How to Use Body Weight Exercises to Build Strength Using the Prison Workout Routine

I was inspired to try a new workout routine after a recent trip to San Francisco and a tour of the infamous Alcatraz prison. Our tour guide told us the saying: “You go to prison if you break the rules. If you break the prison rules, you go to Alcatraz.” Regardless of whether you are stuck in the most or least strict prison, the bottom line is that you are confined to a very tight space. Despite this restriction, you can get a great workout in prison…not that I’m advocating committing crimes just to ramp up your workout routine. Despite the fact that you are in a small space and have no workout equipment, it is possible to perform bodyweight exercises for strength gains.

One of the best features of a prison workout regimen is that it can be followed in virtually any environment. There aren’t many situations more restrictive than prison, so there are no more excuses for not being able to exercise. So what does it take to build functional strength simply through the use of bodyweight exercise?

There are limitless combinations of exercises you can do using only your body weight. Here are a few examples of the exercises that have given me great results. The great thing about bodyweight exercises is that most require compound movements. Muscle growth is greatly enhanced by compound movements. Consider the different muscles necessary to complete a chin up or a push up as opposed to the narrow range of muscles necessary for bicep curls and other isolation exercises.

The burpee is an exercise that will give you a full body workout. You start off in a standing position, move to a squat and then throw your legs into a push-up position. One you complete a push-up, you need to quickly bring your legs back into the squatting position and jump up to stand again. This combination will give you a fantastic arm and leg workout, and will give you some excellent cardio work as well.

Chin ups: pillars of all bodyweight regimens. You just need something to hang from in order to do it. A wall-mounted pull-up bar will fit the bill for this exercise. You can do several different types of pull-ups such as the wide grip, narrow grip, overhand grip and the underhand grip, among others.

Dips: get two chairs or any other object that you can support yourself on. Those not incarcerated may use a professional dip station. Lower yourself until your arms are parallel or less to the ground and explode back up. This offers a tremendous workout for the chest and the triceps.

Pushups: no upper body weight routine is complete without pushups. No equipment or accessories whatsoever are necessary for this exercise. You can do all sorts of push ups, including conventional ones, decline push ups that work the upper chest, a closed grip version that works the triceps, wide grip push ups, dive bomb versions, hindu push ups, and even push ups done with only one arm.

One more element that you need to know about are squats. All you need to do is squat down, stand back up and repeat. If this is too easy for you there are other moves. Incorporate jumps into your squats, or try one-legged versions.

Plyometrics: other great lower bodyweight exercises include a variety of plyometrics. Leap ups, step ups, depth jumps, and lateral jumps all help increase quad, hamstring, and calf strength.

You could do crunches all day, but those won’t really help your abs. Do a simple plank routine that involves a straight body plank and both left and right side planks. A lot of people think that planks are just a yoga type exercise. However, you will see amazing results if you can do left, right and straight planks for up to 3 minutes each position.

If you want to really use bodyweight exercises for strength, then read Convict Conditioning. This provides a beginner’s template for how to go from doing simple bodyweight exercises to doing advanced bodyweight strength exercises.

Once again, you won’t need any fancy equipment or a lot of space to accomplish these exercises. That is the essence of a prison workout routine.