An interesting few questions surrounding the Royal Court exercises came in recently, which I haven’t talked about in some time.
I read your blog and find it interesting. I found the blog entry on Royal Court of exercises- pushups/ squats particularly interesting and too be honest unbelievable. Did you actually do those insane number of reps? I couldnt do even half of them on a good day (even with breaks). I had a few questions and wanted to get your perspective
1) Is this high number of reps really good for the body? Isnt there lot of muscle tear and stress on the same body parts?
2) I can see the benefits of these exercises for a grappler and I know for a fact that Indian wrestlers used to do very high reps – from your experience does this pushups / squat /. bridge routine build strength or just endurance? Personally, I feel stronger when I lift weights (but that may just be a feeling)
3) You mentioned in the blog that you dont do these anymore- Is it because now you incorporate a lot more of kettlebells and find those more time efficient?
Thanks a lot.
Suneet
Of course, I did them. I wouldn’t state otherwise if I didn’t 😉
For those of you not familiar with the Ultimate Royal Challenge I did many years back, you can read about it here.
In short, I did a ten-minute hands-free wrestler’s bridge, 250 Hindu pushups, and 1000 Hindu squats. Single sets of each all done back to back, in just over one hour’s time.
So onto Suneet’s questions.
1) Yes, there is the possibility of wear and tear from repetitive motions. But the same thing can also be good for the body. In short, it depends.
I never hurt myself in all the training, all the high volume, leading up to that test. Then again, I also switched up my training to other exercises after completing it.
2) Strength and endurance are a continuum. I first wrote about that in this post.
So yes it does both. Going that high in reps pushes it more into the endurance zone. Which leads to…
3) I personally like working more on the “strengthier” side of training. I still do lots of bodyweight training but instead of Hindu Pushups and Squats tend to do things like handstand pushups, various one-legged squats, etc. And I do plenty of kettlebell work, barbells, etc. And yes, time efficiency is part of the equation.
I think these exercises are great and I am ever grateful to Matt Furey in getting me started on my training path.
And I think pretty much anyone could get some benefits from working on these exercises and building up to high reps at some point in their life (probably not a thousand squats but one or two hundred for sure).
And the body likes variety, so I don’t do the same thing forever on anything.
I’ve done enough Hindu squats in my lifetime that I could never do them again. Though in filming The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Squats Version 2 I built back up to some high rep squats including those and other variations again.
I still do Hindu pushups from time to time but more as part of stretching rather than high reps. Right now for pushing strength I am focused on handstand pushups.
Not so much bridging right now but I always come back to that. (My primary neck work right now involves hanging myself!)
I know, I do some odd and insane things. And you don’t need to follow the same path.
But average these days SUCKS! So don’t be average…
Hope that helps.