This Coach Says 100 Bodyweight Reps a Day Are ‘All it Takes’ to Transform Your Physique

You don't need a fully decked-out gym to build muscle. With the right approach, your bodyweight can provide plenty of resistance.

Coach Dave Saric takes that idea to its logical extreme. His method involves ditching the equipment and accumulating 100 challenging bodyweight reps, using tempo rather than additional weight to progressively make the exercises harder.

'100 reps, it's all it takes,' says Saric, who credits the approach with transforming his own physique. 'It's just bodyweight callisthenics. No weights, no gym, literally 100 hard daily reps. That's it.'

But while 100 reps certainly adds up to plenty of work, Saric's method isn't simply about chasing a big number. The key is making those reps increasingly challenging as you get stronger.

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Put simply, you choose a bodyweight exercise and accumulate 100 hard reps, focusing on slow, controlled movement.

Then, rather than adding weight as you get stronger, you increase the amount of time each rep takes.

'Here’s the trick. Every rep, slow and controlled,' says Saric. 'When they do get too easy, just add a second on the way up and then on the way down.'

For example, rather than adding weight to his pull-ups, Saric progressively increases their duration.

'My pull-ups, 5 seconds up, 5 seconds down. 100 of these, that's back day,' he says.

Unsurprisingly, 100 reps performed at that pace aren't something you're going to rattle through in 10 minutes.

'45 minutes to an hour, that's as long as it should take,' Saric says. 'When the 100 are done under 45 minutes, I just add a second to the rep each way.'

Simple? Yes. Easy? Definitely not.

Saric credits the method's effectiveness to time under tension.

'Time under tension, it's the perfect tool you can use to increase the load of your reps without the need for weights,' he says.

There's an important distinction here. Slowing down a bodyweight exercise can certainly make your reps harder, but more time under tension doesn't automatically mean more muscle growth.

Research comparing different lifting tempos has found similar hypertrophy across a fairly broad range of rep durations.

What Saric's method does provide is a simple form of progression. Once he can complete the same 100 reps more comfortably, he slows the movement down, making each rep more demanding without needing additional equipment.

'I've seen my physique improve like never before,' says Saric. 'Over three years, again, just bodyweight calisthenics.'

If you want to give it a go, choose a bodyweight movement such as push-ups, pull-ups or dips and aim to accumulate 100 quality reps over the course of your session.

There's no need to attempt all 100 continuously. Break the total into manageable sets and rest for long enough to maintain good technique and a consistent range of motion.

And don't get too hung up on the number 100. There's nothing inherently muscle-building about reaching triple figures; what matters is that the exercise provides enough resistance to challenge the muscles you're trying to train.

As you become stronger, you have several options for progressive overload. You could progress to a harder exercise variation, increase your range of motion or follow Saric's approach and gradually slow down each rep.

The big takeaway isn't that everyone needs to perform 100 reps a day. It's that if you know how to keep making an exercise harder, a lack of weights doesn't have to stop you making progress.

If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.

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