Convict Conditioning: How to Bust Free of All Weakness--Using the Lost Secrets of Supreme Survival Strength
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Chances are that whatever athletic level you have achieved, there are some serious gaps in your OVERALL strength program. Gaps that stop you short of being able to claim status as a TRUE man.The good news is that—in Convict Conditioning—Paul Wade has laid out a brilliant 6-set system of 10 progressions which allows you to master these elite levels. And you could be starting at almost any age and in almost in any condition!Paul Wade has given you the keys—ALL the keys you’ll ever need— that will open door after door after door for you in quest for REAL physical accomplishment. Yes, it will be the hardest work you’ll ever have to do. And yes, 97% of those who pick up Convict Conditioning, frankly, won’t have the guts and the fortitude to make it. But if you make it even half-way through Paul’s Progressions, you’ll be stronger than almost anyone you encounter.If you’re a 3-percenter, in particular, then this book is for you. Have at it! Read more
Publication date : July 19, 2018
Edition : Second Edition, Second edition
Language : English
Print length : 328 pages
ISBN-10 : 1942812159
ISBN-13 : 59
Item Weight : 1.45 pounds
Dimensions : 6.8 x 0.6 x 9.4 inches
Book 1 of 2 : Convict Conditioning
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Top Amazon Reviews
Convict conditioning is a no frills exercise book. If you a have little money, little time or hate the gym and the posers but want a book that won't give you the "flavour of the month then this is the book for you. Just a quick background on me I have been going to the gym for a long time over 20 years and have lapsed recently due to my wife having a child. Reading workout magazines I have found so many different views. After reading about CC (convict conditioning). I thought I would give it a try. For my body type this is perfect. You have to follow the book strictly or as strictly and sensibly as you can. I skipped level one on squats as it did nothing for me and ended up irritating my back so I skipped the level. The Warm ups work well for me and I have steadily improved. After 5 months of following the programme I am stronger than I have been in a long time and old martial arts injuries and weight lifting injuries have sorted themselves out. This may sound a bit too good to be true but that's how it is. The first 3 levels on each of the exercises are very easy going and will not tax too many people but they are there for an important reason. Each step is gradual and are there to help your body get used to a new exercise. Because of this it is very easy on your body and so veteran's can be helped with the early stages as there is very little pressure in awkward poses which means lots of blood flow to the area to heal. For me there isn't much of a down side. The writer is opinionated but he has a point and I like his writing style. Whether Paul Wade is a real person or a marketing tool is neither here nor there to me. It should not effect the purchase of this book. The information inside is pure gold and is practical. You don't need to spend heaps on a gym membership. You don't need to spend time with heaps of sweaty men at the gym unless you like that kind of thing. Buy this book. . This book is for practical strength it will keep you strong. Not a poser's book
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Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2014 by AG
Is Convict Conditioning perfect? No, but IMO it is a must read for those interested in bodyweight, especially when you consider there's now a second volume which adds more items to your bag of tricks. I'd certainly recommend trying the program, providing you're the patient type who will approach it with the right mind-set. Quicker strength gains are perhaps possible, but also riskier. I think the best audience for the book is someone who's new to strength training and will follow the advice to the letter. It would also be good for someone who's fed up with poor results of namby pamby `toning' approaches or wants to avoid the injuries that accompany the `no pain, no gain', cookie cutter approaches. CC is slow and steady bodyweight. Plan on giving it a good six months before you decide on how good it is. And, don't assume you grasp it completely after you've read the book the first time. CC is a whole body system with a focus on progressing slowly and steadily while adapting the tendons and ligaments to support the added strength in the muscles. As such, it's very much a health and safety first approach. By looking resolutely backwards to classic old school strongman methods, CC was ahead of its time in it's critique of contemporary training. CC eschews the quicker gains beginners may get from weights/machines/Crossfit/TRX in favor of whole body functional strength. Since most of the time you're working in an endurance modality (adding reps rather than working in a low-rep, pure strength modality) to build a solid base for your strength increases, CC is not a super fast track program. In the beginning stages, it doesn't push you anywhere near maximum intensity. For that