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The Prisoner Workout: Killer Bodyweight Exercises for S...

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August 5, 2015
Fitness, Health & Sports

The Prisoner Workout: Killer Bodyweight


Exercises for Small Spaces

Besides a few brief stints of freedom, notorious British criminal and troublemaker
Charles Salvador (better known as Charles Bronson) has been serving time since
1974. During these decades behind bars, and often conned to isolation,
Bronson has become a tness fanatic, creating workout programs that require
only his bodyweight and a few odd objects. His extreme regimen has given him
near-superhuman strength he claims to be able to do 172 push-ups in 60
seconds, pick up a pool table by himself, and bend a steel prison cell door with
his bare hands. Hes set many prison tness records as well, including one for
most push-ups in an hour: 1,727.
Now, itd be easy to take Bronsons claims with a grain of salt. The man is not
only a convicted criminal, but his violent, loose-cannon behavior has earned him
the label of Britains most notorious prisoner.
But Bronson is hardly the only inmate whos managed to gain impressive
strength without access to barbells, nutritious food, or supplements. Prisoners all
over the world have created highly eective strength-building routines they can
perform in the tiny space of their cell or with limited equipment in the jail yard.
For men who are locked up, being strong and looking strong isnt just about
aesthetics and personal development; the appearance of size and prowess acts
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While most of us will thankfully never end up behind bars, I think we can all take
a lesson from convicts on Brett
how to
notKate
let your circumstances be an excuse for
and
your tness goals. Below we
highlight
bodyweight exercises used by prisoners
McKay
the world over to get strong
stay to
strong.
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The Benets of Bodyweight Workouts


You can do them anywhere. Dont have time to make it to the gym? Travel a
lot? Locked up for 5-10 years? Great! You can do the prisoner workout
anywherebedroom, oce, hotel room, or solitary connement.
Its free. Dont have the money for a gym membership or purchasing your own
equipment? Thats not an excuse for not exercising. With a few simple
bodyweight exercises, you can create a full-body workout thats completely free.
Strength+cardio in a single workout. By increasing the tempo and
decreasing the rest between sets and exercises, you can turn a bodyweight
workout into both a high-intensity cardio session and a strength workout. In 30
minutes, youll be done with your exercise for the day.

The Exercises
Below Ive highlighted six main bodyweight exercises that work the entire body.
However, with a little tweaking of each exercise, you can create over 50 dierent
exercises from just these six basic movements. If youre locked up for life, Im
sure you could come up with another 50 variations.

Push-ups
According to the book he wrote in prison, Solitary Fitness, Bronson performs
2,000 push-ups a day. If you start doing 10 push-ups a day and add 5 more each
day, in a little over a year, you can get up to that level.
Push-up Variations
The push-up works multiple muscle groups including the chest, anterior deltoid,
and triceps. And the great thing about it is that the exercise can be easily
modied to increase dicultly and work dierent muscle groups.
Narrow/Wide Hand Placement. By simply adjusting the placement of your
hands, you can emphasize dierent muscle groups. Narrow hand placement
works the triceps, while a wider hand placement emphasizes the pecs.

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Hindu Push-up. This is a dynamic full-body movement that will build strength
and exibility in your chest, shoulders, back, hips, and triceps.
Get in position by standing with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width
apart. Bend down and place your hands on the oor while keeping your arms and
legs straight. You should look like an upside down human v with your butt
being the point of the v and your head pointing down to the ground.
To perform the Hindu push-up, youre going to make sort of a swooping motion
with your body. Bring your head down and forward by bending your elbows.
When your head gets close to the ground, continue moving your torso forward by
arching your back and lowering your hips. Your hips will now be near your hands.
Make sure to get a good stretch in your back. Return to the starting position and
repeat.
Handstand Push-up. Forget shoulder presses. If you want a killer shoulder
workout, look no further than the handstand push-up. To perform the handstand
push-up, assume a handstand position. Slowly bend your elbows and lower your
inverted body towards the ground. In order to maintain balance, youre going to
have to call on your core and other smaller stabilizing muscles. If you cant do a
stand-alone handstand, use a wall to assist you.

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One-Armed Push-up. Youll have achieved top-dog, alpha-male-prisoner,


beast-mode status when you can perform multiple one-handed push-ups.
For 30+ more push-up variations, check out this post.

