The main strength training portion was further polished and this was put out as Convict Conditioning. This portion will be published as Convict Conditioning 2. What's up? In the original manuscript, I included bodyweight programs for working the grip, neck and calves. Due to space constrictions, these programs have ended up as chapters in the sequel, Convict Conditioning 2. In jail, these three areas are sometimes called "shotgun muscles", because they ride shotgun with the larger workhorses of the arms, legs and trunk.
If you are working the Big Six hard, you may feel no need to perform extra work your neck, grip or calves. But if you want to know how to specialize on these areas using bodyweight-only progressions, CC2 will teach you everything you need to know. Grip strength is a key part of total strength. But the trend for grip specialists today seems to be based around machines, grippers and other external equipment. In reality, the healthiest and most efficient way to work the hell out of your grip is with traditional bodyweight techniques.
My grip program will show you how to turn your weak digits into steel vices. At least the modern training world is getting turned on to the importance of hand strength. Seems like everywhere people are talking about grip power, grippers, etc. This is a good thing, but how many athletes are thinking about foot strength? Every time you lift a weight or move, force travels directly through the feet. Yet foot, calf and ankle training is something you just don't see discussed.
I'll give you the prison perspective. The same might be said of neck work. If you plan on getting into a fight, you had better have a strong neck to protect your noggin. That's why boxers, wrestlers and convicts still have a lot to teach about safe, advanced neck-building techniques, even if this valuable info has disappeared from modern gyms. I think that everyone who works out with weights—even die-hard iron fanatics—would benefit from adding bodyweight work into their routine.
I included some programming tips on how to integrate bodyweight into your in-gym workouts in Convict Conditioning towards the end of chapter For those who are still stalling, I wrote an article a while back detailing some bodyweight sub- stitutes for regular weighted exercises. You might find it useful. Check it out here. Do you approve of cardio?
This is NOT the same as aerobic exercise. The idea of long periods of ass-numbing cycling, rowing, or stepping up non- existent steps make me want to throw up. Forget the expensive computerized machines that now line every gym.
The best kind of cardio is bodyweight. Prisoners have understood this for a long time. Perform a set of stand-to-stand bridges followed by high-rep squats; your heart will be pounding, you'll be gasping for breath, and your vascular system will be working overtime to provide energy to your muscles, and remove waste products.
Compare this to a boring, unproductive thirty minutes on a gravity walker and you'll start to understand what I mean. The most fundamental form of bodyweight cardio is running. Running in a jail cell isn't practi- cal, so prisoners who want to do cardio tend to turn to special bodyweight exercises which are intense and functional.
By "intense" I just mean that the training conveys cardio ability geared to maximal bursts over a smaller time frame. Long-term aerobic stamina is pretty useless in a hall- way confrontation. By "functional" I mean that cardio drills are designed to mimic real-life prison situations; from combat to getting up and down quickly. Trust me, getting down on the floor real fast takes on a significant survival edge when an Armed Inspection Unit hits your cell.
For those who want a little more info on how the convicts do their cardio, I've included lots of information in Convict Conditioning 2. How do these guys get so big and strong on a crummy prison diet? You're right. A lot of extremely muscular prison athletes survive and thrive! I've met record holders who achieved their PRs on fairly "insubstantial" diets full of "low quality" grub. So what's going on? The topic is too complex to discuss here.
I'll tell you now that while training in prison I built up many ideas about nutrition that are com- pletely at odds with the status quo. The modern training public are usually fed a complete load of bullshit about the kind of diet that's essential for muscle and strength. These sacred cows are care- fully constructed and protected for one reason, and one reason only—our old friend, money.
I still eat the way I ate in prison—three squares a day. All the other stuff people say you need—like high protein—is bullshit. The magazines promoting high protein and whey powder and shakes and fat loss pills, they are the people selling that crap! Many athletes and nutritionalists—and especially supplement companies—sure as hell won't like what I have to say.
If you're going to use free weights, kettlebells are the best you can use. Back when free weights were first invented, they were almost universally used in conjunction with bodyweight exercises. The Roman strategist Vegetius describes hand-weights used as a part of the Roman army's military calisthenics training. But the soldiers didn't curl these primitive dumbbells—they ran and jumped with them. They were used purely to enhance bodyweight skills.
The ancient Celts used ring-stones in a similar fashion. As far back as Tang Dynasty China, Shaolin monks used stone padlocks arcane devices not dissimilar to kettlebells in combination with kung fu bodyweight exercises. To me, kettlebells follow this old school spirit. Kettlebells are easy to combine with one-leg squats, pullups, bridges, sit-ups, and so on. It was only later that free weights and body- weight work became estranged opposites.