reason, it's been criticized as a strategy that will strand some students on a plateau. There's some merit in that criticism, but I think careful reading of the coaching tips will help the student climb out of any plateau, at least prior to the late stages. And some of the late stages are well beyond what almost anybody, including the critics, can do... One arm pull ups anyone? For me, it was a good base since my special focus was older, deconditioned Tai Chi students who had never really trained in Martial Arts prior to their exposure to an "internal" tai chi school (i.e. a school that at the time neglected jiben gong or basic training). Most were also dealing with age-related muscle loss (sacropenia) and from my point of view badly needed fundamental work. From that perspective, I sometimes disagree with a few of the CC progression steps, but most of them are solid, and I always consider Paul Wade's advice valuable. My first trainee was myself. By the time I started training, I had lost a lot of upper body strength and lean muscle mass (while retaining good lower body strength and mass). So, I struggled to do a few good form pushups while being almost strong and flexible enough to perform a pistol squat (the master step in CC's squat progression). As for pull ups, I could get NO movement at all from a dead hang on a bar and holding a dead hang for 1 minute was a near maximal effort. In many ways, a program like CC (as opposed to the body wisdom in the general advice) is only as good as its progressions, so here's my take on the 6, bearing in mind my special focus... Some of these caveats might not apply to younger fit people. Younger people can get away with all manner of crazy training, at least in the short run, while the oldsters need to be very cautious. Ironically, most people who try programs like CC are the young and the fit , while it's the elders who need it the most. * * * 1. Push-up progression: excellent. The beginning step (wall pushups) is gentle enough for anyone. My only caveat, is the general avoidance in CC of negatives (eccentric training), forgoes an important tool in strength training. My earlier sorties with pushups often led to shoulder soreness. On my 2nd. pass through CC, starting with some latent elbow tendon issues, I followed the progressions very closely, avoiding any free-lancing. I worked up to full pushups with no shoulder or elbow issues at all. After full pushups, some may want to pursue the harder variations or simply maintain their level. 2. Pull ups progression: I could easily write 10 pages on training pull ups for the person who's lost (or never had) the ability. Again, I would criticize the lack of negative training. Negatives seem to me to be absolutely essential for that kind of trainee. I'm skeptical that said trainee who's met the progression standard of step 3 (3 x 20 jacknife pulls) could really progress to step 4 and do even one half pull up. Again, huge topic... 3. Squat progression: I didn't really follow it. Here, I very much freelanced and worked with some tai chi variations of squats and hip opening. The program I followed is not suitable for most people, and even though I was starting out fairly strong, I tweaked my knees slightly, several times. My only gripe about CC is that it's very hard to create a progression for everyone without also assessing the student's ankle and hip mobility. CC, unlike some books or programs, doesn't go into much detail on that. Good mobility in those joints is essential for safe squatting and many people need auxiliary work to open up. Also, for me the beginning step (inverted knee tucks) was not suitable for my target group. I'm not overweight, but do have stiff area mid-spine. When I tried step 1, I experienced a kind of weird `collapsing' effect late in the last set. It was neither painful, nor caused any harm, but made me realize there's no way I would ever put a weak, overweight person into an inverted pose just to do introductory leg work. And, step 2 doesn't really seem much different than step 3. Basically, I don't see any reason not to start with arm-assisted, full squats (sometimes called Amosov squats, after the joint mobility pioneer). After that, the progressions seems OK, although, as I said, I didn't follow it. If you're coaching yourself or others towards pistols I'd also recommend reading Steve Maxwells `pistolero' blog article (using narrow gauge squats and working from the bottom up). And, I'd recommend, when you're close to full pistols, performing many sets of 1 or 2 ultra slow (20 sec. up) full squats to move you up the last crucial bit on the strength curve. Try doing a set during every commercial break while watching a football or basketball game on TV. Unpleasant at first, but when you adapt and they become easy, you'll be close. If you have the required hip mobility you should then be able to do full negative pistols without risk. But, that's outside the scope of this review... 