Forumosa Fitness Challenge: 100 Squats

So here’s the challenge: do 100 squats with your butt touching a basketball or medicine ball. Can you do it?

Many people have trouble squatting properly because they don’t move from the hips. Sitting BACK into the hips takes the pressure off of the knee and allows for a deeper squat, giving better fitness results.

A thigh parallel squat is something that people talk about sometimes but usually don’t do. It’s too easy to fool yourself and that’s where the ball comes in. Placing a ball (usually a basketball or medicine ball is used) under your butt and touching it on each rep insures that you are actually hitting parallel for most people. Those of you who are taller will naturally need to adjust the width of the feet in the squat to have the butt touch.

Many people claim that squats hurt their knees but not going low enough actually contributes to that problem. If you don’t squat with the hip BELOW the knee (an actual parallel squat) the hamstrings don’t fire, meaning the squat will only work the quads. You end up with a muscle imbalance from doing the exercise improperly. But actually, most everyone has deficient hamstring strength already due to sitting all day, then going to spinning class at the gym where they sit and think they’re getting good exercise, and then going home to sit in front of the computer or the TV. All this sitting makes the hamstrings weak and tight. A full-range squat is a good way to start fixing that deficiency.

So there’s the challenge. Can you do it? :slight_smile:

That video caused me to have flashbacks to my CrossFit days… /shudder

I’m no fitness guru so this is an honest question … why do you swing your arms back and forth when doing bodyweight squats? I lock my hands behind my head and jump when coming up.

Good effort. Are these harder for taller people-to get down so low?

Swinging the arms helps with balance, therefore it’s good for beginners. It helps them get lower and touch the ball without feeling like they’re falling backwards.

Interlacing your fingers behind your head leads to a more upright spine and therefore more emphasis on the glutes in the movement. I thought about filming that version but it’s much harder for people to do. I wanted something that was doable.

As for the jumps, these aren’t jump squats that I’m doing in the video but those are fine too. Again, I was looking for something attainable by most everyone with some effort.

Swinging the arms helps with balance, therefore it’s good for beginners. It helps them get lower and touch the ball without feeling like they’re falling backwards.

Interlacing your fingers behind your head leads to a more upright spine and therefore more emphasis on the glutes in the movement. I thought about filming that version but it’s much harder for people to do. I wanted something that was doable.

As for the jumps, these aren’t jump squats that I’m doing in the video but those are fine too. Again, I was looking for something attainable by most everyone with some effort.[/quote]

Thanks! Good info…

I workout 3 days a week (M,W,F) and do legs on one of those days (although I also some do bodyweight leg exercises on the other two days … I’m a runner!). On my legs day, I’ll usually do 2-3 different kinds of squats, lunges, calf raises and hamstring curls.

A simple program to get up to 100 might look something like this:

  1. Work the squats 3 times a week, every other day
  2. start with sets of ten, 20, etc., whatever pushes you a little but doesn’t kill you. You want that last rep of each set to be hard but doable. stand in place over the ball as you rest for 10-20 seconds and then do the next set. Try to do 100 in as few sets as possible as you progress. In other words, you’re trying to make 5 sets of 20 into four sets of 25, then three sets of 33, then two sets of 50, etc. That will get you to 100 in a fairly straight manner.
  3. Place this exercise at the end of the workout for that day if this is new to you.
  4. Use whatever ball or stool you have. You don’t need a medicine ball to do it.

The fitness benefits of doing this three times a week is enormous if this is new to you. Properly done, this one exercise has the potential to solve a lot of problems that people have while burning fat and building muscle.

So who has tried it? Thoughts?

I do mine flat-footed.

100?..well maybe in sets of 20…:smiley:

[quote=“Formosa Fitness”]A simple program to get up to 100 might look something like this:

  1. Work the squats 3 times a week, every other day
  2. start with sets of ten, 20, etc., whatever pushes you a little but doesn’t kill you. You want that last rep of each set to be hard but doable. stand in place over the ball as you rest for 10-20 seconds and then do the next set. Try to do 100 in as few sets as possible as you progress. In other words, you’re trying to make 5 sets of 20 into four sets of 25, then three sets of 33, then two sets of 50, etc. That will get you to 100 in a fairly straight manner.
  3. Place this exercise at the end of the workout for that day if this is new to you.
  4. Use whatever ball or stool you have. You don’t need a medicine ball to do it.

The fitness benefits of doing this three times a week is enormous if this is new to you. Properly done, this one exercise has the potential to solve a lot of problems that people have while burning fat and building muscle.

So who has tried it? Thoughts?[/quote]

Well after you posted this I went and did it. Did 100, although had to breathe harder the last 20. It is a leg burner at the end, and my form may need work. I regularly hike stairs, so this fits in nicely. I’ll work on form then try to increase it to 150-200. Teggs, I might ask you to work with me on my workout schedule in May, please. Teggs is fast, goes up hills like I go down them.

Edit for Tainan Cowboy-you could add pull -ups to that, or press ups, to make some type of special TC burpees.

About a month ago I added a similar exercise to my calisthenics.

I do a full squat and then push up into a jump from the full squat position. I land and then repeat. Started with 6 and am working up to 3 sets of 10 hopefully.