Pull-ups
Pull-ups are a highly eective exercise that works a whole host of muscle groups,
including the latissimus dorsi (the wing muscles on your back), biceps, traps,
pecs, and forearms.
Better still, they can be done anywhere theres a place to hang from. You can buy
a pull-up bar that ts in your doorframe for $30. If you dont have access to that,
monkey bars or even a tree limb at a park will work. What if youre in a hotel? If
the doorframe is wide enough, you could do some pull-ups from there though,
theyll be more like nger pull-ups. Prison? Im sure you can nd a bar
somewhere to use. There are lots of bars in there, I hear, though I guess more of
the vertical than horizontal variety.
Pull-up Variations
Just like the push-up, pull-ups can be modied to work dierent muscles groups
or to make the exercise more dicult.
Chin-up. Shift your hand into a chin-up position, and youll work your biceps
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Mixed Grip Pull-up. One hand grips the bar overhand and the other underhand.
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Commando Pull-up. You may remember Rocky doing these babies during his
epic training montage. Take an underhand grip with one hand and an overhand
grip with the other. Pull your head to one side of the bar for one rep, and then to
the other side of the bar on the next rep.
Narrow/Wide Grip. You can adjust your grip width to focus on dierent muscle
groups. Try doing pull-ups with your hands right next to each other or as far apart
from each other as you can.
Towel Pull-ups. Hang two towels from your bar and grip one in each hand. Pull
yourself up. Great for grip strength.
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your body toward one hand, taking some of the weight o the opposite hand.
Keep your sternum at the Brett
bar. Return
your body to the center and repeat on the
and Kate
opposite side. Return to the
center and lower your body under control. That is
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one rep.
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One-handed Pull-up. Youll have achieved top-dog, alpha-male-prisoner,
beast-mode status when you can perform multiple one-handed pull-ups.
If you cant do more than one stinking pull-up, see our do more than
one pull-up workout. Itll have you cranking out pull-ups for reps in no
time.

Squats
The squat is one of the most basic yet eective athletic movements. In just one
exercise, you work your quads, hamstrings, glutes, hips, and inner thighs.
Squat Variations
Prisoner Squat. The traditional prisoner bodyweight squat is performed by
placing your hands behind your head. Squat down until your thighs are below
parallel. Come up. Thats one rep.
Add Weight. While you might not have access to a barbell, you can nd odd
objects in your environment that you can hoist up on your shoulders or hold in
front of your chest. Once youve got your desired weight, simply squat.
Squat Jumps. A plyometric version of the squat to build explosiveness. Perform
a prisoner squat as you normally would, but when you reach the bottom of the
squat explode up and jump o the ground as high as you can. When your feet
are back on the ground, immediately sink into another squat and jump again.
Great for HIIT.

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Pistol Squat. Youll have achieved top-dog, alpha-male-prisoner, beast-mode


status when you can perform multiple pistol squats. A pistol squat is a
one-legged full squat. The leg that youre not squatting with sticks out right in
front of you when youre in the squat position. When youre at the bottom of the
squat, you sort of look like a pistol, hence the name. Its a beast to do and will
take months to work up to.
There are entire routines to help you accomplish this Herculean feat (and
perhaps well hit on it in the future), but one of the best exercises to help you
segue into a pistol squat is to perform the assisted variety. Simply grab a pole or
some other sturdy object in front of you and lower yourself into a one-legged
squat position and use the pole to help pull yourself up. Eventually, you can take
o these training wheels and do a free-standing one.

Dips
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Dips work the triceps, pecs, shoulders, forearms, and core, and you dont need a
fancy dip rig to do them. Prisoners will put their hands on a chair with their feet
on the oor or propped up on the bed. You can make them more dicult by
placing weighted objects in your lap.

Hanging Leg Raises


This is a core blaster. Not only does it hit the abs, obliques, and rib muscles, but
it also works your quads, hips, forearms, and shoulder muscles.
Hanging Leg Raise Variations

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Straight Leg Raises. Grab and hang from a bar with a slightly wider than
shoulder-width overhand grip. Keeping your knees straight, raise legs by exing
hips until they are completely exed, or knees are well above hips. Return until
hips are extended downward.
Bent Knee Leg Raises. If you cant do a straight leg raise, you can modify it by
bending your knees and raising them into your chest.
Full Straight Leg Raise. Perform a straight leg raise as you normally would,
but instead of stopping when your feet rise above your hips, keep going until
your toes touch the bar.
Towel Straight Leg Raises. Place two towels over the bar and grip one in each
hand. Perform a straight leg raise while holding onto the towels.

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as you can. Rotate to the other side. Thats one rep.


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One-Arm Straight Leg Raise.
McKay Youll have achieved top-dog, alphamale-prisoner, beast-mode
when
Bestatus
the rst
to you can perform multiple one-armed
straight leg raises and hold
yourself
in
comment! the top position for several seconds.