4. Bridge progression: very good, especially in terms of recommending it as one of the big 6 essential bodyweight exercises. As an ex-grappler, I'd forgotten how great it felt to work the spinal muscles this way. Bridging is completely neglected in most training regimens. As a Tai Chi/Qi Gong practitioner, starting to gently bridge again was a great adjunct to only working the spine using TCC/QG. One caveat: moving from step 3 to step 4 was such a big jump I thought there was an actual editorial error in the book. Step 4, the head bridge, shows the same end point as step 5 (supported bridge) and step 6 (the full bridge). How can this be, when in step 4 the student is actually starting *lower* than in step 5? That would make 4 harder 5 and almost identical to step 6, except that you're starting on your head. The verbal description doesn't really support the error thesis, but IMO step 4 makes more sense as gently going into and out of a head bridge, not into a full bridge hold. Then progressing to step 5, working the top half of the full bridge. BTW, this is close to the progression that Al Kavadlo recommends (check his vid). Still, kudos to Paul Wade for recognizing the importance of bridging, and you should also check out the good stuff on bridging in Convict Conditioning 2 (holding the bridge vs dynamic bridging using reps). 5. Abdominial progression: I don't really care much about abdominal work, but the progression seems fine except that the 1st. stage would be difficult for weak trainees. It's definitely not as gentle a start as wall pushups, doorway pulls and arm-assisted squats. In fact, step 2 seemed trivially easy after getting up to 40 reps in step 1. I breezed through it adding 5 reps/set and moved on to step 3, which didn't seem that hard either. Some have complained that the CC master step is not really that advanced, but again check out CC2. It's easy enough to adjust your master step to beyond 90 degree double leg raises hanging from the bar. Just make your abs go to 11 instead of 10 :). Interested students can check out Al Kavadlo on youtube. 6. Handstand Push Up progression: also seems pretty good, but, for me, step 1 (the head stand against the wall) is a double no go. It's way too unsafe for certain students, and I also disagree with putting the cervical vertebrae under any kind of compession for older students, even if they're fit. OTOH, handstand pushups are really not as essential as push ups, pull ups and squats and are probably only suitable for select, ambitious trainees.CC recomends not even starting this progression until you're at step 6 on pushups. Because I didn't want to do the head stand, I started with step 2 (crow stands), which was difficult, given many past hand, wrist and finger injuries and incipient arthritis. At first, I could only go up for short periods on a soft surface, but worked up to 5 min. in 4 sets. The result, along with the bar hanging in pull ups, was much improved grip strength and healthier feeling hands in general. Step 3, kicking up into a handstand against a wall, felt weird after decades of not doing a handstand, but in time it too felt great, and added more benefits for the hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders. I'm still moving slowly through this progression. * * * Beyond the progressions, the general recommendations of CC are as good as it gets. The later chapters on self-training are wise advice, if read carefully and followed. Some people will be too impatient to really adhere to the system, but the ideas are good. What's the difference if you arrive at your challenging step, a few months later than you might have if you had risked your rotator cuffs or tendons? To cite Wade, "Don't be in a hurry. Learn to milk every step of the progression. The harder step isn't going anywhere." Most of complaints I've heard, have been touched on above, but there are a few others. - Dragon Door products are too pricy... Agreed, if you don't take to the program it would be a lot to pay. If you do, it's well worth it. But, since you can buy the kindle version, it's not a big deal. The kindle version is more usable anyway. - It glorifies convicts... I consider the whole book an advocacy for old-time strength methods and a critique of the modern industrial gym, not as something that puts prisoners on a pedestal. Wade doesn't really glorify anybody except those who excel at bodyweight. Instead he notes that through special circumstances, the old time strong man culture was preserved in prison as if in a time capsule... - The one hand handstand pushup is bogus. Even Jim `Beastskills' Bathorst, who posed for the pictures can't do it... Don't know about this one. I'll be happy to get to full handstand pushup again, which I haven't done since immediate post-college days. In the old days I could go onto 1 hand, but could never balance it. - Paul Wade is a phony, he doesn't exist or he didn't do what he said he did... Try the system and seek to fully understand it. There's a ton of good advice and a lot of substance in the book. In the end you're your own trainer, change things up, but be aware of the rules you're breaking when you free-lance. Summary: Convict Conditioning is a solid foundation to build on. The big 6 are well chosen to completely work your entire body. Working up to the full version of each of the exercises (usually step 5 or 6) will give you a great base. From there, you can work toward the master steps or go off and explore your own interests. Convict Conditioning 2 is worth a look, too, after you're at least up to the full versions of most of the 6. It contains some excellent topical coverage of training the lateral muscles and add'l thoughts on bridging, working the calves, working the neck, improving your grip strength and improving your mobility. CC is highly influential work which will lead you to explore the works of the younger generation of bodyweight-first trainers such as the Kavadlos and trainers like Steve Maxwell who has always advocated keeping bodyweight in the mix.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2014 by Guy 80s