Back in the day, they were usually fused together for maximum results. One of my major bugbears with regular bodybuilding is the "elbows splayed" position, on bench presses, shoulder presses, etc. I was speaking to Pavel about this, and he put me straight on a few things. He explained that when you press or pull a kettlebell, your arms, wrists and elbows can move more freely than with a bar or machine. As a result, you tend to see less injuries with kettlebells than with other forms of free weight training.
So if you are going to use a free weights program alongside Convict Conditioning, kettlebells are probably the best option. That said, I'm not an expert on kettlebells, I'm not an RKC, and I certainly don't get sponsored for saying any of this.
It's just my two cents worth, since y'all were nice enough to ask. I have a huge amount of respect for gymnasts and their art-form. Both disciplines are derived from a larger, more ancient corpus of bodyweight techniques, but they are built around different goals.
Progressive calisthenics is a stripped-down solo training method designed to build as much raw power and muscle as possible, using increasingly difficult compound bodyweight techniques. Gymnastics, on the other hand, is a regulated sport where athletes are judged on the presentation and difficulty of a series of bodily movements.
These different purposes result in substantially different training approaches. Progressive calis- thenics is about building maximum strength and performance through developing the muscles and their tendons. Likewise, lots of bulk is unnecessary in gymnastics, and gymnasts tend to work their nervous systems rather than zoning in on the muscular system per se. Prison strength trainees tend to favor relatively low skill movements. They would rather devote their energy to building monstrous muscle and power, rather than drain that energy worrying about factors like balance, grace, or flexibility.
The handstand pushup is a good example. Most prison athletes like to find a wall or ideally, a corner to train in, to help eliminate the balance fac- tor. Gymnasts are the opposite; they need to learn this movement free, balanced, and in transition from all positions. Although plyometrics and even isometrics are employed from time to time, the majority of Convict Conditioning training should be performed at a smooth, regular speed. In contrast, gymnastic movements vary widely from high speed, to slow, to static.
These are just a handful of basic differences, but I could list a lot more. Maybe the essential dis- tinction to remember is that gymnastics is a much more complex pursuit than progressive calis- thenics.
Sporting gymnastics contains many sub-disciplines, from artistic gymnastics to rhythmic work and acrobatics. It comprises hundreds of techniques. To perform to a high level in pro- gressive calisthenics, the most equipment you need is a softball, a basketball, some books and a place to hang from.
Since that time, more and more apparatus events have been incorporated into gymnastics, including the parallel bars, the balance beam, the horizontal bar, the rings, the uneven bars, and so on. Luckily, the strength world is Let me tell you, some of these guys are true geniuses at what they do.
Christopher Sommer, author of Building the Gymnastic Body is a prime exam- ple. Building the Gymnastic Body was one of them. Jim Bathurst is another top guy who understands gymnastics. Jim is kind of like the Renaissance Man of resistance training. He does it all—weights, gymnastics, old school calisthenics, hand-bal- ancing, you name it. Getting Jim to agree to be the model for Convict Conditioning was kind of a deal breaker for me. The guy is amazing.
Anyone who lives near Washington DC and who wants to improve their bodyweight skills or gymnastics should try and seek out Jim. Are they any good? Pushup training is a prime example. What do you need handles for? None of this crap will make you any fitter, leaner or stronger.
That can only be done by effort, dis- cipline and consistency. This phenomenon tends to get worse the longer you keep the exercise in your routine. Tendinitis, ten- nis and golfers elbow, and eventually elbow and wrist arthritis are just part of the game for loyal bench pressers.
And yet, pushup experts very rarely suffer from the same type of nagging injuries. Because gripping tightly while extending the arms under force is unnatural. It produces unbalanced muscular alignment in the forearms which irritates the soft tissues all the way up to the elbow joint. Imagine pushing an aggressor away from you, rolling a log or pushing a car. Pushing with flat hands is a more natural move- ment pattern, and a much healthier way to press.
It not only strengthens the entire hand and fin- gers, it also distributes force much more evenly along the forearm. Before you buy into this, remember that pushups are a strength exercise—not a flexibility exercise. If you do want to strengthen your shoulders in a stretch position, there are better and safer techniques to work through, like uneven pushups.
Besides, if you look at most guys using these handles, their torsos never go beyond the point where the floor would be a barrier anyway. Totally pointless. My advice? Do it. What are your thoughts on flexibility? The other day I asked Pavel if he could find some time to teach me how to do the splits. Maybe not. In San Quentin I met a lot of karate and kenpo guys, and my early flexibility training was built around martial arts stretching protocols. This was back in the day when Bruce Lee was God.
But as I matured as an athlete, I began to see problems with the regular martial arts approach to stretching. Eventually, my attitude towards flexibility became very heavily colored by my philoso- phy of calisthenics, and changed accordingly.
