Home Workout in Confinement – Part 2: Prison Training Edition

Hi there!

Still mourning over your home detention? Well, let’s talk about real detention then.

In the first article of this series about home workout with little to no equipment, I highlighted that you shouldn’t be afraid and/or feel limited by the restricted amount of training equipment and possibilities that you are dealing with. There is plenty to keep you going with calisthenic, gymnastic and other bodyweight apparatus. In some previous articles, such as this one, I’ve already underlined that you shouldn’t fear a little period of detraining (or even an off-training period) and how to get back from it.

Now that you’ve seen some top athletes regular training via calisthenics, gymnastic, TRX, etc., let’s have a look at how some of the most impressive physiques are built up with less than the bare minimum. Meaning next to nothing.

Home Workout Based on Inmates Training

We all know that some former detainees underwent a dramatic change and walked out of jail completely transformed. Prior to debating about that, I want to clarify that this isn’t 100% accurate as most prisoners are just skinny fat or plain fat (which is the standard nowadays), but various factors need to be taken into account when building a decent body in a relatively short time frame.

First of all, the environment isn’t something we could define as “safe” right?! If they look weak, they will most probably get bullied and harassed, which doesn’t look like a good way to live their detention period (if there is a good way at all…). All ex-cons admit that there are a lot of loud, obnoxious, aggressive people and a fair number of mentally disturbed individuals. They just can’t afford to overlook having a tense and intimidating look via bulgy muscles too. Remember: once there, their life depends on it. You know, all that “survival of the fittest” and “the laws of the jungle” stuff.

Then, they obviously don’t have a ton of activities in there. Some will spend their time playing cards, some will read, there are probably some tasks here and there but, eventually, they do have a LOT of spare time, which is why they will end up using equipment, bars or anything at some point, if the prison amenities provide any, to overcome boredom and relentlessly fight weariness.

As for the diet aspect, ensuring proper nutrition may not seem as difficult as before, when food used to be trash. Over the last decades, their meals have been improved, so the cliché of their shitty food isn’t a consistent truth anymore. The substandard quality of prison food has been such a common complaint that prisoners have been allegedly reliant on their families to provide extra food and such. Plus, they can buy, deal or get free supplements and steroids, or else be very smart about some recipes to pack on calories and not be hungry.

Quick note sleep-wise: they have a curfew, so they have no choice but to wake up and get to bed at the same hours every day. Of course, they can have a nap whenever they want in between. This is basically the perfect recipe for recovery and muscle growth since stress levels are so low. Breaking news: you now have the unprecedented possibility to take advantage of this situation and do the same as them. This is a perfect example of a “When life gives you lemons…” type of scenario, so what are you going to do about it?

Add Daily High Volume Work To Your Home Workouts

Training-wise, they are very limited and most often, do bodyweight work, as confirmed by multiple testimonies of guys doing 600 push-ups a day, or 10 sets of max rep on them, dips, pull-ups, squats, etc. It’s also common to use anything else in the mix to turn it into something more entertaining. For example, a somewhat classic option involves cards:

“Take a 52-card deck and shuffle the cards, so you have no idea what card will come up next. Flip the first card and do however many push-ups the card says. For face cards -jack, queen, and king-, do 10 push-ups. When you turn up an ace, do 11 push-ups. Once completed, you will have done 380 push-ups. For the Deck of Pain neophyte, shoot to complete the deck in less than 15 minutes.” (source: Josh Bryant)

They will also use their laundry bag to add weight to themselves on push up, dips, squats and lunges, or have a partner help them. As one of them stated:

Push-ups are done with someone leaning against your back and squats can be done with somebody sitting on your shoulders. I’ve also seen guys fill pillowcases with sand to use as dumb­ bells. In the cell, trash bags are filled with water and placed inside a bucket with a handle for shoulder shrugs and lateral raises. My favorite method is stacking forty to fifty National Geographic magazines and tying them up in a laundry bag for bicep curls and tricep extensions.

This question actually gave me the courage to ask one of the more muscular guys on the yard, ‘Curly Joe’, how he still managed to stay so buff. Here’s the inside scoop. Curly told me the secret is lots of reps with shorter a smaller range of motion. He explained, “You got to pump those muscles up like a balloon until they feel like their going to explode.” I told him it sounded somewhat painful. He just laughed and went to do another set.”  (source: Quora, Last Mile Program. Interview with inmate #T31014)

Another one explained:

“I would walk the length of the 50-foot cell and back and do 25 push-ups. I would do it for one hour, I would do it for two hours. I would get a minimum of 500 push-ups -regular, elevated, diamond push-ups-. I would also do dips on a half-wall, kind of like you’re climbing over a fence.

Another day I would do pull-ups. They had a stairway and there was no backing to it. It was metal and it was grated—you couldn’t just grab the stairway. You had to take toilet paper and roll it up and put it over the grate so it wouldn’t hurt your hands. I would do five pull-ups then walk back and forth and then another five pull-up.

They would bring in coffee at five o’clock in the morning in this round jug. It was quite large -it probably held four gallons, five gallons- and we would wrap the laundry bag through the handles and we would do curls with that.” (source: Ryan Ferguson interview by GQ, a guy who went to prison at 19 because a friend had dreamed of him committing murder).

 

Odd Lifting For Your Home Workout Plan

In addition to all that everyday high-volume work, they could also use some PVC pipe with bags tied to both ends, putting everything they could into mimicking a barbell and its plates, even though it looked more like bamboo barbell training. This way, they could do whatever was possible with a regular barbell: overhead press, curls, bench press if a suitable bench surface was available, squats, partial pulls, upright rows…

Whenever possible, they would also use barrels and water-filled kegs to manage the weight. Thus, there is a broad range of exercises available, from lateral raises to overhead squat while doing some kind of Atlas Stone lifting kinda bear hug deadlift.

Towel and Partner-Assisted Training

A good way to pump up very fast, and consume any strength left in some muscles, is to use a towel with a partner. It offers endless options: one man doing a curl, the other one pushing down or doing overhead extension, both doing a bent-over row, one doing an upright row, the other a pushdown, both doing face pulls, etc. If alone, you can alternatively use one arm for all pulling and the other arm for all pressing. It’s also possible to do shoulders raises in every direction, and use the other arm to push or pull. Do it until it burns down to the core!

Home Workouts With Sheet Fabric

By making a knot on a sheet and blocking it on the other side of a door, or by tying up two bedsheets around a pillar, you get two handles that you can use as TRX, handles and somewhat rings. You can balance the tensile strength according to what you need by twisting them a lot. Then, your imagination is the limit. You may use them for curls, extensions, chest and shoulder presses, flyes, rows, pull apart, assisted pistol squat, etc. Pretty much as TRX. If they are strong enough, they could turn out to be a good way to do dips or hanging leg raises, or even pull-ups, provided you have the minimum required space.

There you go, mate. You now have even more options to train harder, longer and develop new ideas to push it onto the next level. Boredom is your worst enemy, so just keep on moving, and take advantage of all this extra free time to get your projects and ideas going on. Now is the time.

 

Until next time: keep calm and handle things like a Viking. Or read my next articles here and here on home workout.

Your lightkeeper,

-Hersovyac