100 Reps in 100 Seconds: 5 Hardcore Challenges
by Nate Green
07/19/10

Martin Rooney transforms his combat athletes into beasts in record time. He wants to do the same with you.

Interesting article, just one question. 5 Challenges: one a week or all of the 5 in the same session? According to the article it is all in the same session..but it does seem a bit like overkill, no?

Did the gut check, and I call 'not fair'!

I'm a pretty tall guy, and short guys definitely have an advantage over me doing push-ups, ankle-grabs and chin-ups faster than me.. Since they have shorter arms, meaning less distance having to be travelled.

Anyway, I had a pretty good tempo going until I hit the chin-ups... That's where my time jumped from a decent one (<120) to one landing in the 150's.

Thanks Martin, I like these articles. Fit me perfectly since I am no where near a gym at the moment.

I did the full body yesterday with 95 lbs, I did it twice both at arround 120 secs. It's the military press that kills my time. I felt like dying for 25 minutes after.

Hi guys, terrific article, but I have a question regarding the chin-ups. Do they HAVE to be chin-ups, or you can do pull-ups instead, or even both?

just did gut check in my house... 105 seconds... would have been a bit faster if i didnt have to use my front door as the chin up bar... added friction going up and i couldn't just drop fast and pull ups and not chin ups..

overall a fun fast workout.. i did the warm up as well before hand and that felt pretty good. just needed to do a bit of mobility work after i got the blood flowing.. was stiff from heavy squats 2 days ago and heavy deads yesterday


Gonna go for a barefoot jog as a cool down(not really tho cause it's 85 degrees and sunny but ya) and then do some lifting later tonight.

Fun workout tho! Will be fun to do 2-3 of those back to back...

I tried all 5 challenges in a stand-alone workout. I rested 3-4 minutes between each challenge, awesome workout. Rooney is a wicked trainer.

Challenge #1: 95 seconds with a 95lb barbell
Challenge #2: 120 seconds with a 80lb barbell
Challenge #3: 95 seconds with bodyweight
Challenge #4: 100 seconds with bodyweight
Challenge #5: 130 seconds with bodyweight

I bought Rooney's books and his Hurricane training is crazy intense.

I've been stuck away from home with no exercise equipment , so I decided to gove the two hitter quitter a go. 170 seconds, so epic fail on my part,but I'm working on it. I really like these workouts.

Great article!
Will try number 4 now, but have one question:
What is considered one rep for the sit-outs? Bringing one leg forth and back or both legs?

OK, there was a storm outside, so I did 3 and 5 at home. Was slow as a turtle. Not so much disappointed by 3 - I had never done side lunges before, so I didn't expect to be very fast on them. But needing more than 2min for #5 was quite humbling, as we used to do 5 sets of 20 push-ups, 20 sit-ups with no break during boxing training, so I expected to be good on that...

I did this workout tonight. I'm an amateur boxer (I have several fights including national Golden Gloves) so I'm a fan of Rooney's conditioning routines. I got through all 5, but modified them a bit since I'm small and female and probably not as strong as his MMA fighters. I did push-ups on my knees and used the assisted machine for chins/dips, and of course used less than 95# for the barbell. It was a tough workout and I'll definitely be doing it again. Plus it looks pretty badass in the gym :) Two girls were watching me from the smoothie bar and when I finished up "The Gun Show" (challenge #2), one of the girls turned to the other and said, "Wow, she's STRONG!" :P