http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/08/05/the-prisoner-workout/
According to the book he wrote in prison, Solitary Fitness, Bronson performs 2,000 push-ups a day.
Hindu Push-up. This is a dynamic full-body movement that will build strength and flexibility in your chest, shoulders, back, hips, and triceps.
Get in position by standing with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Bend down and place your hands on the floor while keeping your arms and legs straight. You should look like an upside down human “v” with your butt being the point of the “v” and your head pointing down to the ground.
To perform the Hindu push-up, you’re going to make sort of a swooping motion with your body. Bring your head down and forward by bending your elbows. When your head gets close to the ground, continue moving your torso forward by arching your back and lowering your hips. Your hips will now be near your hands. Make sure to get a good stretch in your back. Return to the starting position and repeat.
Typewriter Pull-up. Grab the bar with an overhand grip slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Pull yourself up until your sternum is at the bar. Now, move your body toward one hand, taking some of the weight off the opposite hand. Keep your sternum at the bar. Return your body to the center and repeat on the opposite side. Return to the center and lower your body under control. That is one rep.
Commando Pull-up. You may remember Rocky doing these babies during his epic training montage. Take an underhand grip with one hand and an overhand grip with the other. Pull your head to one side of the bar for one rep, and then to the other side of the bar on the next rep.
Prisoner Squat. The traditional prisoner bodyweight squat is performed by placing your hands behind your head. Squat down until your thighs are below parallel. Come up. That’s one rep.
Squat Jumps. A plyometric version of the squat to build explosiveness. Perform a prisoner squat as you normally would, but when you reach the bottom of the squat explode up and jump off the ground as high as you can. When your feet are back on the ground, immediately sink into another squat and jump again. Great for HIIT.
Pistol Squat. You’ll have achieved top-dog, alpha-male-prisoner, beast-mode status when you can perform multiple pistol squats. A pistol squat is a one-legged full squat. The leg that you’re not squatting with sticks out right in front of you when you’re in the squat position. When you’re at the bottom of the squat, you sort of look like a pistol, hence the name. It’s a beast to do and will take months to work up to.
There are entire routines to help you accomplish this Herculean feat (and perhaps we’ll hit on it in the future), but one of the best exercises to help you segue into a pistol squat is to perform the assisted variety. Simply grab a pole or some other sturdy object in front of you and lower yourself into a one-legged squat position and use the pole to help pull yourself up. Eventually, you can take off these training wheels and do a free-standing one.
Hanging Leg Raise Variations
Straight Leg Raises. Grab and hang from a bar with a slightly wider than shoulder-width overhand grip. Keeping your knees straight, raise legs by flexing hips until they are completely flexed, or knees are well above hips. Return until hips are extended downward.
Bent Knee Leg Raises. If you can’t do a straight leg raise, you can modify it by bending your knees and raising them into your chest.
Full Straight Leg Raise. Perform a straight leg raise as you normally would, but instead of stopping when your feet rise above your hips, keep going until your toes touch the bar.
Towel Straight Leg Raises. Place two towels over the bar and grip one in each hand. Perform a straight leg raise while holding onto the towels.
Hanging Windshield Wiper. Perform a straight leg raise, but when your feet come to the top positions, brace your abs and rotate your legs to one side as far as you can. Rotate to the other side. That’s one rep.
One-Arm Straight Leg Raise. You’ll have achieved top-dog, alpha-male-prisoner, beast-mode status when you can perform multiple one-armed straight leg raises and hold yourself in the top position for several seconds.
Burpees
The burpee is the ultimate full-body exercise. There’s a reason football teams, CrossFit practitioners, and elite military forces use the burpee in their workouts. Just one simple movement tests both your strength and aerobic capacities.
Basic Burpee. To perform a basic burpee, just follow these instructions:
- Begin in a squat position with hands on the floor in front of you.
- Kick your feet back to a push-up position.
- Immediately return your feet to the squat position.
- Leap up as high as possible from the squat position.
Burpee With Push-up. Perform the burpee normally, but after you kick out your feet to a push-up position, go ahead and do a full push-up.
Burpee With Hindu Push-up. Instead of just doing a full push-up, make it a Hindu push-up.
Burpee+Pull-up. Stand underneath a pull-up bar or tree branch that is high enough that you have to leap to reach it. Perform a burpee normally, but when you leap up grab the bar and perform a pull-up. Repeat. Did you hear that? That was the sound of your soul dying.
Greasing the Groove
Instead of having a set time period where you try to crank out as many reps as you can, with greasing the groove, you’re performing reps throughout the day. You might set up a system where every half hour, you perform ten push-ups. Assuming you’re up for 12 hours a day, that’s 240 push-ups every day.I do greasing the groove with pull-ups. I’ve got a pull-up bar hung up in my closet’s doorframe. Anytime I walk by it, I crank out five pull-ups. The number of pull-up reps I’m able to accumulate during the day always surprises me.
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