10,000 Rep Challenge
'Tis the season
I've done the 10,000 Swing Challenge several times as a New Year challenge for January, but I have found that the biggest challenge (for me) is the boredom after a couple of weeks. It's possible to change up the reps and sets and kettlebell sizes to make it more interesting, but it still becomes a slog towards the end.
A while back I was reading some old DJU essays and something about the title Insights From the 10,000 Rep Challenge rolled around my brain for a while before the idea struck me: what if the challenge was 10,000 reps of any exercise? I quickly realized that no matter what exercise you picked, any single exercise would fall victim to the same issue of boredom after a couple of weeks. Not to mention the lack of balance in other movement patterns. My idea: split the 10,000 reps among multiple movements.
The Challenge
100 reps of the 5 human movements every day, Monday - Friday, for a total of 500 reps each day, for 4 weeks. 2,000 total reps for each movement adds up to 10,000 total reps for the 4 week challenge.
- Push
- Pull
- Hinge
- Squat
- Loaded carry
How to do the challenge
Choose appropriate exercises: large, basic movements that can be done for high reps every day. Olympic lifts are amazing, but they are probably not great options for this challenge given their technical difficulty and total body hit. Machines are also a great tool but may be too narrow in focus for this challenge, however I think it would be interesting to try some day. Some examples and ideas are listed at the end of this post.
Sets and reps can be varied as desired. 4 sets of 25 reps or 5 sets of 20 reps would be good for hypertrophy and conditioning. 10 sets of 10 reps would be good for strength and hypertrophy. Lower than 10 reps per set is possible, but would make for longer sessions and care would be needed to not lose track of the sets. Another alternative is to just do as many sets as needed to get to 100, so maybe the first set you do 41 reps, the second set you do 37 reps, and the third set you do 22 reps to bring the total to 100 reps.
As the challenge progresses, if you want to increase the challenge you can either slowly increase the weights to increase intensity, or keep the same weights and increase the number of reps per set to increase density. Either option is fine, but you can keep everything the same if you continue to be challenged by the work.
The "reps" on the loaded carry are the distance in yards or meters. 2 sets of 50 meter walks, 1 set of a 100 meter walk, or 5 sets of 20 meter walks, etc. Try to mix up the load and distance each day, as long as you get to at least 100. When using a single hand carry, I did 100 left and 100 right.
Break In Week
I highly recommend taking one week before the challenge to play around with the exercise selections and weights used. Go very light for the initial weight selections, lighter than you think. You can always progress the weights up over the course of the challenge. You don't want to burn out right away going too heavy.
Try doing 5 sets of 10 in each exercise one day, and then 5 sets of 10 the next day with the same exercises and weights. You want to feel that second day like you're slightly sore but not painful in any way. If you're struggling on the second day, drop the weights and try again a third day. Stick to 5-8 sets of 10 the week prior to the challenge to prepare yourself for the actual work.
Personal Results
Experiment 1: Jan 2026
Exercise selection
- Push: push up
- Pull: TRX row
- Hinge: KB swings
- Squat: bodyweight squats
- Loaded carry: different types of KB carries each day for 100 meters
Results
In general, I felt really good after the 20 workouts. No excessive fatigue and no weird aches or pains. To answer the original question of "can I do a 10K challenge that doesn't become a boring slog?" I think the answer is "yes" with this approach. By that standard alone I think this first time through was a successful experiment.
Looking at different before & after biometric measurements, there wasn't much change over the month, which I think is normal. I would have been shocked if one month of exercise would drop my blood pressure or increase my VO2 max. On the other hand, I did lose 5 pounds and 1 inch off my belly without excessive dieting, so it was a good short term improvement to body composition.
Looking at exercise performance, there was an approximately 20% improvement across the board. I tested before and after the challenge by doing 1 set of each exercise to "failure" with good form. The total time to finish the workout dropped by 20% from the first to the last. Pushups, rows, swings, and squats all had ~20% increase in the numbers. I also tested some exercises that weren't in the challenge to see if there was any carryover, and yes, double KB presses, double KB front squats, and very heavy swings also saw ~20% increase in the numbers. I thought the carryover was one of the most interesting aspects of the challenge. I plan on trying this again next January with a different exercise selection.
Variations and ideas
Barbells
Example 1
- Push: bench press
- Pull: bent row
- Hinge: deadlift
- Squat: back squat
- Loaded carry: farmer walk
Example 2
- Push: overhead press
- Pull: barbell curl
- Hinge: hip thrust
- Squat: front squat
- Loaded carry: suitcase carry
Dumbbells
- Push: overhead press
- Pull: dumbbell curl
- Hinge: Romanian deadlift
- Squat: goblet squat
- Loaded carry: farmer walk
Kettlebells
- Push: overhead press
- Pull: gorilla row
- Hinge: clean
- Squat: front squat
- Loaded carry: farmer walk
- Push: overhead press
- Pull: bent row
- Hinge: swing or snatch
- Squat: goblet squat
- Loaded carry: waiter walk
Bodyweight
Bodyweight exercises lend themselves well to the "as many sets as needed" approach. As the challenge progresses, you would progress the exercises by increasing the number of reps done per set. Crawling variations are good for a bodyweight "loaded carry".
Example 1
- Push: any variation of push up
- Pull: horizontal or TRX row
- Hinge: good mornings or hip lifts
- Squat: bodyweight squats
- Loaded carry: bear crawl
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