Posted: 10/2/2011 10:23:54 AM EDT
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Just read the book, trying the workouts now.
Has anyone here heard of this system or tried it? Seems pretty legit to me. |
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Yeah, it's supposedly written by an ex con who did 20 years in California state pens..... The exercise methods are pretty sound... nothing earth shattering or new. Being in the military and working out a good deal, I have heard a lot of this stuff before, but this is a very simple program, and uses only bodyweight.
If you check on youtube, you can see a few videos of people doing similar calesthenic workouts... and those dudes are freaking cut. Some pretty amazing stuff too... there are even a few "street" competitions, with gymnastic type moves and poses being thrown in. |
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Quoted: Yeah, it's supposedly written by an ex con who did 20 years in California state pens..... The exercise methods are pretty sound... nothing earth shattering or new. Being in the military and working out a good deal, I have heard a lot of this stuff before, but this is a very simple program, and uses only bodyweight. If you check on youtube, you can see a few videos of people doing similar calesthenic workouts... and those dudes are freaking cut. Some pretty amazing stuff too... there are even a few "street" competitions, with gymnastic type moves and poses being thrown in. The military used to do only calisthenics and ruck marching. No running, no situps, no pushups. Go out in the morning and do an hours of calisthenics and then two or three times a week throw the ruck an and walk 10-20 miles. Only reason I can think of that they changed was that the greyhound officers got into it (long-distance runners). |
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I know several men in their 50's and 60's who are solid blocks of cut muscle. The only thing they have in common is that they are ex-con's. From my own experience, men after 50 are all "soft". I'll have to see if amazon has that book, sounds interesting. Amazon does have it, but the paperback version is WAY overpriced. I have the kindle version, and it is adequate, though for quick reference it is a pain. Go to www.dragondoor.com. They publish the book, and its still like 39.95 there 
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For me and my friends this has been a great program. According to the bodyfat scale I've been gaining 2.4 pounds of lean mass per month since I started 2.5 months ago. Since I'm 45 years old and only spending a few minutes per day on it, I'm happy with these results. But more importantly I can do things I couldn't do before like freestanding headstands. And even more importantly this is the longest I've gone with a workout program without getting injured or burning out, and while making steady progress. The exercises are nothing new, but the organization of the program is very useful. You can go to bodyweightculture.com or BeastSkills or get Ross Enamait books or in a thousand other ways learn some great exercises. But it's far more rare to see a complete bodyweight program that you can start at low fitness levels and work through progressively harder forms of each exercise. I've been able to get friends started on this (ages ranging from 15 to 72) with only a quick demonstration. They don't need to know all of the advanced forms, just start on level 1 and work that for a while. The whole convict backstory schtick should be taken with a grain of salt. Even the disclaimer at the start of the book says it's mostly fiction. But the content is great. ETA: I don't want to give the impression that this is just for middle aged desk jockeys like me. One of my friends is very strong and he's enjoying the program. He started with handstand pushups and went to close handstand pushups and is now working on getting less help from one hand. He can also nearly do one-handed pull ups and the program has convinced him to slow down and work on form. |
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Checked out some videos. Looks like other functional workout programs that sports scientists have been teaching for years. Nothing particularly revolutionary. Slap the word "Convict" on the front of a workout and it sells. The reason convicts are fit is because they have a lot of time to dedicate to pass the time. Most of fatass America prefers sitting on the couch playing video games all day long while munching down absolute garbage. It's a mentality that drives fitness.
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Quoted: Checked out some videos. Looks like other functional workout programs that sports scientists have been teaching for years. Nothing particularly revolutionary. Slap the word "Convict" on the front of a workout and it sells. The reason convicts are fit is because they have a lot of time to dedicate to pass the time. Most of fatass America prefers sitting on the couch playing video games all day long while munching down absolute garbage. It's a mentality that drives fitness. Right. It's not revolutionary. The book Starting Strength didn't invent the barbell squat. It just explained it in a way that a lot of people found useful. In the same way Convict Conditioning organizes and explains bodyweight exercises in a way that a lot of people find useful. |
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Quoted: Just read the book, trying the workouts now. Has anyone here heard of this system or tried it? Seems pretty legit to me. How did the first workout go? Are you using the book's cadence of six seconds for a complete rep? I had a metronome anyway so I set it to 60 BPM, waltz, and it works great. For everyone I know who has tried it this is far slower and more difficult than they're used to. Some people just burn through a bunch of fast sloppy pushups, for instance, and we've been trying to get them to slow down and do everything perfectly. Or if you're near a computer there are plenty of online metronomes. |
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Quoted: Links? Sounds interesting and something I could probably do at work or around the house to kill twenty minutes or so. http://www.dragondoor.com/shop-by-department/books/ It's $ 35 at this place, about $ 50 on amazon
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Just read the book, trying the workouts now. Has anyone here heard of this system or tried it? Seems pretty legit to me. How did the first workout go? Are you using the book's cadence of six seconds for a complete rep? I had a metronome anyway so I set it to 60 BPM, waltz, and it works great. For everyone I know who has tried it this is far slower and more difficult than they're used to. Some people just burn through a bunch of fast sloppy pushups, for instance, and we've been trying to get them to slow down and do everything perfectly. Or if you're near a computer there are plenty of online metronomes. First workout was actually harder than i thought it would be..... I have been doing bodyweight for a while, but at a higher speed than this program (Crossfit). It concentrated more on finishing the set, getting the reps in, making the exercise explosive, often in my case at the expense of good form. For the CC workout, I started pushups and pullups on Step 5, squats and leg lifts on Step 6, bridges on step 3, and Handstand pushups/one arms on Step 1. WOW I overestimated my strength GREATLY.... I made pushups, squats, and pullups, but didnt max bridges or handstand. What really surprised me was how hard leg lifts were when going slow like CC wants you to. Did about half of the max for Step 3... made me wonder how effective all those hundreds of situps and crunches that I had been doing in Crossfit were...
