby on my back and carrying another kid on and off about half of the way.

So rather than just going through the motions I figured why not give this a try. My rationale was I’d be more likely to stick to something like this than my current session plan. I also figured my squat form could use some practice and singles are the best way to do it.

So I started just before 10:00pm working with 225lbs. My squat really sucks at this point, so this was about 75%-80% of my 285 lbs max. The first 10 or so seemed difficult as I was trying to find a groove. I was only at about 20 reps by 10:30pm, however I also managed to hose down the stroller, sort the recycling, put out the garbage and get the lawn sprinkler set up for the morning in this time (in case you haven’t guessed, I train in my garage).

With all the chores out of the way I found a groove and hit 50 just before 11:00 pm. I should mention, I didn’t have any time goals but I was hoping to finish by midnight so I could get to bed.

I then decided to see what was taking me so long so I took out a timer and I determined that I’d only take 30 seconds between reps since my set-up/squat/and rerack was taking about 30 seconds (remember one main goal was to work on my technique).

This strategy worked really well and I kept the pace until I hit 90, then I took about 3-4 minute break and did the last ten with 30 second breaks. I must say these ten were very difficult. The weight didn’t seem heavy, so much as my body was just really feeling it.

After it was over my wrists and shoulders were so sore that I could barely carry the plates after taking them off the bar. This may not be a problem for most, but I’ve had a number of shoulder and wrist problems over the years and the squat position can be… well painful.

I also noticed that DOMS was setting in about 10 minutes after I finished. So if anyone is planning this, do not take breaks.

Overall, it went pretty well. I learned a few things about my technique such as my weight is shifting forward on my feet as I come out of the hole and around rep 40 I realized that I wasn’t leading with my head and driving it into the bar. I also realized at rep 90 that I couldn’t give a rats ass if I was driving my head into the bar as long as the damn thing was going up!

I would encourage others to try this 100 singles. Use it on a day when your not really into your workout. The best thing about it being a “challenge”, if you say after 60 reps that it was a good session and stop, well you know that you’ve quit, so you’ll keep going.

PS- As for the morning after, my shoulder and wrist pain has mostly subsided, but I’m starting to feel my lower back and glutes. I’m also feeling it in my quads, which is weird because back squats have never really done anything for my quads.

This is an interesting idea. Ill have to give this a try some day.

Ill probably wait until Im back at school and have a platform and bumper plates to use so I can do an OLY lift for this workout.

Iv been doing GVT and the 10x10 squats is probably the most humbling thing Iv ever done. Not exactly the same, but 100 reps, any way you slice it, is still a lot.

You are NOT supposed to use your 1RM or even close to it.

Around 70% is right

You won’t get much permanent physiological supercompensation unless you do it for 2 weeks +

Kubrik recommended a number of different approaches, some of which, were doing same exercise singles EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR. Not just once off.

No doubt doing something like this once off can shock you, but you should not need to. If anything adding it to your normal routine will just stuff up your routine, which, no doubt, is already badly designed because you need to shock it up ie it ain’t working.

Like I said, you need to do these things for 2 weeks + or your body just thinks you had a really, really bad day and heals, but doesn’t super compensate.

Like, “gee, was attacked by a woolly rhino today, I’ll heal but that won’t happen again”.

You need your body to think you are getting attacked by rhinos every day for a couple of weeks.