This review pertains to the routine itself, rather than the controversy surrounding the author and whether or not he was incarcerated. I also should note that I purchased the Kindle edition, so the cost was quite reasonable. I'm an amateur powerlifter and I was looking for a way to incorporate some body weight exercises into my training in a progressive fashion. My current training is based on Jim Wendler's "5/3/1" books, which are excellent. Ok, now for a brief review: Convict Conditioning does a great job of laying out a ten-step plan of how a trainee can work toward completing the full version of the very difficult "Big Six" exercises. The ten-steps for each exercise start very easy, but will teach the skills and build the strength required to do some very challenging body weight exercises. The progression will also work great for women, especially with upper-body exercises, which are often more difficult for the ladies than for men. The first steps will seem very elementary and easy for those of us who already have a training background, although some "easy" work at first might do some good for our joints. Even though this book is about body weight training, its purpose is building a great deal of strength and athleticism. Of course, it's possible to build great endurance using body weight exercises, but the routines in this book are geared toward building functional strength. Overall, I'm happy with the book because it gives the reader a useful, progressive, step-by-step program.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2011 by J.L.
I have been following the program laid out in the book to the best of my understanding for the previous 22 weeks. I write "to the best of my understanding" which leads in to the only drawback I can find about it. It is somewhat hard to take instructions concerning body movements from reading. I have found that I need to return and carefully read sections over and over to settle some concern I encountered. I have realized after weeks that I did a particular exercise wrong. Or started on some other which Coach Wade doesn't recommend considering the level I am at. I am pretty sure that always flipping the pages of this book makes me appear a bit manic. I have sometimes been saved that I have had access to some acquaintances at the office that also follow this program. We briefly discuss and compare our understandings, share experiences and also give tips how to rig a good training environment. It is through such discussions I have discovered some mistakes, but also been encouraged to experiment with the exercises. E.g. your grip in horizontal pulls makes some difference. Yet, I have made no mistake in understanding convict conditioning is a solitary practice. And each body faces its own challenges. Socializing around the methods the book teaches aspects is very valuable. But I hope I have been very careful about not turning such discussion into bragging forum, about the level or number of reps I can do etc. I believe I would otherwise risk negatively impact me and my friends' training. Apart from these very minor negatives, my experience is the "promises" in the book have been fulfilled on every aspect. I have realized that when I started training I was in a poor shape. My body was hurting in numerous ways, mostly from practicing a field sport and also doing unbalanced weight strength training too hard. I have had aches in almost every joint like toes, ankles, knees, calves, back, tennis elbow, right shoulder, thumbs, and fingers. I had even developed a little limp due to my right toe was hurting. Still I deem my muscles and cardio-vascular was in pretty decent shape. Hence I was in desperate need of rehabilitating my body, and at the same time very restless since I deem I had quite a bit of capacity for a person in my age (I'm in my late thirties). I was also facing that my job and my family required more of my presence. I couldn't practice my favorite field sport, nor fit long hours in the gym, not even considering that I have 24 hours access to one very close to where I live. For these reasons the method this book teaches fitted me perfectly. And as I said it has delivered. After only 22 weeks all nagging pains have receded completely. Furthermore I have strength wise surpassed the capacity I had before entering the program. I think this is formidable results considering most of the time I have invested in the program is by doing the entry level exercises. But of course I have also been learned to rest more in between work-outs. I have thoroughly learned that resting is the key in training. I have also recently found