Burpees
The burpee is the ultimate full-body exercise. Theres a reason football teams,
CrossFit practitioners, and elite military forces use the burpee in their workouts.
Just one simple movement tests both your strength and aerobic capacities.
Burpee Variations
Basic Burpee. To perform a basic burpee, just follow these instructions:
Begin in a squat position with hands on the oor in front of you.
Kick your feet back to a push-up position.
Immediately return your feet to the squat position.
Leap up as high as possible from the squat position.
Burpee With Push-up. Perform the burpee normally, but after you kick out
your feet to a push-up position, go ahead and do a full push-up.
Burpee With Hindu Push-up. Instead of just doing a full push-up, make it a
Hindu push-up.
Burpee+Pull-up. Stand underneath a pull-up bar or tree branch that is high
enough that you have to leap to reach it. Perform a burpee normally, but when
you leap up grab the bar and perform a pull-up. Repeat. Did you hear that? That
was the sound of your soul dying.
Click here for more on the benets of this exercise, more variations,
and sample burpee workouts.

Putting It Together: Possible Prisoner Workouts


As you can see above, youve got a lot of choices when it comes to exercises to
create a bodyweight workout. Mix and match the exercises to your liking along
with a set and rep scheme to create your bodyweight workout.
If youre looking for a little guidance, though, here are a few suggestions:

Deck of Pain

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Take a standard deck of 52


cards.
Brett
andAssign
Kate one of the above exercises (or one of
their variations) to each ofMcKay
the four suits. So you could have something like:
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Clubs: Push-ups
comment!
Spades: Pull-ups
Diamonds: Squats
Hearts: Hanging Leg Raises
Start drawing cards from the top. The suit tells you what exercise youre doing;
the number tells you the reps. Face cards count as ten rep; aces 11. So if you
drew the 5 of diamonds you would do ve squats; if you drew the king of clubs,
you do ten push-ups. Draw the cards and perform the corresponding exercise
and reps until all the cards have been drawn.
Finish it o with ten burpees for good measure

Juarez Valley Method


According to the book Jailhouse Strong, the convicts inside Mexicos Juarez Valley
Prison one of the worlds most dangerous prisons use the following rep
scheme for their bodyweight workout.
Pick an exercise. Youre only going to be doing one during this circuit. Lets say
for this example, youre going to do push-ups.
This circuit consists of 20 sets. The rep scheme looks like this:
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
Set
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1: 20 Reps
2: 1 Rep
3: 19 Reps
4: 2 Reps
5: 18 Reps
6: 3 Reps
7: 17 Reps
8: 4 Reps
9: 16 Reps
10: 5 Reps
11: 15 Reps
12: 6 Reps
13: 14 Reps
14: 7 Reps
15: 13 Reps
16: 8 Reps
17: 12 Reps
18: 9 Reps
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So on the odd sets, youreBrett


starting
andfrom
Kate 20 reps, going down a rep every odd set,
and on the even sets, youre
starting
from 1 rep and going up a rep every even
McKay
set. When its all said and Be
done,
the youll
rst tohave completed 210 reps.
comment!
Between each set, walk 5-10 steps for a rest and then get back into it. The goal
is to complete this circuit as fast as you can.

Mike Tyson Squat Workout


Tyson did this body squat routine while in prison; it doesnt sound too hard but
its a real killer:
Line up ten cards facedown in a straight line on the ground with 4
in-between each card.
Begin by standing over the rst card, squat down and pick up the rst card.
Holding the rst card, take a step forward to the second card. Squat down
and place the card you just picked up on top of the second card. At this
point, youll have no cards in your hand, and 2 cards will be one on top of
the other on the ground below you.
Squat once and pick up the rst card.
Squat once and pick up the second card.
Take a step forward to the third card, squat down, and place one of the two
cards in your hand on top of the card on the ground. Now squat down and
place the other card on top of the cards on the ground.
Squat one time each to pick up the three cards one by one.
Take a step forward to the fourth card, and repeat this process until youve
made it through all ten cards.

Greasing the Groove


Instead of having a set time period where you try to crank out as many reps as
you can, with greasing the groove, youre performing reps throughout the day.
You might set up a system where every half hour, you perform ten push-ups.
Assuming youre up for 12 hours a day, thats 240 push-ups every day.
I do greasing the groove with pull-ups. Ive got a pull-up bar hung up in my
closets doorframe. Anytime I walk by it, I crank out ve pull-ups. The number of
pull-up reps Im able to accumulate during the day always surprises me.

Exercise to Failure
For hypertrophy and endurance, simply do one set of each exercise for as many
reps as you can.

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When Ryan Ferguson was locked up in a Missouri jail from 2004 to 2013 after
being wrongly convicted of
murder,
he started a routine where he focused on just
Brett
and Kate
one exercise a day. The goal
is to work your way up so that you can complete
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500 reps in an hour. It doesnt
matter
how many sets you break this up into, just
Be the
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try to get to that 500 rep count
before 60 minutes is up.
comment!
_________________________________
Sources:
Convict Conditioning by Paul Wade
Jailhouse Strong by Josh Bryant
Solitary Fitness by Charles Bronson
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