I'll sum up my thoughts on flexibility as quick as I can. Not all "stretching" is the same. Broadly speaking, there are two types of stretching: passive stretching, and active stretching. In passive stretching, you elongate relaxed muscles and soft tissues using an exterior force. You can even passively stretch with machines now; like those dumbass splits machines you see in kung fu magazines. Whereas passive stretching involves elongating a muscle or body area using an external force, active stretching involves elongating an area using an internal force—namely, the force of the agonist muscles.
To give an example of the difference, having someone raise your foot to elongate the hamstring is an example of passive stretching. Slowly lift- ing your leg under the power of your hips and quadriceps to stretch the hamstring is active stretch- ing. When most people think about flexibility, or work for it, they focus almost exclusively on pas- sive stretching. This is a mistake. When a muscle is elongated, or stretched, during athletic activ- ity, it is never when the body is fully relaxed.
Relaxing the body during force-trans- mission only makes the joints and ligaments more vulnerable—which is why passive stretching devotees often get injured much easier than regular athletes. The idea that increasing flexibility by passive stretching reduces the chances of injury is a myth.
Muscles and joints should be powerful, responsive shock-absorbers, but passive stretching only trains them to be lax, loose and useless. Passive stretching does have some great benefits—in therapy, for example, or to teach relaxation—but, for superior performance and injury-proofing, athletes should build their flexibility training around active stretching.
If you want to stretch your anterior chain including the midsection and frontal hips , do it by contracting your posterior chain—i. If you want to stretch your posterior chain including the lower back and hamstrings do it by contracting your anterior chain—i. And so on. Doing so just builds in movement patterns that promote loss of control. Generally speaking, stretching a muscle and joint under tension is always a better idea than just stretching via relaxation.
Provided you do it right, stretching a muscle under tension not only ensures a desirable, healthy range of motion, it also builds powerful tendons and joints. A one-leg squat stretches the quad and knee under tension. Uneven pushups stretch the elbows and triceps under tension. Bridges, leg raises, pushups, bodyweight squats—these are the safest, most functional forms of flexibility training. For a bodyweight master, there really is no difference between functional strength work and functional flexibility training.
For more information on these ideas on flexibility, check out Convict Conditioning 2. Edward or Jacob? Sure, they might be motivated to push a little harder when a competition or physique contest was coming up, but that was about it. When performance drugs came on the scene, everything changed. Competitive athletes began taking their drugs in line with the competition seasons. Athletes increasing their drugs stack were able to amplify intensity and still recover; while detoxing from the same drugs, athleticism plum- meted and training objectives had to be altered accordingly.
Coaches began to plan how to work through all this. Non-competitive, drug- free athletes who divide their training year up do it for intellectual satisfaction. They only contract and relax. There are incredibly strong men who live in Arctic climates, and there are some real powerhouses who live in the desert. This gives the body and mind a bit of a break. The exercises also began to impact each other. I was trying to follow s hort bridges — a typical pilates-style hip bridge — with shoulderstand squats , an inverted squat to rehabilitate knees.
The target muscles were very different but the collateral impact on my core and lower back meant that I was working all the stabilising muscles over and over again which was kicking my ass! Luckily there is plenty of guidance to hand in the later chapters — Convict Conditioning details five prison themed plans that range in intensity from total beginner to hardened athlete.
I went for Good Behaviour which covers all six Progressions, two at a time in a day-on, day-off format. My decision was informed by a reasonable foundation of fitness and a willingness to take on all of the big six. New Blood splits pushups , leg raises , pullups and squats , over two workouts a week. The more punishing bridges and handstand pressups are held back for when basics have been grasped and the training intensifies.
The point is training until total failure is no kind of long-term solution, it will likely produce impressive short-term gains but sooner or later the body will be so tired it will rebel, either failing, plateauing through constructive exhaustion or increasing the likeliness of illness. The key ingredients are patience and dedication. For all its machismo the goal of the book is to be healthy as well as strong. The next week went off without a hitch, I made time to train and committed myself fully but was careful to perform the exercises mindfully and with the best form I could.
Remember what we said about having trouble with one-armers due to skipped steps? There should honestly be more in-between steps incline straddle one-armed push-ups, straddle one-armed push-ups at least before you can do a proper one-armer. It starts well enough and the end goal the pistol squat is a great all-rounder, but the middle seems kind of aimless.
The close squats and the basketball thing uneven squats are two steps we find the most issue with. If pistol squats are what you aim for they should be then we recommend using a different guide. Starts off at the perfect place, ups the difficulty perfectly, and culminates at the best possible place: the one arm pull-up.
Aside from the absurdly difficult step 10 handstand one arm push-ups? If you want, you could get some extra mileage by adding one-armed, one-legged bridges before step 10, but even without them, everything here will do wonders for both your flexibility and lower back.
Adorian Moldovan. I am the author and founder of Old School Calisthenics. Table of Contents. You Are Not Working Enough! Lights Out! Get Your Training.
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