Warm Up!

OK, time for a confession . . . . .

I don't like warming up before I exercise.

Two reasons: First, I only have a limited amount of time, and warming up consumes a good bit of it. Second, I only have a limited amount of strength and energy . . . and warming up consumes a good bit of it.

But every good bodyweight exercise program I have found recommends warming up, and with many good reasons. Convict Conditioning is no different.

I won't go into the details of why you should warm up. I just want to say this – when I started this program and didn't do the warm up first . . . . I hurt myself.

It was the push-up progression – I was full of zeal and pumping them up, feeling strong, heading for a new personal best, when suddenly . . . . POP. I don't know what went pop, something behind my shoulder. I felt it. I heard it. (Cringe.) It hurt for days, a couple of weeks even. Had to stop working the push-ups. Negative progress.

I do bodyweight exercise with some other men, and each one, at one time or another, has experienced a similar injury, for a similar reason.

One of the best parts of Convict Conditioning is the explanation of how the progressions, which start with incredibly easy exercises, help develop not only the muscles but the joints, ligaments and tendons. It helps make the body work together as a whole. From my personal experience, the warm-ups are an essential part of the program. They don't take that much time – easier versions of the step you are working on, one set of 20, then a harder one, one set of 15, then on to the work sets.

But the work sets are TOUGH. Bodyweight exercises made very hard – just as difficult as lifting a great big heavy barbell. If you lift heavy, you need to warm up. It's worth the extra time to avoid the injury.

If you don't have Convict Conditioning yet, click = = = = = = > HERE!

Convict Conditioning: 3%

When I first read Convict Conditioning I found that it held the answers I needed to gain strength and build muscle using only bodyweight exercises. There are six Big Moves that build the chest, back, abs, posterior chain, legs, and shoulders, and they are very intelligently designed. Using logical progressions you can go from hardly able to move your own bodyweight horizontally to being able to lift your whole bodyweight vertically with one arm! That's a big gain – and such gains don't come easily.

If you've researched fitness and exercise, you know there are lots of programs and opinions. When you find something, you have to make a decision – am I going to follow this program, or just dabble in it? And just for clarity here, to follow this program means to stick with it until the end – because there is a definite goal for each Move – the Master Step (one-arm push-ups, full one-leg squats, full one-arm pull-ups, hanging straight leg raises, stand~to-stand bridges, and one-arm handstand push-ups).

According to the Convict Conditioning Super FAQ (39 pages of extra great stuff to go along with CC, which you can get free HERE), on page 9 there's a guess that only 3% of the readers of the book will actually follow the program to the end. Only 3%!! Everyone else will read the book and then let it gather dust while they stay weak – or move on to something else. There's a lot of challenge to sticking with something to until you reach the goal, especially something as extreme as all six Master Steps!. I want to be one of the 3%! The path is laid out – all I have to do is have the fortitude to follow it. The program WORKS, and I'd be a fool to change it or give up on it.

So this is my commitment, posted for all to see. Who will join me? I'll keep you posted on my progress!

If you don't have Convict Conditioning yet, click HERE!