Josh Bryant - Jailhouse Strong: Interval Training

Jailhouse Strong:

Interval Training

By

Josh Bryant and Adam
benShea

Jailhouse Strong:

Interval Training

JoshStrength, LLC and Adam benShea

Copyright 2015

All rights reserved, including file sharing, the right to reproduce this work, in whole or any part, in any form. All inquiries must be directed to Josh Bryant and Adam benShea and have approval from both authors.

WARNING! Before starting any training program, please consult your doctor or other health care professional. You are agreeing to take full responsibility for any potential risk associated with anything put into practice from this book.

For further explanations and demonstrations regarding the workout programs in this book, please refer to the video collection on our YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/jailhousestrong

INTRODUCTION

The Principles of Innovation and Imagination

We believe that unyielding self-improvement is the primary lesson one can take away from the physical progress achieved by cons behind iron bars. No matter how high the steel walls surrounding your current reality, or how vicious the gatekeepers guarding the cell you currently call your place of imprisonment, you can put in work to shift your reality, become stronger, and find your path to physical and mental freedom.

If you do not think that you are imprisoned, remember that you can be confined by delusions of false comforts, or pursuit of material desires, as easily as you can be trapped inside a steel cage.

Some individuals are put in shackles, but many put themselves in shackles.

Whether your particular form of incarceration is a product of an outside force or a consequence of your own doing, you can still better yourself through a focused training regimen. Jailhouse Strong is that regimen.

While Jailhouse Strong is about self-improvement, this addition to the Jailhouse Strong series, in particular, details interval training as a means to improve strength, cardiovascular health, and overall conditioning without sacrificing hard-earned muscle. The philosophy behind these interval workouts was taken directly from, or influenced by, the type of training that occurs on the jail yard or inside prison cells. That is, it is a no-nonsense, no-frills approach to interval training.

Tom Haviland

The Jailhouse Strong approach to training, self-defense, and mindset rests on the following Five Decrees:

1.Get Excited about Training

2.Get Plenty of Rest

3.Eat Meals at Regular Intervals

4.Stick to the Training Basics

5.When Conflict is Unavoidable, Strike First

It is not by chance that the declaration to get excited about training is planted at the beginning of the Jailhouse Strong order of self-improvement. You must be excited about your training to attain the prerequisite discipline required to achieve real results.

Of course, at one point or another, everyone struggles with motivation. Your trip to Cancun is six weeks out and you need to get beach ready. But, you have a host of obstacles that require hurdling; you have a paper due, a spreadsheet that requires modification, an old lady who wants you to watch the latest episode of a reality show about a wealthy second-generation immigrant family struggling with their fashion line, and the list goes on.

If you take these petty concerns and First World problems as viable reasons not to train, then bow out, quit, close this book, and fully accept your life of monotonous mediocrity. Dont worry. There are plenty of people like you. As you slog your way through life, you will be able to easily recognize them at weekend strip malls by the dead look in their eyes. You can share a mutual experience of defeat and wait for your moment to fall into the other side of the dirt. In the meantime, you will have rerun season to keep you entertained.

If that sounds like a slow death, you are right. So, here is another option: Utilize innovation and imagination to take your training to new heights.

With innovation and imagination, you trigger your cognitive process to become curious, engaged, and fired up. You get excited about the process of uncovering a path that can take your physical development to that next level. Like any journey of value, it will be the promise of discovery that pushes you forward.

This undertaking will keep you motivated. But, more than that, it will keep you feeling alive.

Behind bars, cons have minimal equipment and the most spartan of facilities; nonetheless, with innovation they construct workout programs that produce real results. On the other side of the spectrum, there are some iron-lifting warriors who find themselves inside of a boutique fitness facility in Hilton Head and are able to make the most of their plush surroundings.

The goal of this book is to provide you with a plan for wherever you find your current fitness reality. Rather than decrying your current predicament, turn the page and find a program that works for you. From unarmed combat drills to treadmill workouts, these programs are bound to offer something that resonates with your fitness goals.

As a means to ensure that we provide a large swath of fitness innovation, we invited a number of top trainers and elite competitors to share their insights and offer proven programs. With all of this information, you now have the framework for an exciting passage into interval training.

Interval Conditioning: Burn the Fat, Spare the Muscle!

Ever compare the physiques of a world-class distance runner and a sprinter?

The sprinter resembles a Greek Adonis; the skinny-fat distance runner makes Richard Simmons look like a Mr. Olympia contender.

Adding insult to injury, a 2004 study published in the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology showed that male rats that performed intense aerobic activity daily experienced not only decreased testosterone levels, but, in fact, experienced a decrease in the size of their testicles and even the accompanying junk.

Next time someone says, Lets go for a jog, let that person know you cannot afford to lose the inches.

Excessive aerobic activity can decrease testosterone levels, increase cortisol production, weaken the immune system, handicap strength gains, and halt any hope of hypertrophy.

For this reason, many lifters who desire to maximize their muscle mass and strength gains avoid any form of conditioning like the plague.

This is a mistake!

Interval Training Arrival

Since the mid-1990s, scores of studies have shown the effectiveness of interval conditioning for fat loss. In 1994, a Canadian study compared the fat loss effect of an interval training program to that of a traditional long, slow cardio regimen. The traditional regimen burned twice as many calories as the interval regimen, but those who performed intervals lost significantly more body fat. Researchers conclude that fat loss is at least nine times greater with interval training than with traditional endurance training.

Interval training takes many different forms. High-volume strength training with short rest intervals (like how most bodybuilders train) is interval training in itself.

Named for Japanese researcher Izumi Tabata, different forms of Tabata intervals are practiced in the most plush commercial gym settings and in the most spartan, hard-core gyms in the world. The Tabata regimen consists of performing an activity all-out for 20 seconds, resting for 10 seconds, and repeating this sequence for four minutes.