Want Something Challenging? Try My Bodyweight Squats Muscular Endurance Challenge

Hey, it's Mike Geary from TruthAboutAbs.com 
 
I told you last week that I'd be sending you out a training challenge this week.
Well, here it is. I challenge you to try to beat my results at this little 5-minute routine. 
 You'll see my results below.
I'm sure if you've been reading my info for some time that you know I like to get creative in the training routines that I recommend trying. I think trying different training styles and routines keeps things more interesting and can be motivating if you set specific goals for certain exercises.
In fact, if you didn't already see it, one of my unique training ideas was recently featured in the popular international magazine, Muscle & Fitness Hers, Jul/Aug issue pg. 18.
So my boredom buster this week is something I just thought up recently. I set a challenge with a couple of my training partners at my gym to see who could do the most repetitions of bodyweight squats in 5 minutes. I will qualify that these are meant to be full squats all the way down to thighs parallel with the ground, not the little "half way down" squats that you see so many people doing.
You basically just keep squatting for as many reps as possible in 5-min. You only rest a couple times here and there for a few seconds if you need it to help you keep squatting.
I liked this idea because I thought it would be drastically different from the normal 3 sets of 10, 5 sets of 5, 7 sets of 3, and so on. No matter how you break it down with weighted squats, you're usually in the range of 20-40 total repetitions in a given workout.
However, with max repetition bodyweight squats in 5-minutes, your numbers easily can get up to well over 100 reps. Let me tell you... even though you're not squatting heavy weights with this unique training style, the high volume of repetitions really pumps your legs and gets you dripping with sweat. Also, if you're not used to this high volume, your legs will be in for some deep soreness for about 2-3 days afterwards.
So the results? Well, in my first attempt at 5-minute squats, I pumped out 157 reps. About a week later, I tried it again, and beat my 1st number by repping 163 squats. Then the following week, I once again beat my former scores by blasting through 169 squats.
I've set the goal that I'd like to get up to 200 squats within the 5-minute time frame. Considering that you have 300 seconds in 5-minutes, I figured 200 reps might be about at the maximum possible capacity as you really need to be repping quickly to do 200 parallel squats in 300 seconds.
Anyway, you can see that this is just one of the many quirky training challenges that I think up on a regular basis that keeps me interested and keeps things fresh. It's a good idea to pick a goal like this and work towards it for a month or two and then pick something totally different and work towards that for a month or two. This gives your body some good variety while also allowing for progression because of the short term consistency.
For example, this muscular endurance goal of 200 squats in 5-minutes is on the totally opposite end of the spectrum when compared to a different goal that I trained for last year when I was training in a pure strength mode working up to a 405-lb deadlift. Changing things up like this and training for wildly different goals at different times can really help keep you interested in your workouts.
Alright, so go ahead and give this little 5-minute squat challenge a try (remember full squats, no halvsies).
Update:  several weeks after running this article, I ended up beating my goal of 200 bodyweight squats in 5 minutes by pumping out 214 reps!  Oh my, the burn!!
Good luck!

Feel free to share this link to any friends, training partners, or family that you think might want to try this training challenge.

Mike Geary
Certified Personal Trainer
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com

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3 Random Fitness and Nutrition Tips

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author - The Truth About Six Pack Abs

I just had a few sort of "random" workout and nutrition tips for you on my mind today, so here they are:
Tip #1. Onions = Amazing Superfood... Eat onions daily if possible.
Not only do I love onions, but I recently read a longevity study that surveyed a large amount of people who had lived over 100 years of age. One of the common threads they noticed from the survey of these amazing people that lived to ages exceeding 100 was that they ate a lot of onions.
Kind of weird huh... but not a surprise to me. In fact, onions are definitely an important super-food as they contain unique organosulphur compounds and potent antioxidants that are rare in other foods.
I've also read dozens of studies that correlated onions (and garlic too) with pretty impressive reductions in cancer risk.
I like to add onions to almost any meals I can think of... added to salads, in my morning eggs, in veggie mixtures with lunch or dinner, and more.

Tip #2. Mix up your workouts with "5-minute bodyweight exercise challenges"
This is a unique way to add some variety to your workouts and maybe even get a friend in a little competition with you.
You can throw one of these in at the end of a workout as a high intensity finish, or even just do at home on non-gym days.
Basically, all you do is choose 1 specific bodyweight exercise such as bodyweight squats, pushups, lunges, etc and try to do as many reps of that exercise as you can in exactly 5 minutes (timed).  I've also used dumbbell swings or kettlebell swings for these 5-minute drills and they work great.
This works best by trying to do 20 or 25 reps at a time and then taking short breathers of about 10 seconds before continuing on your next round of reps.
We've even made this a little competition between a couple people at my gym in the past where we all line up and get timed for 5 minutes and see who can do the most bodyweight squats or pushups or whatever it may be in that 5 minute time period.
From what I've seen, if you can do 100 or more pushups in 5 minutes, or 200 or more bodyweight squats in 5 minutes, those are pretty impressive numbers. I think my record was somewhere around 225 bodyweight squats in 5 minutes (which was an improvement on the 160 bw squats I got the first time I tried this 5-min challenge)
If you try dumbbell or kettlebell swings for 5-minutes, I've found that anything over about 130 swings is pretty good for 5-minutes.
Whatever exercise you choose, keep track of your numbers that you get, and try to improve on them each week.  By the way, if you're new to kettlebells, read this article.

Tip #3. Example of the Glycemic Index (GI) being fairly useless
In several of my newsletters in the past, I've given examples of how choosing your foods based on the glycemic index can be misleading and even useless in many cases.
Case in point...
Watermelon has one of the highest measured GI's of all foods (much higher than even cake and ice cream).  However, a normal serving of cake and ice cream may give you a whopping 600 to 800 calories, whereas a typical serving of watermelon may give you 50 to 70 calories max!  You'd have to eat a massive quantity of watermelon to rack up any significant grams of carbs.
Trust me... watermelon isn't making anyone fat... But cake and ice cream are!
The lesson... GI is almost useless when you're not considering "Glycemic Load", which also factors in the quantity of carbohydrates ingested in a typical serving.
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