If you are looking for bodyweight & calisthenics workout routines and plans that you can do in a small space without equipment — prison-style — check out these intense exercises (like prison burpees) and workout programs inspired by prisoners.
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Prison Burpees & More Prison-Style Workouts for Small Spaces
How To Do Prison Burpees • Prison Workout Videos • Prison Workout Books
How To Do Prison Burpees
Also known as brown eagles, rocking chairs or Aztecs, prison-style burpees are an advanced burpee exercise that improve your cardio, endurance and total body strength.
The prison burpee move works like this:
- Start in a standing position
- Strike your chest with your fists
- Strike your stomach with your fists
- Strike your legs with your fists
- Touch the ground
- Bring your hands back up in the air while doing a squat thrust on your toes
- Place your hands back on the ground
- Jump your feet back into a plank position
- Do a push-up
- Jump your feet forward towards your hands
- Return to a standing position
The rest of Moses Cuevas‘s video above shows how he increases the difficulty of the prison-style burpee workout to create an even more advanced exercise.
Prison Workout Videos
1. Burpee King
2. Men’s Health CONBODY
Developed by former inmate Coss Marte, CONBODY features 6 high-intensity workouts that are 23 minutes or less for a straightforward and effective exercise routine designed to help you burn fat and build muscle.
3. Convict Conditioning Video Series
For fans of Paul Wade’s Convict Conditioning books, here is a multi-volume series on how to master a variety of prison-style exercises in 10 progressive steps.
Prison Workout Books
1. Solitary Fitness
Solitary Fitness by Charles Bronson
Known as the “most violent prisoner in Britain,” Charles Arthur Salvador (better known as Charles Bronson) has served 28 years behind bars with 24 of those in solitary confinement. Without any equipment or supplements, Bronson developed his own strength and fitness to the point where he could punch a hole with his bare fist through bullet-proof glass and bend solid steel doors with his kicks. This book offers tips and guidance on fitness exercises you can do at home from Britain’s most notorious prisoner.
2. Cell Workout
Cell Workout by LJ Flanders
Designed for a space no larger than 6×9″, this 10-week cell workout program includes step-by-step instructions on how to perform different exercises, accompanied by useful pictures. The first 6 weeks are focused on bodyweight training and the last 4 weeks are focused on cardio.
3. Felon Fitness
Felon Fitness: How to Get a Hard Body Without Doing Hard Time by Trey Teufel & William S. Kroger
Created by NASM certified trainer Trey Teufel and counselor William S. Kroger, this book includes exercises straight from the cellblock and the routines are those of real inmates. If you don’t have access to traditional workout equipment, there are instructions on how to create your own prison dumbbells and other homemade weights using regular household items.
4. Convict Conditioning Book Series
Regarded as one of the premier experts in bodyweight exercise and calisthenics, Paul Wade spent over 20 years in maximum security prisons where he developed his acclaimed Convict Conditioning programs.
Check out his bestselling Convict Conditioning book series below.
Convict Conditioning: How to Bust Free of All Weakness–Using the Lost Secrets of Supreme Survival Strength by Paul Wade
This book includes a 6-set system of 10 progressions so that you can advance to elite levels of fitness.
Convict Conditioning 2 by Paul Wade
In this follow-up to the original Convict Conditioning, Wade explains how to work the smaller but just as important areas of the body, such as the hands, forearms, neck, calves, and obliques in functional ways to achieve greater strength and development.
5. Jailhouse Strong Book Series
Jailhouse Strong (2013) by Josh Bryant and Adam Benshea
The original ‘Jailhouse Strong’ offers functional strength training through a workout system based on the training habits of prisoners, collected through in-depth interviews.
The full Jailhouse Strong series includes programs for lifting, bodyweight exercises, conditioning with unarmed combat techniques, successful mindset development, and more.
Check out the rest of the series below.