that muscles grow on my body. This wasn't really my incentive for starting the training. I don't consider myself vain - the size of my muscles is not something I worry about. But it has recently dawned on me that I grow in a peculiar way. I rarely wear shirt and tie. I have a few that have been hanging in the closet for some years, but very recently find occasions to wear them. The other day I was going to attend a formal Christmas party which mandated wearing a white shirt and tie. To my big surprise I could not do the top button on two out of the three white shirts I own! My neck simply did not fit any longer. The shirts were also too tight cross the chest. But the most peculiar side effect of following the program laid in the book is that I have been forced to change my sleeping habits. After a long life of falling asleep facing the mattress, I now find this extremely uncomfortable. My back complains, but not by feeling painful, it is more of my spine is feeling like a very tight spring. It just doesn't want to be bended - it wants to remain straight. It is only satisfied with me if I am sleeping on my back. But I sleep very well like that. A very similar experience is concerning my work situation. I am an office slave. I am stuck behind my desk for the most of my time. Since I have started to train I have found that sitting is also very uncomfortable. But fortunately my office is equipped with elevatable desks. I have started to use the top position, standing behind the desk for most of the day, and some days only sitting when I am away from my desk during meetings. In summary, in only 22 weeks I have rehabilitated my body and it appears my muscles started to grow so I no longer fit into some of my clothes, and I have adopted healthier habits. I feel deeply satisfied with sometimes making progress in the program and mastering a new exercise. And I feel extremely encouraged by these results I have obtained so far and I expect I will continue my training, flipping the pages of the book for years to come. Bottom line I can deeply recommend the book to anyone reading this review.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2012 by Dr Östergren
I'm in my early 50's, been fit most of my life, was into mountain biking and weightlifting for years. I let myself go in my 40's and got into cooking instead. After ten years, I got sick of being a fat, achy wimp and resolved to do something about it. Got on a diet, lost some weight, started riding the bike again and thought about getting a health club membership. Checked out a couple of places, wasn't really impressed. I came across Convict Conditioning while browsing on Amazon one day, thought it looked interesting and downloaded it. I read the whole thing in an evening and thought the program sounded solid. There is enough here to be effective, but not so much that you lose focus and go off on tangents. I took the author's advice and started at the beginning with Step One of the "New Blood" routine (though, for now at least, on a five day cycle rather than the recommended seven days). If there was one lesson I learned in my years of lifting, it was that slow and easy progess pays off, especially at the start. Don't overdo it. Allow time for recuperation. Once you start dealing with sore joints and tendons, it really takes a lot of the fun away. I don't really have a set goal, I am just going to see where it leads, and I have no intention of killing myself to show off. I would like to settle in at a level that gives me a level of fitness I am happy with, without being so rigorous that I dread it. I already feel better after not even two weeks of workouts. By the time I reach Step Five (hoping for around New Years) I should feel like a new man. I already got my wife and a buddy following the program. Even though the more advanced steps will kick just about anybody's ass, the initial steps are easy enough for middle aged, sedentary couch potatoes like us, so there is truly something here for everyone. When I describe it to people my age, they immediately grasp that here is something that is attainable and profitable. By the new year (four months away), I hope to be leading a genuinely changed life. I am very glad I found this book. ***Added 1/3/13 I mentioned some New Years goals in my initial review, so I thought I would do and update. It has been just over four months now that I have been following the Convict Conditioning program. I have kept a log of my workouts, starting back on Aug 23 of last year. All I can say is, "What a difference!" I am significantly stronger and have added muscle mass even though I have also been dieting also. I still look forward to my workout every day and have to restrain myself on off days. I am on a 7-day cycle as recommended in the book. My current workout consists of: Day 1 - Pushups, 3 sets of 20 (step 5) Day 2 - Squats, 3 sets of 30 (step 5), Calf Raises, 3 sets of 60 Day 3 - Off Day 4 - Jackknife Pullups, 3 sets of 10 (step 3) Day 5 - Leg Raises, 3 sets of 20 (step 5) Day 6 & 7 - Off I also take every 8th week off. That is really the bulk of what I do as far as working out. It only takes minutes per day. I can do the exercises virtually anywhere and at any time, so even if I am busy, I can squeeze them in. The improvement in strength, energy, flexibility and endurance has been phenomenal. All my nagging aches and pains are pretty much a thing of the past. For the coming year, I will add the other two exercises of the book, which work on handstands and spinal flexibility. Most importantly, as I mentioned in the initial review, I want to keep the program as a whole at a level that I can maintain, both physically and mentally. I still have just as much enthusiasm as when I started and I would like to keep that up. Avoiding boredom and injury is crucial in the long term, and I would like to continue this into old age, God willing.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2012 by pressing on
