Have you ever noticed that many convicted felons go into prison as skinny punks but come out with 20-40 pounds of new muscle?
Have you ever wondered how that is possible?
A client of mine recently asked me if I thought it was possible to build muscle, burn fat, and get a lean, muscular physique without lifting weights.
While he thought about it a bit… he raised the stakes. He wanted to know if anyone could build a better body while he was locked in a ten by ten prison cell.
I thought about it some more… and then I started to do some research. After completing my research, I told him that I believed it was possible to build muscle even within the confines of a ten by ten prison cell.
This is why:
Point #1: Your muscles are stupid. In order to grow, your muscles must be under tension. If you lift a dumbbell, that puts stress on your biceps and back muscles.
But… if you do a pull-up… that also puts a strain on your back and biceps. Here’s the catch: your muscles don’t know the difference between the tension generated by pull-ups and dumbbell curls.
The important thing is that your muscles are being worked against resistance in each case. So lifting weights can be a convenient way to exercise muscles under tension… but it’s definitely not the only way to exercise muscles.
Point #2: In the late 1980s, research used electromagnetic imaging to discover which exercises caused the greatest degree of muscle fiber activation. The reason is that the more muscle fibers that were activated, the better the exercise was for building muscle and strength.
The researchers found that the most effective exercises were those in which the hands or feet remained steady and the body moved.
Exercises in which the body remained stationary and the hands or feet moved were decidedly less effective.
Here’s an example: When you bench press, your body stays still and your hands move up and down through space.
But when you do a pushup, your hands remain stationary and your body moves up and down through space.
How about another example? When you do a seated leg extension, your body remains stationary and your feet move up and down. But when you squat, your feet remain stationary and your body moves up and down through space.
So the pushup activates more muscle fiber than the bench press…and a squat recruits more muscle fiber than a leg extension.
This means that many bodyweight exercises actually require a higher degree of muscle fiber activation than many common weightlifting exercises.
In short, bodyweight exercises may actually be more effective for building muscle and strength.
So… even if you’re stuck in a tiny prison cell, you can still build muscle and strength with bodyweight exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and squats.
Of course, to build extreme amounts of muscle, you need to go beyond the basic exercises and start using some of the more advanced exercises. These include the one-arm push-up, the janda sit-up, dips, and variations on the pull-up.
But in the end, I see no reason why you couldn’t build a spectacularly muscular physique within the tiny confines of a ten by ten prison cell.
