Physical: 100 Season 2

You know how much interest I have in reality shows or even K-dramas, and obviously no K-Pop. I watch some Korean shows, but I don't chase after their sappy soap dramas. I generally like those with a lot of murder and gore, preferably psychological thrillers with low to zero romance. But I'm quite hooked on 'Physical: 100'. Dunno how many seasons it'll go for, but we'll see how long my interest keeps up. 

I finally finished watching 'Physical: 100' Season 2. I was left grimacing, gasping and also amazed by the physical prowess and sheer grit of the competitors, especially the women. Of course competition is brutal, but they pushed through. As much as many are 'retired' athletes, they are still ridiculously strong and fit. In S2, it's pretty clear that many contestants have trained hard for it. I'm also in awe of all the contestants' muscles. Heheh. Here's a nice summary of the contestants on Prestige.

Unsurprisingly, MMA fighters, firefighters, rugby players and CrossFit athletes gain an upper hand. Woo Jin-young, an active CrossFit athlete won in S1. Amotti/Kim Jae Hong is the winner of S2. So much of the quests aren't just about cardio. It's a lot of strength, upper body strength and speed. Damnnn, I wish that by just watching the show, I could gain some muscles too. Hahahahaha.

As much as this is a television show hamming it up for the audiences, it's a pretty good watch. I don't know it if it's truly so in the Korean sporting world, but the contestants are incredibly polite and encouraging. It makes for feel-good television drama in the face of fierce competition. It's such a refreshing change from all the manipulative tactics of other television reality shows.

However, there weren't any women team leaders, and the team leaders don't seem to want any women in their teams, except for three enlightened men. I did wonder how Team Leader Lee Jae-yoon agreed to send a woman out to pull-ups when she could only do six; it's crystal clear that you need to do minimally 20 to be of any help to the team. 

The top four contestants to fight for the coveted #1 (and prize money) were Andre Jin (former national team rugby player), Hong Beom-Seok (former S1 contestant, special forces and firefighter), Justin Harvey (model and actor), and Amotti (YouTube and CrossFit athlete). These are athletes who all have a great grounding in various aspects of sports, which means they have great stamina and flexibility, endurance and mental strength. I cracked up when the top four sat down for a chat and all revealed that they have had surgeries done on various parts of their body joints.

The three-man quest to the top two for the fight to the prize are squats. Wtf are 'infinite squats' anyway?! A 100-kg trough of coal. Fwwwaaaaaah. A woman who's fairly fit can generally squat 75-85kg. But a man can squat 150kg on the average! Weightlifters and CrossFitters would totally have an advantage. These athletes would squat 100kg normally, as a warm-up set. In this quest, the first set of 100-kg squats was 30 reps! OMG. The second set was 150-kg, 40 reps. The third set was 200-kg — Amotti and Hong Beom-Seok could lift it, but Andre Jin couldn't even get up from the squat. Those fast reps were pure insanity. 

Amotti literally said, 

The first set at 100-kg: I live and breathe squats. 

The second set at 150-kg: It wasn't too challenging yet, so I thought doing 30 would be a breeze.

The third set at 200-kg: My legs started to feel strained. It's a matter of willpower at this point.

The quests are tough af. I grimaced all the way through. The pain and the discipline it takes to even get here. Spartan races make a differentiation in the weight of the sandbags for men and women. This show doesn't. You gotta move 40-kg sandbags anyhow, anyway in under nine minutes. Woah. The final quest to the top four is 150-kg metal-roller race; it's not just mad, it's unfair to women. Gawwd. 

If a Season 3 happens, would the show producers tweak it? I doubt it. The final quests would have to be gladiator-drama worthy, which would mean it's very hard for a woman to compete in terms of strength and weight.  Collider's comment about the lack of women representation and unfairness of the later part of the quests to women is so valid.

Season 1's revival match had more women in power as well. ​​​​​Eu-DdeumShim and the other contestants who lost got a second chance. They had to hold a rope carrying their torso and 40 percent of their body weight. The final five people could re-enter the game as a team. Eu-Ddeum had the best form and was one of the people to re-enter the game. Season 2 made it harder for women to re-enter the combat mission. The winner formed his team instead of it coming down to individual performance. Ji-Hyun Jung won and picked former team leaders and the biggest men for his team, like Korean Thanos. This meant all the women got the short end of the stick.

After the montage of women's death matches, we didn't see them highlighted again until the cart quest in "Mine." We saw You-in Jung face off against Jang-kun Lee and Soo-jin Lim. Soo-jin's kept questioning if she could push the carts of 18 sandbags across, and she did it. You-in had a different strategy of loading fewer bags and making more trips. Jang-kun finished first, leaving the women to battle it out. Soo-jin won and talked about the pressure she felt in her interview. "I was really bent on not holding my team back," she said. "And thankfully, I think I managed to pull my weight." All players feel this pressure when it comes to team quests. But that pressure is even worse for women.