So far, I really like the simplicity of the system. It's really a challenge, a lot more than I expected. I'm sure it will take me a solid 6 months to even get CLOSE to step 10 for some of these. I'm really looking forward to being able to one day do sets of pistol squats.... it will really be a satisfying accomplisment. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Just read the book, trying the workouts now. Has anyone here heard of this system or tried it? Seems pretty legit to me. How did the first workout go? Are you using the book's cadence of six seconds for a complete rep? I had a metronome anyway so I set it to 60 BPM, waltz, and it works great. For everyone I know who has tried it this is far slower and more difficult than they're used to. Some people just burn through a bunch of fast sloppy pushups, for instance, and we've been trying to get them to slow down and do everything perfectly. Or if you're near a computer there are plenty of online metronomes. First workout was actually harder than i thought it would be..... I have been doing bodyweight for a while, but at a higher speed than this program (Crossfit). It concentrated more on finishing the set, getting the reps in, making the exercise explosive, often in my case at the expense of good form. For the CC workout, I started pushups and pullups on Step 5, squats and leg lifts on Step 6, bridges on step 3, and Handstand pushups/one arms on Step 1. WOW I overestimated my strength GREATLY.... I made pushups, squats, and pullups, but didnt max bridges or handstand. What really surprised me was how hard leg lifts were when going slow like CC wants you to. Did about half of the max for Step 3... made me wonder how effective all those hundreds of situps and crunches that I had been doing in Crossfit were... So far, I really like the simplicity of the system. It's really a challenge, a lot more than I expected. I'm sure it will take me a solid 6 months to even get CLOSE to step 10 for some of these. I'm really looking forward to being able to one day do sets of pistol squats.... it will really be a satisfying accomplisment. This has me interested. Keep posting updates |
| Trinity Training offers a writeup and basic "prison workout" at their website: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8055166/PWO1-Schedule |
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I picked up this guys's book on amazon last week
mark lauren sounds like it might be similar |
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I picked up this guys's book on amazon last week mark lauren sounds like it might be similar It is. Looks like a decent book from the little I've seen of it, minus the flagrant lack of spell checking by the editor. It's basically a lot more exercies and variations therof. I have heard that the pictures are somewhat lacking though. |
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This is a huge fucking problem with the prison system Prisoners should be to tired to work out That they give people ample time to become better educated, more fit, more violent specimens of themselves on your and my tax dollars? I agree. The public is to blame for most of that. They are the ones that insisted that convicts be taken off the road. Believe me, after a day on the road a road gang convict was not worried about lifting weights. Hell, they did not need to. They just wanted supper, a shower, and then hit their rack after count. That said the road camp populations in Virginia only made up about 1/3 of the state prison population and out of those maybe 2/3rds worked the road gangs. For the record I'm all for education (GED) as it is be best chance a former convict has out on the street and tax dollars well spent IMHO. In fact it is required in units of certain security levels. If you screw off in class you get your security level raised and transfered. Even if they returned I'd rather have a convict that can read than one that can't. |
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I picked up this guys's book on amazon last week mark lauren sounds like it might be similar It is. Looks like a decent book from the little I've seen of it, minus the flagrant lack of spell checking by the editor. It's basically a lot more exercies and variations therof. I have heard that the pictures are somewhat lacking though. the pictures are kind of so-so, they're all in B&W. it's worth picking up though, for the $10 or so it costs on amazon. it's not all bodyweight stuff, but the men's health big book of exercises is good too. |
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This is a huge fucking problem with the prison system Prisoners should be to tired to work out That they give people ample time to become better educated, more fit, more violent specimens of themselves on your and my tax dollars? I agree. The public is to blame for most of that. They are the ones that insisted that convicts be taken off the road. Believe me, after a day on the road a road gang convict was not worried about lifting weights. Hell, they did not need to. They just wanted supper, a shower, and then hit their rack after count. That said the road camp populations in Virginia only made up about 1/3 of the state prison population and out of those maybe 2/3rds worked the road gangs. For the record I'm all for education (GED) as it is be best chance a former convict has out on the street and tax dollars well spent IMHO. In fact it is required in units of certain security levels. If you screw off in class you get your security level raised and transfered. Even if they returned I'd rather have a convict that can read than one that can't. I can see your point with the education thing. I'm all for that... the ones that continue with the program are most likely the ones who seriously realize the mistakes they have made and want to have a chance at a better life upon release. ON the other hand, there is always an element in prison that sees their incarceration as an opportunity for better criminal education and social group (gang) affiliation and advancement. Many of the criminal enterprises that started as prison gangs, and expanded to the outside, are still headed by perps on the INSIDE. As for chain gangs... I'm all for them. Most of the trails in state parks in Virginia were cleared by convicts less than a century ago. I see minimum security orange jumpsuit guys from city jail out doing landscaping all the time in Virginia Beach. Makes me feel better about where my tax dollars are going. |