I bought this in ebook format and had it sit around unread for quite sometime, that was a mistake.... I did skim through it a few times and saw the very difficult master steps woah this looks real tough, I like tough. I previously lost 40 pounds from diet mainly before I started CC cause I had a little gut starting to pop out. I wasn't very fat, just skinny fat with a minor stomach bulge and felt like a weakling. Well after working out with kettlebells for a little over a year I wanted to work on more strength in other ways too. So one day I was away from my kettlebells and wanted to workout and started reading Convict Conditioning finally. I started from the very first step of all 6 exercises and try to keep to at least a minimum of one month each step even if I can easily do the current exercise at max reps and however long it takes to reach max reps on the harder ones. So now I'm at 8 months, 20 weeks of actual CC workouts taking a week off a couple of times, and one four week period due to trying a hard dual kettlbell complex. When I took more than a week off my strength did not change much, I did a few less reps the first workout or two, but then kept on progressing weekly. Now I did not lean out all a sudden like many are saying from CC, I would say I have definitely gained much strength and lost a little bit of body fat, but that was from diet mainly. Now if you had to ask me what is the hardest step so far it is the second pull-up step Horizontal Pulls, I could do normal pull-ups before starting CC at 8 consecutive. I bring this up cause I feel that step is a bit odd and should have been a bit farther down the progression and because I have a hard time hitting 3x30 reps still, but can currently do 15 consecutive strict pull-ups. Biggest bang for the workout for me has been the Leg Raise progressions, I can do L stands/dips now. Will you gain strength, definitely if you follow it like it's shown, even when I hit max reps I still find I can do the exercise and improve my form in some manner or make it harder. Now at 20 weeks I can say I am now finally seeing muscularity to match all this new power I have gained, here is my current progressions. March 15 2014 (exercise - step) [Pull-ups - 2 | Bridges - 4 | Handstand Push-ups - 2 | Leg Raises - 4 | Squats - 6 | Push-ups 6] Veterano I am buying this book for a relative and any friend I meet that wants to know what I've been doing, I start going into a speech basically about how great the information in this book is and recommend it. Tips: write down each workout you do in a diary, I call this the motivation book, eat plenty of protein, if you aren't sore do some of the previous steps of a body part you aren't working out in a few days, do some of the previous steps with one arm/leg or a few fingers, go slow on the reps. I started making the best gains doing one exercise per day "Veterano " myself. Do I feel at age 40 I can get to the master steps? Hell yes! I highly recommend this book, best workout book I have honestly ever read and used.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2014 by Ryan C Burleson
What appeals to me about this book is the well considered way with which the programs are designed. The art of simplicity rules. In essence Wade puts together a series of compound exercises which attend to various sections of the body. I have been following the program for a couple of months and am delighted by the results. To put this is context I am a 52 year old male - results for may not represent what others want to achieve. Having said that all exercises have derivative forms and levels. In other words you do something cope-able until you find it too easy then you do something harder. Movement to a more difficult level in an exercise only takes place upon mastery of the level before it. This set you up for success in two ways; firstly you perform exercises you are able to perform until you reach the required number of repatriations for this exercise - this builds core strength. Secondly you build confidence and desire to continue as ion completion of a level you are excited and keen about tackling a higher level as you have done the work to get there and you want to test yourself. So what has it done for me - I am in month 3 now of the program and have seen massive improvements in strength. One small example I can give is in half squats. When I first started these I was hurting doing a couple of sets of these of around 15-25 reps. I now do 2x50+35 =135 half squats in my routine. It's time for me to step up a level in my squats and go to full squats. A new challenge a new journey. I work out two or three times a week and do push-ups /stomach exercises /pulls/squats as a circuit. I complete one set of exercises - let's say push ups then wait no more than a minute to move to stomach - then wait no more than a minute to do horizontal pulls - then wait no more than a minute to do squats. 