No weights? No worries. If you feel like a prisoner in your own home, you may as well get ripped in the meantime.
Let’s be honest: This all sucks. Social distancing, shelter-in-place orders, and home quarantines are all reasonable sacrifices in the face of this frightening new reality. But make no mistake, we’re social creatures, and if you’re like any other gear junkie, you’d rather be playing outside.
But, because we’ve got nothing but time on our hands (and sanitizer — use often), what better opportunity to focus on your fitness? We scoured the internet to find some honest-to-goodness prison-cell workouts — and there are quite a few!
We also have some great routines to mix things up (it could get boring otherwise). And we added in a few ideas from our time staying fit when we’re snowed in or stuck in hotel rooms.
“Home quarantine” may as well mean “home gym”; “shelter in place” may as well mean “run in place”; “social distancing” … is actually a good practice and should be followed. The point is, this time is an opportunity to ditch your idea of what a workout should look like.
Goodbye dumbbells, squat racks, and weird giant rubber bands. Hello, dining room chair, doorframe, and 6 x 8-foot floor space! Here are some routines you can do at home with minimal or no equipment. All you need is some grit and dedication, and you can emerge from this pandemic like a beast.
But before you get started, like any fitness routine, you have to be careful and listen to your body. As with any activity, there is the possibility of injury, so know the difference between good pain (feel the burn) and bad pain (did I just tear something?). And if in doubt, consult your physician before beginning an exercise routine.
Prison Exercises
Prison exercises rely mostly on bodyweight workouts. That means pushups, planks, pullups, squats, dips, lunges, and the like. We break those down later in the article if you need some advice, or inspiration, on how to do those.
But the real secret to a “prison workout” is how you put those bodyweight exercises together. This means reps, sets, and timing.
Mike Tyson Squats
For instance, one apocryphal tale suggests former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson devised a fiendish squat routine while incarcerated. It goes like this:
- Lay down 10 playing cards on the ground, with 4-6 inches between each card (left-to-right, or forward-to-back).
- Squat down and pick up the first card. Advance to the next card.
- Squat down and place the first card on the second card.
- Squat down again and pick up the top card. Then squat down a second time to pick up the second card. Advance to the next card.
- Squat down and place one card down. Squat again and place the next card down.
- Now repeat, squatting once per card before advancing on. And squatting once per card to set them down.
Deck of Pain
According to The Art of Manliness, a deck of cards is a common piece of fitness equipment. In this variant, it’s more what’s on the card than the card itself. The “Deck of Pain” routine goes as follows:
- Assign a suit to each type of exercise (see below). For example: Spade = Pushup; Club = Pullup; Heart = Squat; Diamond = Abs
- So, the suit gives you the exercise, and the number gives you the reps. Blackjack rules; face cards are 10 and Aces are 11.
- Start flippin’ cards! Try and get through the entire deck for a full workout.
Juarez Valley Pushup Challenge
- 1st set: 20
- 2nd set: 1
- 3rd set: 19
- 4th set: 2
- 5th set: 18
- 6th set: 3
- 7th set: 17
- 8th set: 4
- 9th set: 16
- 10th set: 5
- 11th set: 15
- 12th set: 6
- 13th set: 14
- 14th set: 7
- 15th set: 13
- 16th set: 8
- 17th set: 12
- 18th set: 9
- 19th set: 11
- 20th set: 10