10 Sets of 10
A Master Raoul Beating
One of the most beneficial and frequent warm ups we would do when training under Sensei Raoul was what became known as 10 sets of 10. It’s very simple but extremely effective in rapid physical development. One guy I train claims to be bench pressing nearly 10kg more in each hand of dumbbell bench press after only two weeks of performing this warm up every day.
Please note it is not a work out in itself it is a warm up only. It is to be done as fast a possible. The abdominal work is the hardest component. Use the other exercises to rest your abs. Concentrate on what you’re resting not what you’re using.
Here it is:
- 10 push ups
- 10 sit ups – full sit ups – hands on head – feet on floor – legs at 90 degrees – chest touches thighs at the top and you go all the way down
- 10 leg raises – hands on stomach – legs locked straight – feet kept apart if possible
- 10 squats – deep squats – back straight – full range of motion – no half squats or leaning forward
10 sets. That’s 100 of each exercise as fast as possible. It is a sprint warm up. And it’s tough. I got the Thursday night crew to perform this recently and it floored most of them. When you can burn through this and you’re ready to start training. Then we’re getting somewhere.
An Upgrade
As we got tougher so did the warm up. One of the more difficult versions of this whole body style warm up came in the form of the following exercises:
- 30 forward rolling push ups
- 30 backward rolling push ups
- 30 squats
5 sets for 150 of each exercise. One night in particular when I did both a karate class and a judo class I got to do warm ups for both. And you guessed. I had to do 10 sets of 10 to warm up for karate and then 5 sets of 30 to warm up for judo. Man, that was tough. It makes me cringe just thinking about it.
Spread the Insanity.