Convict Conditioning

[sotorp Member Find all posts View Profile Close sotorp]

There is a difference between avoiding certain types of movements and not exercising at all.My point in bringing the PE was just as an imaginary analogy in another area not as an argument about whether PE works or not.
I have never seen medical opinion against sports and activity.Quite the contrary.Many studies have shown the benefits of exercise.
I prefer to take advice from physiotherapists and specialists rather than anecdotal evidence from personal acquaintances.The specialists , especially the physios treat thousands of patients and so amass a great deal of experience.
My point is "exercise hard but play it on the safe side" -the evidence is pointing to the fact that certain movements and certain intense exercises are not good for the long term health of joints.However there are tons of other exercises that train the same muscles which are fine.If you plan to be active into your 50's and 60's you should take care.

[blink2000 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close blink2000]

...Take the pistol squat.At the full level I see it is performed where the joint is past the right angle mark.You may be able to do a hundred of those and feel fine afterwards.But you will pay for this many years down the road.

This is great. You've got bad knees from lifting wrong, now you're telling others how to lift. If you stop your squat (or pistol squat) at a right angle, you will build your legs unevenly with undue emphasis on the quad. This is well known for causing knee injuries. The bottom half of your leg must dip below a right angle to fully activate your hamstrings and glutes. With squatting, when they say "go parallel", it actually means the top of your legs are parallel to the ground, not the bottom. Most high schools, and even many colleges (at least in the past) are teaching guys to do partial squats (i.e. nothing goes past parallel, and this develops the leg in an unbalanced, and dangerous way). Often people are use too much weight and bad technique, then they get injured and blame squatting on their woes.

You say you read a lot; I hope it wasn't the type of muscle mags that have articles about blasting your biceps with 20 different exercises. Books like starting strength, by rippetoe outline good form and technique. I was taught over 20 years ago to do most of my lifts with imperfect technique, even the collegiate level trainers were teaching some incorrect principles. I didn't realize this until recently... I can see you've fallen victim to the same bad principles I was taught. While there are exceptional trainers out there, I would say, the typical trainer is not capable of teaching correct technique because they were also taught incorrectly.

You haven't read the book, so you're jumping to some incorrect conclusions here... The pistol squat is labeled as an 'ultimate goal'. You're not supposed to start out with it, you're supposed to work up to it very slowly over months, years, whatever. Also, the pistol squats this book advocates only use your natural bodyweight within a natural range of motion. Going deep will activate the hamstrings, glutes, and quads evenly, and it will even activate a few muscles that can't be stimulated with squats or deadlifts (there is a true value you can get from single leg exercises that you can't get otherwise).

If you do pistol squats with bad technique you can hurt yourself. But if you use perfect technique, you'll probably stabilize your knee more than anything else. Really, that's the idea behind this book. Create a hardened body that's ready for action at any time, and not easily injured. You'll notice he strongly recommends spinal exercises in the book, and this is also one of his big six goals (back bends). This is something most other exercise programs completely ignore. I'm telling you, this guy is onto something. I'll tell you something else; since I stopped wrestling and stopped maintaining my spinal strength, my back has really deteriorated. I'm hoping this program will help me strengthen and stabilize my spine...

Another example is the behind the neck pull down or up.It puts extreme pressure on the cervical part of the spine.

That's not an exercise I ever use, and it's not part of the convict conditioning program.

Don't Throw Out the Baby with the Bath Water
Convict Conditioning is a set of bodyweight exercises that use a natural range of motion in the way mother nature intended. That hardly seems dangerous to me. I'm not a blind fanboy here... I'm someone like you with a lifetime of weightlifting experience (more than 20 years). I think you don't see the value simply because you don't know what it is.

The first several steps involve very safe, low intensity exercises. The exercises are designed with a very gentle progression so that even someone recovering from surgery can take things slow and gently build up joint, ligament, tendon, and muscle strength. The book doesn't promise you'll be doing pistol squats and 1 arm pullups overnight. He warns that some people might never reach the 'ultimate' exercises, and most people need at least a few or several years to work through all the progressions. Even most 'strong guys' can usually only do 1 or 2 of the 'ultimate' exercises. Only a circus performer or a gymnast have a remote chance of being strong enough, pound for pound to do all the exercises without additional training. Keep in mind, he credits guys like this for helping him develop this system.

The real benefit of the book is that I'll be able to have a great workout when I can't make it to a gym. I really am impressed with the progressions this guy has developed; I'll be able to go many years, and continue to keep building my strength slowly in a very natural way for a very long time to come (and I'll learn to improve my balance and gain some skill along the way). This system that truly has some serious thought that went into it. I have never seen anything like it. This guy book shows a way for someone with no resources, and no gym membership to develop fantastic strength and endurance. I think that's a wonderful thing.

[blink2000 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close blink2000]

If you plan to be active into your 50's and 60's you should take care.

I agree, and I think an exercise program that develops and maintains bone density, ligament and joint strength, and well as muscle strength is an ideal way to do this. I don't see the harm in bodyweight exercise, in fact, I think even bodybuilders would agree that bodyweight exercise is probably more sustainable long term (vs. weight lifting).

I'm still a fan of weightlifting... however, I do think it's a shame that the knowledge of bodyweight exercises was lost and never really passed on to our generation. There's been a revival lately, and I think that's a good thing.

[sotorp Member Find all posts View Profile Close sotorp]

I admit I have not studied this book and I did not refer to or judge it.And do not take it personally.I am not trashing your program.But I saw a problem with some of the exercises you mentioned like the pistol squat and the one handed exercises which initiated my general commentary on taking certain precautions. It is true and I may agree that a deep knee bend probably involves adjacent muscle groups like glutes and hams but the corollary is that there are other exercises for these muscle groups which should be exercised in conjunction in order to maintain balance.Of course if you only do high squats there will be more emphasis on the quads but nobody is saying that squats are the only leg exercise out there.

[blink2000 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close blink2000]

I do realize guys do get injured with weightlifting. I think impatience, incorrect technique, and trying to shoot for a new max too often, or other forms of overworking can all do this. I also agree that precautions must be taken--I think attempting high intensity exercises before someone is truly ready could potentially do damage. Whether you're weightlifting, swinging a kettlebell, or just jogging, I agree an educated, cautious approach is best.

I like your point about maintaining balance... I always find it sort of pathetic when I see a guy with a freakishly large upper-body and spindly legs (I actually had a girlfriend that preferred that look and didn't like my very well balanced build--she complained my calves were too big, but they were 16" at the time and smaller than my upper arms and neck!--by the way, that was more than 12 years ago...). Now if a guy is like that naturally, or if he really wants it (massively unbalanced build), thats fine by me... but I think for long term health, its probably not a good idea.

I was only commenting on squats since you used it as an example. I admit I actually hate squats... I was lucky enough to be born with extremely muscular legs, so I never did many reps or sets of squads, or even deadlifts (I did do a lot of Olympic lifting in college though; e.g. power cleans). Aside from that, I kept seeing guys get knee injuries. Lots of my friends blew out their rotator cuffs too. I swapped out bench for dumbbell presses as a precautionary measure a long time ago, and since my legs were naturally big, I just stopped squatting and didn't worry about it (I guess I'm lucky that was an easy decision for me).

I also reduced the frequency of my lifting. I rarely lift a body part more than once a week (in fact, these days I'm not lifting since I'm doing P90x + convict conditioning which is pushing me plenty already). I do go to the gym when I feel fresh enough to lift (or when I decided its time for a little more variety).