100 Squat Thrust Challenge

Appeared August 18, 2006

You want a fast way to see if you’re in shape? Then take this challenge. Pick your favorite variation of the squat thrust/sprawl/burpee and rock through for 100 reps as fast as you can. Depending on which variation you use you should be shooting for five minutes as a time limit, but it doesn’t matter. Force yourself to go as fast and as hard as you possibly can. Do as many as you can before you have to take a break.

Let me tell you this is a simple exercise, but it will really let you know where your conditioning stands. This full-body movement will prove to even the most staunch of doubters that even bodyweight exercises are no joke. And it’s a good standard to be able to test yourself against. It’s fast, it’s efficient, it’s high enough reps to involve muscular endurance, but not so high that it will make you insanely sore and it will shoot your cardio through the roof. Really force your heart to pump a massive volume of blood and force you to breathe extremely heavy, thereby actually strengthening them. Being able to maintain a consistent minor elevation of heart rate for a long time is one thing, but being able to go all out hard for an extended period of time is another. And that’s what you need to be truly in shape.

Say you’re a Superman? Say you generally do 100 squat thrusts on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Say you only get a 2 beat per minute heart elevation by doing 100 burpees? (First of all if you said that you’re flat-out lying I don’t care who you are). Want to make it tougher? Here are a couple of quick ways:

1. Do 100 kettlebell swings before and after your 100 squat thrusts.

2. Grab a kettlebell, barbell or dumbbell of a moderate to light weight and put it in front of you. As you do the squat thrusts, when you come back to standing on each rep, clean whatever weight you’ve decided to use. As you drop to the next rep, drop the weight to the ground and repeat.

3. You can do a Mike Bruce style which is insane, but it’s this; Start on top of a low to moderate box or bench 12 to 18 inches high. To do your sprawl or squat thrust, jump back off the bench, squat down, kick back, come back up and to finish jump back up to the box or bench. If you could crank through 100 of those non-stop you probably have a big blue suit on with an “S” on your chest and you’d be able to as some of my country friends say, “… go bear huntin’ with a switch.”

Try it out and send us back some info. I want to see who gets the fastest time.

Be sure to include which version of the exercise you use and whether or not you had to be hospitalized after. Now go out there and start kicking some butt. Make yourself harder than steel, because you can do it… you just need the will.


If you’re ready to get more kick butt challenges and dedicate yourself to becoming the mountain-moving, iron-tossing, steel-bending, awe-inspiring strength and conditioning machine that you can be, then what are you waiting on? Permission from your mother? Step up to the plate, make a decision, stick by it and get our unbelievable training info.