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Charlie Bronson wrote a workout book called Solitary Fitness His fitness plan was pretty simple. He did(does?) 2500 pushups a day. When you have hours every day with nothing to do but exercise and you live in an environment full of sociopaths who you may need to defend yourself against(or victimize, depending on what kind of guy you are), you have a powerful incentive to work really hard at it. |
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Update: So I decided to do the 6 day per week program (Solitary Confinement I believe is the name of the workout), which breaks the exercises up into two per day. That lets you do each exercise twice per week, with Sunday as a day off. The workout plan recommend 3-5 sets for each exercise. I figure I'll plan on 3 sets on days when I want to do something else as well (Crossfit, run, etc), and 5 on days that I don't.
Today was pushups and leg lifts. All I can say is... holy crap. I got about 75% of my goal in reps for pushups, and about 50% of my goal in leg lifts. If I had been doing these exercises the way I normally do, with okay form, but fast as I can, I would have been done in 5 minutes without breaking a sweat. Taking six seconds for each rep, attempting to maintain perfect form, REALLLLY makes these exercises harder. So far, I really like this program. |
You need to move this to the Fitness forum so you can keep us in the fitness side updated to how this is working for you 
Second, I want to know how it's working for you. I have a copy of this and was thinking about working through it as my next goal but nobody seems to have done it yet. I am very interested in your progress, keep it up and post updates! |
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You need to move this to the Fitness forum so you can keep us in the fitness side updated to how this is working for you
Second, I want to know how it's working for you. I have a copy of this and was thinking about working through it as my next goal but nobody seems to have done it yet. I am very interested in your progress, keep it up and post updates! not sure how to move it to that forum. Little help please? PS thanks for the encouragement, I will try to keep you all updated. |
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You need to move this to the Fitness forum so you can keep us in the fitness side updated to how this is working for you
Second, I want to know how it's working for you. I have a copy of this and was thinking about working through it as my next goal but nobody seems to have done it yet. I am very interested in your progress, keep it up and post updates! not sure how to move it to that forum. Little help please? PS thanks for the encouragement, I will try to keep you all updated. Just start another thread over there 
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You need to move this to the Fitness forum so you can keep us in the fitness side updated to how this is working for you
Second, I want to know how it's working for you. I have a copy of this and was thinking about working through it as my next goal but nobody seems to have done it yet. I am very interested in your progress, keep it up and post updates! not sure how to move it to that forum. Little help please? PS thanks for the encouragement, I will try to keep you all updated. I can move it if you want. |
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Quoted: I've dealt with several guys not 3 days out of prison and they were jacked, it would take me a lot of work to reach the condition they were in. You can definitely tell what they focused on while they were in. They have 24/7 to work out. Even in Pen's without weight piles if they have good program they can get huge. |
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You need to move this to the Fitness forum so you can keep us in the fitness side updated to how this is working for you
Second, I want to know how it's working for you. I have a copy of this and was thinking about working through it as my next goal but nobody seems to have done it yet. I am very interested in your progress, keep it up and post updates! not sure how to move it to that forum. Little help please? PS thanks for the encouragement, I will try to keep you all updated. I'll take that as a request then?
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Quoted: Quoted: Links? Sounds interesting and something I could probably do at work or around the house to kill twenty minutes or so. http://www.dragondoor.com/shop-by-department/books/ It's $ 35 at this place, about $ 50 on amazon $32 at Barnes and Noble in ePub format. |
| Question, would it be reasonable to mix this type of training with classic bodybuilding/weightlifting? I've always been intrigued by bodyweight stuff, but I don't want to give up on the great gains I make while bodybuilding. Is it possible to do your standard bodybuilding, and mix in this type of bodyweight training on off-days? Or are these really exhaustive workouts requiring a lot of rest? Would there even be a point of mixing in bodyweight with weightlifting? |