Kroger William S - Felon fitness : how to get a hard body without doing hard time

Felon

FITNESS

How to Get a
HARD BODY
Without Doing Hard Time

TREY TEUFEL, NASM Certified Trainer
& WILLIAM S. KROGER, Attorney at Law

Dedication

To my wife, Jill, and my daughters, Willow and Olivia, for sharing their love and happiness. And, for sharing their morning workouts and stretches with me.

William

To Dr. