The Art of Manliness - #601： How to Get Jailhouse Strong

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when you're in

00:00:11.580 prison you get a lot of time on your hands a lot of inmates spend this time exercising with little

00:00:15.800 or no equipment and sometimes just the space available in their cells prisoners are able to

00:00:19.320 get incredibly big and strong learning how prisoners do these bodyweight workouts can be

00:00:23.480 useful for those who aren't in jail who want to get fit and don't have access to exercise equipment

00:00:27.540 my guest today got the lowdown on the methods prisoners use to get strong by interviewing

00:00:31.260 bodybuilders who also spend time in the slammer his name is josh bryant he's a powerlifter and

00:00:35.720 powerlifting coach and the co-author of the book jailhouse strong we begin our conversation

00:00:39.620 discussing the mindset with which josh approaches fitness training including what he means by being

00:00:44.460 gas station ready we then discuss why being big and strong is oftentimes a matter of survival for

00:00:48.920 prisoners and some of the famously fit former inmates josh highlights in his book we then dig

00:00:52.980 into specific bodyweight movements prisoners typically use how they can be incorporated in

00:00:56.640 your own workout routine and the various ways you can modify and make the exercises harder we

00:01:00.840 discuss programs prisoners often use and how josh has enhanced them with his powerlifting background

00:01:05.000 josh then lays out a beginner's three-day-a-week bodyweight program explains the way prisoners

00:01:09.120 incorporate deloading or taking a break from their workouts and then he talks about his all-time

00:01:13.080 favorite conditioning exercise after the show's over check out our show notes at awem.is

00:01:17.400 slash jailhouse strong all right josh bryant welcome to the show i'm i'm honored to be here

00:01:32.020 thank you brett so you are a powerlifter powerlifting coach and the author of several books including the

00:01:37.420 one we're going to talk about today jailhouse strong but before we do that let's talk about

00:01:41.800 a bit about your career and background so tell us a bit about your career as a lifter yourself and

00:01:45.600 also your career as a as a coach of lifters sure so i started off in more traditional regular sports

00:01:51.920 but i found my true love training for those sports in the weight room and i became the youngest person

00:01:56.820 to bench press 600 pounds at 22 years old since then i've had one of my students actually go on to

00:02:02.640 beat that which was really cool in 2005 i won atlantis strongest man in america and then i did some

00:02:09.060 bodybuilding i didn't actually compete in bodybuilding a lot of training at bodybuilding at the world famous

00:02:13.380 metroflex gym in arlington texas so it was really cool since then i kind of moved all around the

00:02:19.460 country to train with different people that were kind of like the strongest people in the world and

00:02:24.420 since then i've gone to train athletes and some of the strongest most muscular people in the world i

00:02:28.820 have all kinds of clients that are very high level and i've gotten into lately more kind of myself more

00:02:33.760 kind of tactical training so while i'm not in the military or law enforcement myself that's how i enjoy

00:02:38.660 training and i've gone on to obviously coach people in person i have a successful online

00:02:44.100 training business and i do seminars all around the world obviously that's kind of at a halt right now

00:02:49.040 but recently been to india china and australia and i've written some personal training courses for issa

00:02:54.240 write books and that's where we're at right now so you said tactical training what does tactical

00:02:59.300 training look like so tactical training i think could be almost like you could almost swap out the word

00:03:05.200 functional training it's kind of being ready for any sort of situation it almost what we talk about

00:03:10.140 sort of gas station ready type training is tactical training well you know so let's talk about gas

00:03:14.620 so i follow you on instagram and for a while now and one thing you see on your post you always have

00:03:19.960 this hashtag gas station ready what do you mean by gas station ready gas station ready started off

00:03:26.000 is my business partner and co-author dom and she teaches jiu-jitsu and he said he made a joke one time

00:03:30.940 about it being like sort of a scenario at a gas station at 3 a.m so i'm like okay you know but

00:03:35.860 i'm like let's make this into a hashtag because that kind of explains what people want it's 3 a.m

00:03:40.620 you pull to a gas station you know some degenerate wild-eyed bourbon bathed dude comes up and wants

00:03:46.340 your car you know wants your lady your wallet whatever are you ready to handle the situation so

00:03:50.800 a gas station already is like a mindset a training philosophy essentially to be ready for anything that's

00:03:56.920 what tactical training is you may you know you have to be you have to sprint fast enough to handle a

00:04:01.500 situation you have to be able to handle yourself you have to have the strength the endurance all

00:04:05.860 that different kind of stuff so gas station ready is being ready for anything when it's a mindset when

00:04:11.540 conflict is inevitable strike first and protect what's yours and that doesn't have to be just in

00:04:16.600 a self-defense just how you handle life so it sounds like your philosophy towards strength isn't just to

00:04:22.620 be strong to be strong right to uh right show it on the platform but it's that you want to be strong

00:04:28.340 also so it transfers over to real life absolutely so i mean obviously with you know if you're gonna

00:04:34.020 be like a lot of people i train like the guy i've been working with just broke the world record for

00:04:38.680 about the 10th time in the bench press so someone training at that level you have to make some of

00:04:44.340 those sacrifices you know what i mean because that you're training you know when you're pursuing

00:04:48.120 excellence to that degree you're gonna have to get rid of some stuff in the process but for the

00:04:52.380 for most people and even people like that at that level i'm gonna like so for powerlifting purposes

00:04:57.760 i'm gonna have a lot more work capacity stuff and movement capacity and strongman type of training

00:05:02.980 in their off season so absolutely even for the most extreme power after there i would have more of

00:05:08.500 this type of training than most people that are into powerlifting for sure and one thing i've

00:05:13.540 noticed with the content you've put out especially on your instagram account is that you're often

00:05:17.940 you know going you're going you're throwing back to the past you're looking at bodybuilders strongmen

00:05:24.060 from the past and showing what they did like what do you think those guys got right that a lot of

00:05:30.200 people have forgotten today when it comes to training i think one huge thing is they stuck to

00:05:35.280 the basics so basics you know that doesn't mean elementary it means fundamental so i think that's

00:05:40.160 where a lot of people get it wrong and i think the the work ethic back then i mean you had a couple

00:05:45.060 weeks ago the garage gym review guy and that was a great piece sort of that kind of mentality of

00:05:50.260 making the most of what you have in your current situation and the work ethic all right so this i

00:05:54.740 think that leads nicely to our the top of conversation which is your book jailhouse strong so these are

00:05:59.640 absolutely so what led you down so this is a book about the the strength and conditioning routines of

00:06:05.560 people in prison dudes in prison what led you down that path to explore how how prisoners get strong

00:06:12.520 sure so growing up trained at the ymca and at 16 years old i was actually a manager of a hardcore

00:06:20.960 gym it was called santa barbara gym fitness because i moved out to texas later so it was in santa

00:06:24.400 barbara california so there would be all these really big huge strong guys you know one of the main

00:06:30.540 ones the guy named fed he was a bouncer at the local strip club and he had been in prison and all

00:06:36.300 this stuff and we you know and he was so strong and trained so hard he was so big and we noticed a lot of

00:06:42.520 guys were really big and really strong were training really hard really basic and even the ones that

00:06:48.640 were more of bodybuilder types did a lot of body weight training so like you know someone like of

00:06:53.340 this size you know 250 pounds very lean wasn't only doing push-ups to get that big however if he did a

00:06:59.300 chest workout he finished off with some nasty body weight kind of finishers so so we know you know

00:07:05.580 obviously just observing how strong how functional these guys were even being young 16 years old

00:07:12.460 how well they age you know you see some of these bodybuilders would come in there when i'm working

00:07:16.900 at 16 years old talking about getting old they're 30 years old got guys in their mid 40s that could move

00:07:22.600 like pro athletes because they train this way in prison they did more movement type of stuff

00:07:26.740 so philosophically it also came down to i think in prison's a low point for a lot of people

00:07:32.820 obviously as it should be it shouldn't be the highlight of anybody's life it shouldn't be

00:07:35.860 something to be glorified so what happens is all this time on their hands so a lot of people just

00:07:40.580 kind of wish away their time and i think that is essentially shortening their life and the ones

00:07:46.060 that are smart they use time as a resource so what they do is in the situation they are they maximize

00:07:51.880 what they have you know more time to recover more time to train all that different stuff so that kind

00:07:56.660 of philosophy you know and then nothing to do with jail at all just how you can train at home you

00:08:02.120 don't you you don't you can get rid of that commute to the gym i have a family so i don't want to waste

00:08:07.100 i'm not training to set a world record in powerlifting at this point so i can set an example of physical

00:08:12.060 training at the house by training at home doing these type of workouts and then for for other people

00:08:17.120 it just cultivates a higher probability of success it's if something's going on at your house there's

00:08:22.500 less excuses to miss a workout or whatever else and then you can even set your training area up

00:08:27.380 whether it's like you know living room in your apartment or like your garage gym or whatever

00:08:31.380 you can set it up exactly how you like it you know like certain posters lighting a certain way all that

00:08:36.300 kind of stuff the next part would be you know what's the next best thing you can do like i had a freshman

00:08:41.820 football coach always talk about what's the next best thing we can do and that's exactly what we're

00:08:45.540 going to do we may not have access to all the best equipment but what's the next best thing we can do

00:08:51.040 then philosophically looking at self-imprisonment exists in many different forms it could be a job

00:08:57.920 whatever it is physical training for people behind bars has served for a way to them sort of like i

00:09:04.240 guess free themselves from that sort of imprisonment and that's what we want to do that's why we post so

00:09:09.280 much stuff and have books about mindset because that's huge and in the process which wasn't the

00:09:14.320 original goal just to kind of put out some books and stuff what's been cool is we dom and i've been

00:09:19.440 able to establish a community of like-minded people online and stuff and met all these cool people

00:09:25.960 met people in person and all that stuff so these workouts that can be done anywhere they can be done

00:09:30.820 in a you know in a jail cell basement hotel room they're functional they're gonna have your body ready

00:09:37.280 for anything and they can all be done with minimal equipment and oftentimes all you need is gonna be your

00:09:42.980 body weight and last but not least they're a lot of fun right and in the book you know you talk about

00:09:48.980 you know one of the reasons like these why a lot of times prisoners get big and strong like you said

00:09:52.440 time it's the only thing they got so it's like you know getting that exercise time they look forward to

00:09:56.980 it sure but also like it's for survival like they need to be big and strong to be i guess you can say

00:10:03.040 gel yard ready because that i mean they can get if you're if you if you look weak you're gonna get

00:10:08.140 picked on well sort of funny you know talk about gas station ready you know someone that

00:10:12.680 the seminar you said in australia was asking about self-defense i said look i mean 99 of situations

00:10:18.520 can be just diffused by not being at bad places you know if you avoid bad places that's going to take

00:10:22.700 care of most of but that honestly a lot of situations can be diffused just by a certain look

00:10:27.920 that's huge you know because then you got to think of like prisoners of higher testosterone levels i'm not a

00:10:34.220 sociologist or anything i don't know what came first the chicken or the egg i don't know if it even

00:10:38.140 if they're that if they're in prison because they have higher testosterone levels and kind of leads

00:10:42.940 to i guess some choices that would get you there or if it's a product of the environment you know if

00:10:47.640 you're resolving petty grievances with brutal beatdowns and knifings that's gonna be very tough

00:10:52.640 for the average man to survive but an alpha male is going to thrive in that environment so that that

00:10:57.140 would be part of it you know exercise consistency the body thrives on routine so with all this time on

00:11:03.080 your hand if you're disciplined you can be very consistent in your routine if you have a routine

00:11:08.860 you're gonna active progression so you hear stories about people doing you know 1500 push-ups a day and

00:11:14.340 all this kind of stuff because it most of the state penitentiaries banned weights in 1992 some of the

00:11:22.100 federal ones still have them but they won't buy new ones so they in there and take care of the stuff

00:11:26.080 most people don't have access to it so you hear stuff about you know people doing 1500 push-ups a day

00:11:30.700 they didn't come in they're doing that so there's an active model of progressive overload there

00:11:34.460 interval training they're confined to these small spaces so that's gonna you know the traditional

00:11:40.720 modes of long slow cardio are not gonna apply because even like a small exercise yard you know

00:11:46.580 it's not that much room if you're in a jail cell you could do burpees till the cow come home you know

00:11:51.440 these would sort of serve as like a think tanker like napoleon hill talked about like a mastermind group

00:11:56.400 you know people with similar goals that you can trade ideas with to help you in your pursuit and

00:12:01.460 i think that's huge to bounce people off there there's no there's no agenda here except to get

00:12:07.440 better so in the the book you and your co-author actually interview some famously fit prisoners what

00:12:14.780 are some of the who are some of these guys that you interviewed for this book okay so give you three

00:12:19.040 good ones dorian yates right so he was you know the mr olympia and um a lot of so why that that would

00:12:25.440 apply you're thinking okay bodybuilder great you know what what that applies to is dorian yates

00:12:30.520 actually started off in jail and kind of turned him around but his base was built with bodyweight

00:12:36.240 training heavy barbell lifts and like rope climbs and things like that cory matthews another ifbb pro

00:12:42.920 bodybuilder he actually went to prison at 14 years old in nevada was in a you know a grown-up prison and

00:12:50.660 he went on turned his life around now he's like a pastor and a professional bodybuilder

00:12:55.140 and gary frank was a world record setting powerlifting holder but not so much for anything

00:13:00.160 he did he never went to jail or anything but he was actually the athletic director at a prison called

00:13:05.240 angola in louisiana so he had a ton of observations and thing we share that a lot of different people

00:13:11.500 that you know like i mentioned that guy earlier fed him you know different guards different a lot of

00:13:16.260 people that aren't famous but those would be like three famous ones you guys might know and then also

00:13:20.380 talk to jeff thompson about you guys ever interviewed him he's a bouncer from over in england no he's

00:13:26.280 written some actually some best-selling books and you know for some of the unarmed combat stuff because

00:13:30.960 a lot of the interval training is unarmed combat training so you know instead of just doing like you

00:13:35.980 know a regular high intensity interval training it might be like something like an elbow knee sprawl

00:13:41.040 repeat 20 seconds on tabata type of thing so let's talk about some of the the programming that you

00:13:47.060 highlight in this book and the exercises so you mentioned for a long time for a while prisons had

00:13:51.540 prisoners had access to weights but they started taking that stuff out during the 90s i guess that's

00:13:56.000 when like that whole super criminal thing was going on they're afraid that's exactly the term yep right

00:14:00.740 that they were they were afraid that people would go to prison they'd come out and they'd be even

00:14:04.100 worse and it's probably because they're lifting weights so they took it out and so a lot of

00:14:08.600 prisoners use body weight exercises what are some of the main body weight exercise you talk about in

00:14:13.420 jailhouse strong that normal folks who just don't have access to exercise equipment can do to get a

00:14:18.700 good workout okay so the foundationals ones would be like push-ups then then different variations of

00:14:24.960 the push-ups those coming the nucleus pull-ups and different variations of the pull-ups different

00:14:30.380 variations of the squat then burpee variations so then we would go into more advanced variations so like

00:14:36.880 you could you know a push-up could become push-ups with your feet up on a bench or you know a hindu

00:14:43.100 push-up or even in an extreme case a one-arm push-up that kind of stuff so and then obviously we have for

00:14:48.960 the flip side because there's a lot of people that talk about every program should begin with some sort

00:14:53.780 of body weight type of programming but you know a country where third of the people or whatever are

00:14:58.840 more obese that's not necessarily going to be a practical thing or a powerlifter that weighs 400 pounds

00:15:04.320 might be strong but never done any kind of body weight training you know you can't just say all

00:15:08.500 right we're going to bust out you know 10 sets of 25 push-ups you have to start off with something

00:15:11.940 like the knee push-ups on the knees push up against the wall and progress up from there so you mentioned

00:15:18.160 okay there's the main ones like the push-ups pull-ups squats and then you mentioned there's

00:15:21.980 variations and i guess all those different variations that's how you increase intensity for

00:15:25.800 body weight exercises absolutely you know you can there's all sorts of things that's how you

00:15:30.500 you can do you go unilateral i mean you can add different tempos where you accentuate the negative

00:15:36.560 accelerate the positive like you know in powerlifting we talk about compensatory acceleration training where

00:15:42.260 you're putting maximum force full range of motion into that you do the same concept with the body

00:15:47.420 weight training i mean you can make it like a plyometric body weight you know all sorts of different

00:15:51.680 stuff i mean you just think about it even if you you're doing a lunge if you put your hands above your

00:15:56.480 head it's going to be harder than if you put them by your side yeah i i know that my coach has been

00:16:01.960 programming lunges at the end awesome and he wants like on the head he's gonna put my hands on the

00:16:07.240 head i'm like this sucks i don't want to do this anymore so okay you mentioned like so different

00:16:11.660 types of push-ups like the explosive one like a plyometric is that like a like a clapping push-up

00:16:16.020 type thing you can do that or you can just go straight up in the air we get like basically push

00:16:20.360 up instead of stopping and locking on the top become airborne get as high as you can and a hindu push-up

00:16:24.900 what's that hindu push-ups like i think some i've heard people call them a bomber push-up before

00:16:29.900 you know you start with your feet wider butt up in the air and you kind of come down to you almost

00:16:35.620 like scrape your chest against the ground come back up and then you almost get like a bridging sort

00:16:40.980 of position up and then you know come back in a circular motion it's very like a rhythm type of deal

00:16:46.780 to it and those got popularized from a guy named matt fury and before that they were like a mainstay

00:16:53.040 in the programming of a famous wrestler named the great gama from india have you heard him before

00:16:58.580 i have heard the great gama yeah yep and that's kind of the guy that used them you know he's

00:17:03.320 something like you know 5'9 255 pounds with a 58 inch chest you know you know 80 years ago or

00:17:10.140 something and apparently bruce lee used a lot of the teachings of the great gama which i did not know

00:17:16.340 till more recently so yeah i've done the dive bomber the hindu push-up and it it like it works different

00:17:21.200 parts of your upper body and different in the different parts of the the movement i mean it's

00:17:25.340 very i feel like it's very shoulder and then there's like a when you get to a certain part it

00:17:28.680 turns into your triceps and then into your chest it's really it's a really dynamic movement and i i

00:17:34.020 like i like it's a fun push-up to do do you film in your upper i see i feel feels a lot in my upper

00:17:38.840 chest too much more than a regular you know almost like like you know incline versus bench pressing

00:17:44.300 is where you can kind of feel those a little bit and then you also film a lot in your upper back too

00:17:48.380 compared to a regular push-up no for sure and then i mean another way you talk about how prisoners

00:17:53.260 add intensity is you know one with push-ups at least is you put your feet up on the bed or at

00:17:58.580 stool or whatever and now you got like a decline push-up almost absolutely and you know you know

00:18:04.120 another one people don't think of a lot of times is um i've already mentioned going unilateral but

00:18:08.120 just increasing range of motion so if you're you know doing push-ups you go between you know if you

00:18:14.340 have two boxes you can stretch down a little bit deeper you can pause the reps at the bottom of

00:18:18.980 the movement so all this different stuff you can do and i know we're here talking about body weight

00:18:23.580 training but you can also you know there's different things you can add to yourself too i

00:18:28.020 mean you might have some bands there was one study that you know in the nsca journal talking about

00:18:32.880 people use band resisted push-ups versus bench pressing and their strength and bench pressing

00:18:38.860 increased nearly as much as it did when doing band resist push-ups so even for like powerlifting and

00:18:44.120 stuff i'll use that kind of stuff with my clients just to get them to do different type of movements

00:18:48.960 absolutely what i like about the body move because i do powerlifting what i like about body weight

00:18:54.400 exercises like a push-up or a squat is that it's like it's like i feel like it's good for my joints

00:18:59.720 it just feels good with for my tendons and my joint strength because you get a range of motion that you

00:19:04.420 typically don't get with a barbell absolutely and it just sort of hits the muscle a little bit

00:19:09.700 different too i mean i you know i do like a body weight squad i feel you know more of my quads if

00:19:14.660 i was going to take it to like a point of failure than i would you know with a barbell squad i feel

00:19:19.580 that a little more in the posterior chain so absolutely we're going to take a quick break

00:19:23.260 for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show we talked about ways you can increase

00:19:28.860 intensity on a push-up and this is by like this is basically the equivalent of adding weight

00:19:33.300 to a body weight exercise making it harder let's talk about pull-ups so there's a typical pull-up

00:19:37.980 which is hard for a lot of people some people can't even do a pull-up or a chin-up right now

00:19:41.960 is a great time to to get up on that but let's say you're you've mastered the pull-up what are some

00:19:46.160 things that prisoners have done to increase the intensity on pull-ups well the most obvious way

00:19:52.560 is going to be to add some sort of resistance be it you know another person some sort of object

00:19:57.280 weights whatever and then another one is is actually changing the move you know obviously you can go

00:20:02.260 unilateral one-armed type of thing even if you grab your wrist or something like rocky does

00:20:07.240 that's going to be harder than just doing a regular chin-up and then another one like is a sternum

00:20:12.580 pull-up so that's sort of almost like a row a row and it's like you're doing a pull-up but you come

00:20:17.980 up and like almost touch your sternum to the bar that's what you shoot for so you're kind of leaning

00:20:22.140 back as you do that so you get a lot of the feeling of it's almost like a hybrid between a horizontal

00:20:27.700 and a vertical pull and you feel it in a point in a midpoint of your back like you do a row it's like

00:20:32.880 nothing you've ever felt before another movement pull-up variation that i've seen that it just

00:20:37.160 works something differently it's i think it's called like a commando pull-up it's like where

00:20:40.800 you hold the bar like you're you're like crossing a rope commando style absolutely you just pull

00:20:46.400 yourself up and alternate shoulders and that just it hits different that's an that's another yeah

00:20:52.440 absolutely commando pull-ups are great yeah and then on the squat i mean i guess the way you can

00:20:56.960 add intensity that i mean the ultimate way to add intensity to that would be like a pistol squat

00:21:01.820 like a one-legged squat and i think that's true with any any kind of body body weight stuff is when

00:21:07.660 you go unilateral that's gonna obviously make it a lot tougher so yeah absolutely and then i think

00:21:13.020 another one is pause squats not that a lot of people are gonna you know a lot of the stronger

00:21:17.640 people are still gonna deal that no problem but that's you know another one i think jump squats are

00:21:22.300 a big one so that's another big one if you like a prison jump squat where you put your hands behind

00:21:28.080 your head land in the squat position and do those in like a rapid fire succession that's a great way

00:21:33.180 to increase intensity there no yeah one thing that i've done this i don't i remember this when i was

00:21:38.940 in like elementary school i read some book on like how to be a ninja or like a shaolin monk or whatever

00:21:43.720 yeah and one of the exercises they talked about was uh like they'd have you just they'd have the monks

00:21:49.400 like in a half squat position like a ready fight position and you just hold it for as long as you can

00:21:54.200 and i remember like in my bedroom when i was 11 years old doing that until i basically just all

00:22:01.420 the lactic acid built up i thought i was getting i mean i guess it did i mean it must have done

00:22:05.340 something for me that's one way you can add intensity you just hold a position for a long time

00:22:08.980 sure and have you ever done things like sissy squats and stuff like that or hindu squats

00:22:13.000 i have not what are those hindu squats is um similar to like a hindu you know it's i guess similar but

00:22:20.480 you want to get a rhythm going like a hindu push-up you kind of like swing your arms over your

00:22:24.220 head and you and then you let your air out as you go down sort of like the you know obviously when

00:22:29.480 you're squatting heavy weight you don't want to let your air out it's going to crush you but here

00:22:32.840 you just let it out to kind of let yourself get really deep in a circular motion and you come up on

00:22:37.860 your toes as you go down again something you wouldn't do with weight on your back and that was

00:22:41.460 another big one if you go on you guys go on that line just google a picture of the great gama

00:22:45.660 there's some cool pictures of him doing hindu squats you can see that bottom position i'm talking

00:22:50.480 about so you know if you have knee problems or something this could be an issue but for like

00:22:54.500 high reps in in circuits and stuff i mean it's going to really you know burn your quads like crazy

00:23:00.260 and then assisty squats kind of similar to that type of movement but you're not doing you hold on to

00:23:05.380 something and you really you get up on your toes and really let your knees travel forward and get a

00:23:09.740 huge stretch in your quad it wouldn't be something you'd load up with a bunch of weight and i just

00:23:13.840 one that came to my mind you possibly do too in confined space like prison is like a bulgarian

00:23:18.900 split squat right just put your foot up on a bed and then just squat right and that would sort of

00:23:23.640 lend to the point we made earlier about going unilateral that would be like an easier way

00:23:27.020 of going unilateral rather than you know having to do a full-out pistol squat and the way you can

00:23:32.200 make these harder too even if like for squat just put something in your body hold something

00:23:36.220 could be a rock a chair a kid i don't know and and do the do the movement and you can add some

00:23:42.220 weight that way i used to that's how i used to put my son to sleep but when he was about a year

00:23:46.560 and a half i'd just start doing squats with him and he'd be asleep in about 30 seconds just hold

00:23:50.220 him like a surgery squat how old's your son now i have a seven-year-old and a five-year-old yeah

00:23:55.380 have you tried that on him lately just pick him up and no last night i want to go to sleep and because

00:24:00.980 you know our our sleeping schedule is a little off right now because i just did the seminar in

00:24:05.840 australia right before you know all hell broke loose with what's going on right now but so we got back

00:24:10.080 like early and then so what i did is i took my family over with me we did like a vacation

00:24:14.200 for a week then i had a seminar for three days and our you know then we got back school's canceled

00:24:20.200 so no one's you know sleeping has been you know because the australian ship i guess as an excuse

00:24:25.800 a few weeks ago now but we i guess we hadn't really got on a normal routine as much as we would just

00:24:30.640 because of everything that's been going on last night they're in there just telling me to make

00:24:34.900 them do different kinds of burpees so tire them out all right so we've talked about the the basic

00:24:40.960 movements you can do push-ups pull-ups squats and then the variations you can do to make those a bit

00:24:46.080 harder but let's talk about programming body weight exercise particularly how prisoners have done it so

00:24:50.360 when you've talked to these guys what are some typical body weight programming you've seen in

00:24:56.480 prisons and then what i mean and then also let's talk about what your power lifting experience what

00:25:00.640 insights you've brought to that on programming body weight exercises sure so i think smart prisoners

00:25:06.740 are avoiding like some of the you know common mistakes so some of the common mistakes i think are

00:25:11.860 you know just people getting um you know so in endurance happy they just make this endo like

00:25:19.020 they view body weight training or guess you know some of those avoid it altogether but a lot of people

00:25:23.920 view it as just totally for endurance when with the right application it can be used for its strength

00:25:29.360 and explosive power even for people with you know high relative strength that's your strength to

00:25:34.200 body weight ratio so keeping that in mind some of the things i've seen it's going to vary a lot i've

00:25:40.320 seen just how in strength training you can see somebody using something where they're squatting a couple

00:25:46.780 times a week and then you have some bulgarian type of methodology where squatting you know twice a day

00:25:52.260 and they're both getting good results so there is variation there but you know the most successful

00:25:57.200 programs i've seen have come up with a few different things i've seen people are that are basically

00:26:01.220 structuring around their workouts around his desired training effects so they might be focusing on one

00:26:06.900 workout on explosive strength one workout on strength one workout in endurance you know that type of

00:26:12.660 thing so almost like an undulated periodization model where each workout is going to have a purpose

00:26:17.880 another thing i've seen very successfully used is people using the total repetition method

00:26:24.160 so that what all that means is for instance if somebody sets out like they're going to you know

00:26:29.920 do a pull-up workout they say they're going to do 100 pull-ups they the way they get to 100 pull-ups

00:26:34.600 they do as many reps as possible you know say rest 30 seconds for example and repeat that sequence

00:26:40.840 until they reach 100 reps so that could be you could do this for 10 reps you could do it for a thousand

00:26:45.720 it doesn't matter but that's kind of the methodology right there the total repetition method obviously

00:26:50.260 of your like your straight sets that and that's just you know 10 sets of 10 whatever but then

00:26:56.480 another one we've seen and we brought to the forefront here was a war is valley method and i

00:27:01.520 saw you had written an article and mentioned that in one of your articles too yeah so a lot of people

00:27:05.840 don't know what that is so what that is is let's just say a war is valley 10 the object of this workout

00:27:12.040 to keep the the intensity steady so what you do is like say you start off with 10 pull-ups you did

00:27:17.320 you know this would be really hard but you do 10 pull-ups you would walk eight feet away walk eight

00:27:23.300 feet back then you do one you do the same walk again then you go nine same walk again you go two

00:27:29.520 you basically go back and forth eighth and three seven four you know six and five until every number

00:27:34.640 between one and ten is covered you could do that for a 20 you could do that for whatever 15 doesn't

00:27:40.200 matter but that's the idea the deck of pain you could this is most popular for push-ups you basically

00:27:47.280 flip a card over and you have a deck of cards you flip a card over and you do ever many push-ups or

00:27:53.020 whatever movement you want to do that's on that card and then you have the what i call the mountain

00:27:58.040 method it's based off of what chuck sipes used to do he used to have a thing called the 110 one have

00:28:03.100 you ever heard of that before i have not okay so what chuck sipes would do is he's a famous

00:28:08.920 bodybuilder kind of like old school before you know heyday early 60s type of guy and what he would

00:28:14.820 do is he would pick it up like he would go really heavy but he'd also do like pump training when he

00:28:19.320 did the pump training what he would do is he'd go one rep two rep three four all the way up to 10

00:28:23.560 like that then he'd go back down 10 you know nine eight seven six all the way down to one but he'd only

00:28:28.660 take 10 seconds between sets and you can do this for like a more of a muscle endurance or hypertrophy

00:28:34.220 type of training with body weight and the tyson squat workout's another popular one

00:28:38.820 time under tension training simply just doing sets for a prescribed amount of time you know

00:28:43.780 instead of saying i'm going to do 15 reps you just do push-ups pull-ups whatever squats with perfect

00:28:48.840 form for 30 seconds you know cluster sets where you do you know i'm going to do you focus on doing

00:28:54.360 more sets less reps but you do a ton of sets and then other ones that are we call limited yard time

00:28:59.160 circuits so you go say you're like 20 minutes you would do push-ups for 30 seconds rest 30 seconds

00:29:04.540 do squats for 30 seconds rest 30 seconds to do a variety of different body weight type of training

00:29:09.620 exercises that last one that's kind of how my conditioning is at the end of a you know barbell

00:29:16.040 session is that it's okay there's three different body weight movements you're going to do 30 seconds

00:29:20.680 on 30 seconds off so it's almost kind of like a crossfit wad absolutely yeah i think it's i think

00:29:25.920 yeah it sounds like you're in a good program so i like what i'm hearing from you so yeah absolutely

00:29:29.780 that's a great way to do it and uh that cluster set so i i just learned about this because i was

00:29:35.420 listening to interview you're talking about this concept so that'd be instead of doing

00:29:38.580 you know two sets of 10 you would do 10 sets of two that's how i always it's funny i always said

00:29:45.200 a seminar ago there's no working definition of cluster sets i use that exact example you give

00:29:50.100 because i don't know there maybe there is no one's no one's correct me yet and said well actually

00:29:55.240 there is a definition now it's basically that more sets less reps and that'd be good for pull

00:30:00.680 so someone who doesn't can't do a lot of pull-ups that'd be a great way to get more pull-ups into a

00:30:04.940 session say if you only do two well instead of trying to like do 10 in a set do 10 sets of two

00:30:11.720 yeah it's a way it's a it's a better way also for the you know for building explosive strength there

00:30:16.520 you can produce more force that way and it's better for the acquisition of skill if you're trying to

00:30:20.660 actually master a movement grease the groove if you will then the cluster sets are more effective

00:30:25.080 and that's something i've definitely picked up because i feel like you asked earlier about you

00:30:29.540 know the powerlifting influence i don't think i did a very good job of answering that i kind of like

00:30:33.100 skipped over because i started talking about other things but that would be where this would apply

00:30:36.760 is that cluster sets is huge i didn't even have a name for it when i first started working with

00:30:41.500 people i just knew that powerlifting we're a one-rep sport we need more first reps to practice

00:30:47.040 technique but this is going to you know this is going to be a better way to master technique and pull-ups

00:30:51.600 or whatever and any other influence of powerlifting there would be you know progressive overload of

00:30:56.400 course so progressive overload for those who don't know just means you're making your workout harder

00:31:01.000 so how do you implement progressive overload in body weight workouts i think this is a big mistake

00:31:06.620 people make so most people are just going to add reps which obviously adding reps is a great way but

00:31:10.220 you know in viewer you know so if you were heard in bodybuilding people use the term cheating

00:31:14.440 like you you know okay so cheating maybe maybe explain that for our listeners sure familiar with

00:31:19.820 it so cheating would be let's let's let's envision yourself doing a set of curls okay the set of

00:31:25.020 curls becomes too difficult to complete with perfect form so what you do is you add a little you know

00:31:30.320 add a little hip bump to get a little swing and if you're doing it correctly you would use just

00:31:34.620 enough to get past your sticking point which means where you'd normally be stuck at and go right past

00:31:40.160 there okay that's that's how most people get cheating the other way to do cheating is like

00:31:44.360 when i'm doing hypertrophy training for people is like what i call variable range of motion so

00:31:48.260 let's say for example somebody's doing you know time under tension training do an incline dumbbell

00:31:53.340 press for 30 seconds when they are no longer complete full reps they would go to partial reps so

00:31:57.800 it's a variable range of motion and that's what you got to be careful on when you are which is good for

00:32:03.740 that type of training but you know because you're just going for a period of time but if you're

00:32:08.000 actually trying to execute reps the wisdom i used to get in powerlifting was old school guys when i

00:32:14.180 was like 13 14 years old at the gym would say if you squat you know if every inch of depth you cheat

00:32:20.320 you basically cheating yourself at 40 pounds or it's making 40 pounds easier so if we go with that logic

00:32:25.080 in here if you start doing the bodyweight exercises and you keep decreasing with a variable range of motion

00:32:30.160 it's no longer the same lift that's the problem with if you only look at that so adding reps is awesome

00:32:36.160 but you have to make sure you're using the same reps if you're actually progressively overloading

00:32:41.960 you know the movement so then the other ways are the ones that we just talked about of you know

00:32:47.020 you eventually you would put your feet up on a push-up or you know go unilateral on a squat or

00:32:52.460 whatever the case may be is you would look at those parameters you'd also look at adding reps and then i

00:32:57.380 think a huge one is decreasing rest intervals so if we can get the same amount of work done in less

00:33:04.440 time we've progressively overloaded your training it's just with a density factor because you can

00:33:10.040 keep doing more work if you drag these workouts out for you know three hours but that's not what

00:33:14.160 people are after if we can get the same amount of work done in less time we've increased density

00:33:18.960 hence overloaded the training so there's tons of different ways we can overload it so you've talked

00:33:24.340 about different programs that you've seen the juarez valley method the the deck of pain but let's say

00:33:28.580 there's a person who's just starting now they want to just a basic bodyweight program that gets it's a

00:33:34.200 full full body program like what would that look like for someone starting out with like

00:33:38.040 the exercise and also the reps and sets you'd record sure so okay i get an example so here'd be

00:33:43.580 like a three day a week program okay so we you know so you go full body three days a week you would go

00:33:50.660 say five sets of 10 to 20 reps on a on a push-up five sets of 15 to 20 reps on a squat a prison squat

00:33:58.780 then five sets of leg raises and some planks would be one day another day we'd have burpees

00:34:03.900 and what we do is start off with basically just like one or two reps you know walk away like a

00:34:10.920 war's valley walk back and repeat that for 10 minutes we would do some sort of unarmed combat

00:34:17.440 drill this is using a jailhouse strong stuff so keep that in mind if you're not into this stuff you

00:34:22.660 know you could do something else but some sort of unarmed combat interval drill next walking lunges

00:34:28.600 then some inverted rows and then on friday you know we do some hindu squats chin-ups and if

00:34:35.400 somebody's unable to do chin-ups we'd work with some variations that are you know easier to do you

00:34:40.260 could you know might even do inverted rows might do there's all sorts of different ways you do band

00:34:46.040 assisted push-ups all sorts of different you know even if you had a partner that could spot you all

00:34:49.600 sorts of different things we could do and then some push-ups and then some jackknife sit-ups so

00:34:53.760 that would be a pretty you know beginner level not somebody that's never done anything before but

00:34:59.260 someone kind of new to bodyweight training that sounds like it only take about 30 to 45 minutes to

00:35:04.120 do yeah if you could get if if you if you're not training right now you have some sort of athletic

00:35:08.580 background i think 30 minutes three times a week you can definitely change your physique your health and

00:35:13.700 feel a lot better absolutely and how do you know when to start adding variables and start changing

00:35:18.140 things up when with with your programming like to add intensity or reps so if i okay so like if i'm

00:35:25.920 working with somebody like one-on-one i'm gonna change it weekly it's gonna it could be very very

00:35:30.620 very small changes though like you know but if if that's not the case here's following one of these

00:35:36.080 programs it's gonna you know in jailhouse strong on this particular program it'd be every every three

00:35:41.320 weeks gotcha and are there how do you are there do like prisoners have you found they do they ever

00:35:47.720 fall like a deloading like scheme so like they decided okay i've done i've done three months i've

00:35:52.880 done three weeks of this time for a deload and then i'll work do they do things like that or they just

00:35:57.660 keep going up and adding progressive overload well they definitely do so what what i what they use is

00:36:03.100 the same way you know i train a lot now too is i call these our natural deloads so what that means is

00:36:09.340 for them it's like you know a lot of people say like well arnold never deloaded well yeah he

00:36:14.160 actually did he's in his encyclopedia bodybuilding he talked about how he'd walk into the gym not feel

00:36:19.620 it a certain day and leave that was his deload i mean he didn't actually he may not have it planned

00:36:24.700 out but he said he did that so a lot of people did deload without them knowing it you know what i

00:36:30.320 mean or like they felt off that day they used lighter weight it just wasn't planned so what a lot of

00:36:35.480 these guys do is like you know that's what they're gonna do is they're not feeling it that they don't

00:36:38.980 feel it they kill it type of deal that's what i personally do now so i'm gonna like you know if

00:36:43.540 we're doing a vacation every few months or something or doing this or that this is a perfect time for

00:36:50.120 you know we're in australia go to the beach and i take the kids to the beach in the morning and

00:36:54.140 run some not even sprints more like tempo runs like do some push-ups things like that

00:36:58.800 and it wasn't very structured it wasn't very hard but it was enough to keep me kind of like active

00:37:03.620 recovery so most of them are doing stuff like that but in my programs i definitely work those in

00:37:09.760 and then if i was working with someone individually you know and we got to that point

00:37:14.740 they could be trusted to make this kind of decision i say okay just let me know when you need a natural

00:37:19.100 deload because you're going to take a vacation or whatever but definitely just for these kind of

00:37:22.720 programs we do them less often so it might be instead of like i would say the average in most

00:37:28.060 programs with like barbells is we say like every four weeks is a safe average right yeah okay this

00:37:35.000 would be mark every eight weeks or so okay that makes sense and i think also just that i like that

00:37:39.940 idea of like keep in mind how you fill in look i mean that's where there's something like like

00:37:43.340 rated perceived effort might come in handy it's like i'm gonna if this things are feeling like a

00:37:48.040 an eight or a nine when it should feel like a seven maybe i just take a break today

00:37:52.460 and that's what that's what most of the prisoners and we talk to them that's we say what do you

00:37:57.460 they're like what's that and you tell them like no if i just didn't feel it that day i'd stop right

00:38:01.700 so we've been talking about strength and a lot of this stuff the body weight can be used as

00:38:06.960 conditioning but in jailhouse strong you talk about the burpee as being the the go-to conditioning

00:38:12.200 exercise for comments like what's so great about burpees sure so um to lending your point right there

00:38:18.020 on the strength though and i think this is also important for the heavier people listening

00:38:21.540 that are into barbell training and stuff if right now if you're training with mostly your body weight

00:38:26.280 you probably won't really notice much of a drop off your heavier but anyways matt back to the burpees

00:38:31.620 so burpees are awesome so burpees um you know that that you know how they kind of came about and got

00:38:37.000 popular no tell me okay they were so they were a conditioning test for world world war ii and that

00:38:43.960 doesn't i mean i guess it doesn't that doesn't uh mean it's going to help you if you're listening but

