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!