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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

It exists: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/no-weights-no-limits-an-inte...

This seems to cover a small part of it. Also I don't know much about prison but I assume inmates have access to weights (or maybe that is just a hollywood stereotype that I have picked up). I suppose though while you are in jail if you aren't bailed out you can do weightless training.

I would imagine forearm training would be critical since grappling is so important in self defense. This could be tricky if there are no bars to hang from.

I'm thinking the best training is probably fairly similar to football training... get big, fast, and strong. I'm just not sure gymnastic like training will do that (particularly as you gain weight that sort of training becomes fairly difficult).

Thus from my limited knowledge... I would probably do a ton of power cleans, power presses, and sand bag grabbing. Maybe some farmer walks. Probably no dead lifts while in prison though since that would just sap you and leave you weak for attacks. Maybe deadlifts prior to going in.

No, weights were banned in American prisons years ago.

If you can do one-arm pressups and pullups - which Wade's training leads up to - you will be stronger than 99% of people who train with weights anyway.

Ahh.. figured it was hollywood bull$hit. It seems like every movie still has dudes lifting weights in a court yard.

I have no doubt about doing one arm pullups making you strong. I just recently accomplished this myself but I had to loose a ton of weight to do so (from 198 -> 168). When I lost the weight I got a lot weaker and less powerful (albeit I certainly look better). I have feeling my old fat self could take more physical abuse.

Some state prisons still allow weight stacks, they post their weight lifting competitions on youtube all the time (illegally, not sure how prisoners get phones).

Here's some guy in a no weight stack prison, with a contraband phone showing off his exercise routine (and pics of the homemade water weights) https://youtu.be/WLmDkcb6JQE

>illegally, not sure how prisoners get phones

From guards making a quick buck?

I was in prison when I had just turned 18, back in the late 90's.

Inmates just made their own weights using a few layers of trash bags filled with water.

Prisons are full of very clever hacks borne by necessity.

True. Actually there was an exhibition I saw once, with inventions, or rather, stuff made in prisons.

It had from DIY tatoo kits to radios and all kinds of stuff done with whatever was available.

(Hmm, could be related to this: http://temporaryservices.org/served/projects-by-name/prisone... ).

Beating 99% of people who weight train with modified bodyweight exercises is definitely a stretch.

A pushup is equivalent to benching roughly 64% of your body weight. So if we say one armed is similar to benching 128% of your bodyweight... That puts a person in the intermediate level of weight training.

http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/BenchStandards.htm...

> intermediate level of weight training

in which population?

Strength training athletes

It's a fact of training that you get what you train for. A huge physique may be intimidating but the sort of capability you would need to survive a violent environment is that of a soldier/marine or a boxer or MMA fighter - and you can develop that far quicker, and without access to good nutrition.

A one handed pushup is much harder than that because of the great difficulty in keeping your body stable. Somebody who can bench twice their bodyweight might still fail a one handed pushup if they haven't trained for it.

Exactly. The pressup engages the entire anterior chain. And no-one cares about anyone's bench press 1RM in a fight or indeed any situation outside of the gym - it just isn't a useful kind of strength.

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