I’ve fallen over, and rolled thankfully, a few times so I recommend doing it in the grass rather than cement.

Once I get this mastered I want to raise my feet up to the squatting position while at the apex of my jump.

Sounds like a good idea.

Glad you did it! First one to step up. Good.

I don’t usually like to do things over 100 reps, with a few possible exceptions. When I can do 100, I start looking for ways to make it harder.

Thoughts on how to progress the exercise:

  1. Squeeze the quads or hamstrings while squatting. This gets you in touch with the muscle in a big way. For example, as you stand up really try to squeeze the quads. Squeezing the hams as you go down tends to be a lot harder for people to do but you can try it out.

  2. Come up 3/4 of the way instead of standing up to full extension. This keeps the tension on the muscles constant. Very hard. A real quad builder.

  3. Speed squats: try to do all 100 as fast as possible.

  4. Vary the tempo. Do 10 really slow followed by a fast 20 then go back to 10, etc. This is a real leg killer.

  5. Add light weights. This was the obvious one so I saved it for last. Even light weights can make this very hard.

If anyone has any other ideas, I’d love to hear them.

:hand: I am also no fitness guru, but I like to do something like this at the park.

The version I do doesn’t involve a ball. I think using a ball is kind of cheating as it can help you bounce back up. My version also differs in that I swing my legs instead of my arms.

They’ve got these great machines in the parks that allow you to hold onto a bar (for balance) while you swing your legs. I can swing my legs hundreds of times because there’s no real up and down motion of the torso (your version); just a swinging of the legs.

If they don’t have one of these machines in your park, you could try walking normally.

If you want to try to increase the difficulty, try kicking one of the old ladies off her machine.

This exercise could really come in handy for me if NASA ever needs me to do a long space walk. :neutral:

Good on you for this excellent reply and thread-as a trail runner/hiker I think :bravo:

First thing I’ll use this for is with my hike training:

After climbing 220 steps 2by2, I’ll add a bunch of these on immediately to deepen the burn. I might modify them by doing the following: Box Squats - sitting on the box, coming to a complete stop, then exploding up…then once reach exhaustion, jog down and repeat

…15-20 times with no break if I can avoid dying (takes about 65 minutes at the mo, with these squats I’ll probably get 75 mins which’ll be enough). I’ll do that 2 times a week as well as other exercises.

That leaves 1 day a week I can do squats. I like your suggestions, especially varying the tempo, will try it. Still have to improve the form first.

EDIT: For these squats at home, I use my over-turned plastic laundry basket, on its side, it’s about the right height and provides no support.

100 squats like this is very doable by most anyone with just a little bit of training. For most people who can’t reach 100 the first time they try it, usually just a few weeks of doing them 3x a week will get them there.

So no one else willing to at least try it out?

I’m like TC, speed squats of 25 reps x 4. But I’ll try the 100 today at the end. It’s gonna be hard hiking home!
The ball wouldn’t fit in my backpack (got other stuff in it). I also do bend and thrusts with a jump at the end, skip rope at a count of 50xs, inverted push-ups and use heavy mortar bricks for dumbbells to do military press and arm curls, and something I call “swinging grabs” which work my legs, waist and arms at the same time, then tri-cep dips.

I just don’t do it often enough! Thanks for the challenge I’ll report back later.

Kea:

I am on sure about being taller per se, but if your femurs ( thighs ) are proportionally long, it is harder to go down lower, you have to shift your weight more forward to maintain balance. Calf flexibility will help a-lot here. long-torsoed short-legged ( like me ) people can generally squat all the way down without problems. Probably anybody with healthy joints can condition themselves to do it.

Thanks to those willing to try it out. I’m looking for some feedback on how this works for people besides myself and my clients.

Sets are okay and certainly a way to build up to this. But there’s a certain experience and quality behind doing 100 straight at that depth that 4x25 won’t replicate. It’s kind of hard to explain unless you’ve felt it.

I did it and fucking near had a heart attack. I will definitely build up to it again because I have the feeling that it is super good for my lower back. I could tell as soon as I started that that was what was missing from my “routines.”

Seriously, thanks.

I do 50 on a bosey (sp?) ball.
You know the half ball/platform thing.
30 usually starts my knees hurting hence breaking it into a 30 and 20. Based on your comments here this may be because I am not going low enough.
Am using the Bosey ball because I figured it would work the core as well as the legs due to the balance required - is this dumb?

Anyway I will give it a try although at 193cm I’ll need a big ball!

Doing the squats on the Bosu ball isn’t something I would recommend until someone can do 100 straight without it. You’ll hit the core plenty with this squat challenge. The fact that your knees hurt at around 30 shows me that you need to do them on the floor instead and pay strict attention to form. You can let the feet splay out 15 degrees or so and keep the knee in line with the foot at all times. Don’t let the knees move inwards or outwards, or let them go beyond the toes. The ball is there to get people squatting into the hips, not the knees as people usually do it. Squatting into the knees is what hurts them.

For taller people, I usually just let them go wider with the feet.

Depth is the key to the exercise and many people try to circumvent that so keep that in mind. The medicine ball/basketball is there to make sure every rep is correct. Quality is much more important than quantity. Hitting 100 is only a valuable goal as long as they’re done correctly.