Do I Dare?

100 Rep Sets
Workout Slumpbusters Techniques
by Estela Juarez

If you've been lifting weights regularly, you've undoubtedly come to training plateaus, sticky points or rough days where the complacency of daily routine begins to worm its ugly way into your workout. These are the days when you gut it out and fight for your reps or perhaps try to break free by using 21s, half reps, drop sets, forced reps, or any other similar technique to help you climb over the wall. One "shock your body" method you may not have attempted yet is a 100 rep set.

How to Do a 100 Rep Set

First off, 100 reppers are not sets where you pick a weight so light that you know will allow you to obtain 100 reps. Nor is the set intended to replace your entire workout or even segments of your workout. It is simply a set within your normal routine where you push yourself to the limit.

You will need to go lighter so pick a weight you would can do for 20-30 reps.

Choose whatever exercise you wish (although I challenge you to imagine doing this with squats- 100 squats in a row feel like nothing else!). Your goal is simple, get to 100. You'll stop to catch your breath but try to get as many reps in between these 10-30 seconds of rests as possible. It's harder to re-start several times so try to make it to at least 40 or before your rest-pause.

What's it feel like?

Squeeze those eyes shut and imagine life outside the 2 foot radius of your own squat rack and visualize yourself doing 100 reps with what you'd normally do for a set of 20. At 20, you still feel some hope but by 30 comes a sense of regret. 40-50 pretty feel like a winded torture session and you question whether or not you can finish because 100 feels *so* far away. At 60, you'll either bail or begin to access some place deep within your training soul.

If you make it to 70, the spirit of intrinsic belief warmly welcomes you as you enter an intense tunnel of focus. It overtakes you - your surroundings, voices around you, expressions, and even your own noises all but disappear. I won't describe reps 80-100 because it's against the charter of the secret club you get to join if you finish. Try hard, oh imaginative ones, to extrapolate what those are like! Wonder how the accomplishment would change your perception of the word "effort" on your next "regular" leg workout....

Why 100 reps?

Why challenge yourself with 100 reps? Because it is more than you think you can do and it's actually about more than 100 reps. It is about overcoming your fears, testing your will, feeling your heart, and honoring your commitment towards completing something you said you were going to do. Why not challenge these aspects of your training persona? Is scientific excuse the only reason we grow muscle or increase strength or exceed our previous training level?

It doesn't matter if it's at the beginning or end of your normal workout- ia 100 rep set of squats will crack your brain open and wake you up the same as any other "slump buster" kamikaze practice like extreme drop sets, up & down the rack, 10x10s, chains, bands, sled dragging, weighted vests, or wherever it is you choose to go when you need flames licking your feet to push you past a training barrier (physical or mental). These crazy things make us grow as a people and that mental toughness can be applied to other "by the book/scientifically tested" training methods.

100 reps are like a cool looking stamp in your training passport. And I don't know about anyone else, but I love traveling to exotic locales where I know many around me have not ever been! You need to see the world outside yourself periodically to evaluate & appreciate, question, confirm what exists in your own fraction of existence.

If you ask me, people need to travel more.

What is the purpose of 100 reps? Do it and you need not ask the question about why it is necessary to sometimes work past the burn. The real answer is that it can only be answered by someone who dares to open themselves up for the experience.

1 down, 99 to go. Try it.