Convict conditioning
How to Train As If Your VERY LIFE Depended on Your Degree of REAL Strength, Power and ToughnessMost physical training systems are designed for the domesticated human animal. That is to say, for us humans who live lives of such relative security that we cultivate our strength and power more out of pride and for a sense of accomplishment than out of an absolute need to survive in the wild. The professional athlete hones his body to function well in a sports event-rather than to emerge safe from a life-or-death struggle.
Stats for nerds
13recommend
18mentions
17people
2011–2025years
72% recommend22% neutral6% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I cycle between stronglifts.com (simple 5x5 program, but detailed if you want it) and "Convict Conditioning" calisthenics program. Weights vs body weight. Recommend either!
- Convict Conditioning is hands down the simplest, shortest, and most densely packed book on callisthenics I’ve ever read.
It explains how to work out your whole body and increase the load via harder workouts instead of increasing just reps.
E.g. how to go from kneeling push-ups all the way to one arm push-ups.
Great follow-up is The Naked Warrior by Pavel Tsatsoulin
- Paul Wade: Convict Conditioning
Less intellectual than most of the books mentioned here, but more healthy.
[Edt]
- You need to make calisthenics excercises progressively harder instead of endlessly increasing the volume, if you want to increase strength. The pinnacle are pushups on one arm, Bruce Lee demonstrated those on two fingers. The book Convict Conditioning contains progressions for several bodyweight excercises.
- Not OP, but I used the following resources:
Convict Conditioning book. There is also an app on Android call Convict Conditioning which I use to track progress.
calimove.com Paid classes but they really teach you good form
- Since home exercise equipment is so hard to find, I’ve been doing a lot of bodyweight exercises.
I found a book called Convict Conditioning that requires no equipment (except a pull up bar for some of the later exercises, but there’s a park nearby my house), and has real progressions designed to build strength. So far, I’m enjoying it a lot.