00:38:48.980 just piece of history right there i think they're very similar to you know any kind of like

00:38:54.820 sprawling type of deal for unarmed combat scenario for mma type of stuff they're very effective for

00:39:01.020 for interval training and they may they've bait and they also force your body to to work together

00:39:06.920 as an integrated unit and there there are um like anything else there are different ways to increase

00:39:12.240 intensity here you can you know you can sort of do you can do an eight count burpee you can do you can

00:39:16.760 do push-ups one of the guys was saying even and someone wrote me the other day told me in one of the

00:39:22.360 prisons in california they would do it where they do a regular burpee with a push-up jump up do a knee

00:39:27.420 and then you take your fist and you hit yourself in the you know if you do a right knee you hit

00:39:32.740 yourself in the on your left side with a hammer fist to your stomach so i mean then you alternate

00:39:38.500 sides there's tons of different ways so i think it's very good for like real world scenario it's very

00:39:44.780 good for interval training and it forces your body to work together as an integrated union i did a bunch

00:39:50.240 of them last night just knowing we were going to talk about them today because i haven't done any

00:39:52.920 in a while and you know i felt it feels really good no and there i just i think i've got bad

00:39:59.820 memories of them from football right like you just as soon as the coach said get your feet moving

00:40:04.280 you're like you knew it was gonna you know it was about to come sure yeah burpees it's another way

00:40:08.960 another thing that i've done before or i've done in the past with burpees to add intensity to it so

00:40:13.400 it's like burpee and then when you jump up you do a pull-up and then burpee pull-up that's hard

00:40:20.140 yeah for sure that's hard that's not fun but if you're going for punishment that could work and

00:40:24.520 then another way you mentioned that you can do conditioning is the sort of the the combatives

00:40:29.060 training so it's like shadow boxing type stuff absolutely and then you can even yeah you can do

00:40:33.960 because you know you know we've got like you know think about you'd throw knees it's almost like

00:40:38.180 sort of like a leg raise or something i mean there's a ton of different ways basically if

00:40:42.700 you know we can also go the burpee is like a swiss army knife it may not be the best at one

00:40:47.280 particular thing but it's good at a lot of different things now speaking of shadow boxing there's this

00:40:51.740 guy here in tulsa this old guy who who goes down by the arkansas river on the trail and there's like

00:40:58.580 the statue of an eagle on the river and he's this old gold guy big white beard he always has his

00:41:04.760 shirts off and at like five o'clock in the evening he's always there shadow boxing and like just there

00:41:10.240 and i'm like that guy that guy's gas station ready does he look pretty good doing it no he does i mean

00:41:16.340 he looks like i i wouldn't want to mess with him gotcha no so he i mean that's that's it right there

00:41:21.980 he might have been in the clink and i just don't know it and he's just nice where he picked that stuff

00:41:25.580 up besides this stuff you noticed do prisoners like focus on other like things besides the big

00:41:31.960 movements because it's important to have in prison or they just decided that's what they want to do

00:41:36.720 like like do they do like grip training or things like that well it's gonna be a case-by-case basis

00:41:42.220 so absolutely some of them are getting it by default one more thing i want to mention about

00:41:45.800 the burpee is if you guys haven't tried another good one is burpee box jumps if you haven't tried

00:41:50.040 that we do burpee and then you immediately jump up onto a box so not to change subject but

00:41:54.000 want to get that in real quick but yeah definitely um some do and like you know so some of the

00:41:59.480 things guys are doing are really innovative so they might do have you guys ever seen the videos

00:42:04.300 of people doing curls with like trash bags full of water and stuff like that i have not seen that

00:42:09.040 but i'm gonna okay i'm gonna search for it now yeah yeah you grip i mean you have to grip the trash

00:42:13.440 bag so you know pull-ups i mean that you know that's gonna give you some grip work so a lot of them

00:42:18.940 are they training specifically for grip no but when you're having to do like things outside of your

00:42:25.400 body weight that are very functional in nature because you have odd objects you are going to

00:42:30.340 build your forms i mean there's not a there's not a professional strongman in the world with

00:42:34.380 small forms and very few of them actually like are doing any like what you classify as grip training

00:42:39.740 beyond the events and with nutrition in prison are like they eating eggs like cool hand luke is that

00:42:44.960 what they're yeah they have well i mean it's funny you talk to a lot of guys and a lot of them have

00:42:51.200 like you know made friends with guards and stuff that like kind of like would you know turn a blind

00:42:56.140 eye to them getting protein powder and stuff like that so i think there's definitely you know that type

00:43:00.940 of deal too if you're you know good socially you might be able to get in like some extra you know

00:43:05.080 protein bars and things like that right well josh this has been a great conversation where can people

00:43:09.560 go to learn more about the books you've written in your work sure so you can go to my website

00:43:13.920 it's uh joshstrength.com you can go to my company instagram jailhouse strong or my facebook is the

00:43:21.900 josh strength method and if you go to my website go joshstrength.com and sign up for my newsletter

00:43:27.200 you get a free hill sprint program and a free eight-week deadlift program and i should say youtube

00:43:32.660 too we got a bunch of these tutorials and things like that on youtube fantastic well josh brian thanks

00:43:37.260 for your time it's been a pleasure thank you so much but i really appreciate it my guess it was josh

00:43:41.500 strength he's the co-author of the book jailhouse strong it's available on amazon.com you can find

00:43:45.360 out more information about his work at the website jailhouse strong.com also joshstrength.com

00:43:50.440 and you can also check out our show notes at aom.is slash jailhouse strong we find links to

00:43:54.640 resources we delve deeper in this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check

00:44:06.300 out our website at art of manliness.com where you can find our podcast archives as well as thousands

00:44:09.840 of articles we've written over the years got an article on there about prisoner workouts go check

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00:44:41.140 reminding not only to listen to aom podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - April 13, 2020

#601： How to Get Jailhouse Strong

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