u/J-from-PandT

There are a handful of 250 rep challenge workouts floating about on social media to be done on or around America's 250th July 4th, 2026.

The one of the most interest to me that I've seen is doing 250 total shiko, our beloved and iconic staple exercise from sumo training...

It was about a decade back I participated in amateur sumo, and it seems to be growing tremendously now here in the US of A.

It's cool to see that. Sumo is a great sport.

Note : NOT LIMITED TO AMERICANS

any and all sumo lovers, fans, rikishi, etc are invited to participate

Get y'all 250 (or your best) shiko in.

Hopefully my regular baithak (hindu squats) training will keep the soreness down. It's been almost as long since my last amateur sumo practice since I've done my most recent rep of shiko.

Don't think I've ever done more than 120 in a session before, when it was fairly crowded practice room with everyone counting off their x10 (in a mix of english, spanish, and japanese).

I'll leave a comment with my total time required after completion. Looking forward to seeing y'all's.

Here's to strength,

We all know of the 10k Swings Challenge, and last september I rather enjoyed running it instead as a 10k Snatch Challenge (almost entirely as glove snatch with 16kg comp bell)

10k Snatch Challenge Of September 2025 : https://www.reddit.com/r/kettlebell/comments/1njtzp4/10000_snatch_challenge_complete/

This month of July 2026, I'm inclined to run what struck me as a wonderful awful idea a few days back, to again butcher the challenge as written by again using the "wrong movement"...

See, it's a debate whether my best kettlebell thing is the bottoms up press or the reverse flip.

The former not an official competition lift anywhere to my knowledge (though I wouldn't be surprised if it were in the polish hardstyle comps), with the latter an official competition lift in two kettlebell juggling disciplines (kettlebell juggling sprint, kettlebell juggling half marathon).

I like both lifts, and also have some interest in both of those kettlebell juggling disciplines, being highly competitive were I to make it official in sprint, and like a ___ term goal of a girevoy 10:00 snatch set, am not at the endurance at present to get to 30:00 of reverse flips.

I like reverse flip more than snatches, as well as more than swings, it is still a kettlebell ballistic - fills that same training role, but is the one I most willingly train volume on...

And I ain't gonna be doing ten thousand bottoms up press reps.

So for me it's 10k Reverse Flips Challenge this month.

My Parameters (you do you) :

•16kg comp bell all or mostly

•gloves (cotton inspection gloves ala girevoy) for hand health all or for the most part - though admittedly I should train away from their usage all the time and toughen/roughen up my hands for the eventual 10:00 snatch and 30:00 reverse flips sets

10k/31≈323 daily minimum

10k/15≈667 and seems like another wonderful awful big ole bad idea as a speed run

or anywhere in between is acceptable, so long as the reps are done by the end of the month

.....

My inclination is to just spam half an hour minimum, an hour maximum of them each day til finished, an hour a day hopefully meaning a fifteen day run.

I have small amounts of karate belt wrist work, calf raisers, pushups, and hindu squats, all four still on the list of daily required exercises.

I've been training with a buddy a bunch lately and therefore likely will have other calisthenics workouts, pullup focused.

I'm inclined to mix in some squatting, maybe the required daily hindu squats, maybe flat footed bw squats, maybe goblet squats with the same bell, in with the reverse flips during the reverse flip sessions.

More squats is to me never a bad thing. More squats is my original lifting roots.

July related ; I've seen a few 250th Anniversary Of America Challenge Workouts floating about on social media, 250 reps of this or that, and intend to do 250 shiko ala sumo wrestling on the 4th of July (probably as 25x10) which means it may be a day of triple sessions or something these scheduled around a definite trip to the cookout at my aunt's.

Today, starts the spamming of reverse flips.

Here's to strength,

Moments ago at a bodyweight of about 290lbs, my legs still sore from the hindu squat workout two days ago - I did a set of x35, therefore making a ✓ for the day's hindu squats being done, and completing a year of hindu squats every day.

The year saw zero missed days, every day meaning every single day, and my start mark on the daily hindu squats coincided almost exactly to the anniversary mark of my much longer pushups every day streak which will hit the ten year mark in about a week.

I started the year with emom workouts, admittedly going too many reps per minute too fast, and with a brief exception during the winter where it was about doing hindu squats indoors vs lifting outdoors in the baja canada cold I didn't do enough emom workouts.

My largest volume day was probably 60x8 emom apache runner's style in that aforementioned dodging the cold period.

(apache runner's style/apache runner's trick meaning to hold water in the mouth to force nose breathing)

My highest rep set was x75 reps.

I am a 6' endomorph or meso-endo/endo-meso hybrid at +/- 290lbs.

The gold standard is an old time wrestling and old school professional wrestling performance standard ;

To do x500 unbroken hindu squats in ≤15:00.

I pretty regularly can get a set of x35 to x60 at ~60rpm, whereas that endurance performance set is met at 33⅓rpm.

The hindu squat is a very cyclical exercise, and it is VERY FAST.

I believe I've heard the x500 unbroken being done in as little as 11:30, FLYING strength-endurance.

Popular in the world of kushti to this day, the hindu squat also was real popular in turn of the nineteenth century western physical culture, essentially called the deep knee bend, and oft a bet on contest.

My legs did not fall off.

Doing anywhere from 15 total reps to ~500 total reps as a day's volume with the average day skewed towards the low end of under 100/day (and one hundred hindu squats daily is a solid every day daily training thing to work to and maintain), the largest gains I've seen are not in having decent work capacity in the legs, but in hindu squats serving as a breathing exercise.

I found it much more efficient to breathe in and I went up, out as I went down, then more efficient still to slow down from a breath in/out every half rep to a breath in/out every full rep, and now I'm experimenting with not having a breath every rep.

Training apache style with a small amount of barbell back squats, a decent amount of jump rope, a bunch of kettlebell juggling, a bunch of kettlebell swings, during these many hindu squats has changed me from an unable to nose breath mouth breathing troglodyte to for the first time in my long training history a nose breather.

Like my long term daily pushups I value these daily hindu squats, and knowing I have come nowhere near my potential with the lessons of the year boiled down to ;

•adapt to more average reply volume

•alternate a few straight sets each day with emom workouts on other days

•slowly increase emom workout volume

•every so often increase reps per set on straight set days

•rarely test for PR reps, a few straight sets will be an indicator of where you can amrap given the motivation

Tomorrow will be a year and a day of hindu squats every day.

I think I even like hindu squats more than I like my pushups. They're no excuse, can be done anytime, anywhere, and fill a very similar to kettlebell swings training niche.

I ain't stopping.

Here's to strength,