3 sets of this routine sees me doing hundreds of movements in each exercise and keeps my heart rate in the aerobic training zone (220-your age). With 25 to 30 minutes you are finished. At my age I find I feel much more limber upon completion of a training session - and stronger. What are the benefits? I am stronger even though I don't lift weights. My arms are growing - shirts that were loose around my bicep are tighter. I have a stomach not a gut. My knees and ankles don't crack in the morning when I walk around the house because I am more limber and supple despite not devoting time to stretching. I could go on and on....but really I would say it has helped my confidence in a way I had not anticipated when I started training. I also know I can keep going and get better - that is awesome. Finally - at the start of each month I suggest you set your levels and your goals for the month. Put a diary entry in the last day of the month for the month you are in. Then work towards those goals - keep a diary of every training session you do. I use the electronic diary in my phone and tap in my workout when I complete it. At the end of the month check you training versus your goals and set your next months targets...repeat this cycle until you are 100 :) Also - Wade mentions having commitment in his book and being focused - this is key to his teachings and it rings true. Don't do his workouts with a phone in by your side checking emails and text messages between sets.....concentrate and keep form. You will benefit beyond your wildest expectation and have such fun doing it. Good luck.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2014 by MGM
I bought Convict Conditioning because I wanted to get into shape. I had turned 49, and wanted to avoid some of the health issues my friends were starting to deal with. I started out doing Ashtanga Yoga for 4 months, and then wanted something more muscle-building oriented which used a minimum of equipment. So, I picked up Solitary Fitness by Charles Bronson (the prisoner, not the actor) because it needed no equipment. That was fun, but it took me at least an hour to an hour and a half each night to go through his daily program. I didn't have that much time each night. So, after a month of doing that, I searched for another program. I found Convict Conditioning, and I have been doing that for the last 7 months. It takes me about a half hour to do 4 nights a week (I hit each progression chain twice a week). Granted, I changed it a bit recently so I could work in some exercises I was interested in (dips and Roman Chair leg lifts), but have stuck with the program mostly as written. I have been exceedingly happy with the results. I have put on probably 7 pounds of muscle in the last seven months (I went from 180 to 190 lbs, my waist size stayed the same, so I am assuming most of the weight I put on was muscle. My stomach has also gotten smaller, meaning I look more trim). My aerobic ability has improved, and my strength has definitely improved. I feel better, stronger, and younger than I had. I am 50 now, and the most difficult exercises I am working on are pull-ups, assisted one legged squats, and handstand pushups (on a very low step on that progression. I decided to do a pike progression into handstand pushups instead of the progression written in the book. Sorry, Paul. I also started the handstand pushup and bridge progressions earlier than recommended because I got impatient.) The book does a great job of telling you how to do each exercise, what the expected rep counts are for advancing from one progression to the next, and, basically, laying out a course for getting stronger in a way that also puts on muscle. Like I said, I deviated a bit, especially when inserting other exercises to be half-steps from one progression to the next (like doing lunges after Close Squats so I could get to Assisted One-Leg Squats). I plan on sticking with this plan for the next few years to work my way fully through each of the progression chains (pushups, pullups, squats, leg raises, bridges, and handstand pushups). The only expense besides the book that I needed to make was a pullup bar, and I decided to get a Weider Power Tower (about $100) because I felt it would allow me to try out other exercises besides the ones mentioned in the progressions in Convict Conditioning (many of the exercises I am trying are listed as alternate exercises in the book). So, I heartily recommend this book. One last thing: The Self-Coaching section has a lot of information for keeping you focused on workout intensity without getting you into a state where you are overworked. Not that you don't have to work hard (you most certainly do), but you also have to work smart.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2018 by Amazon Customer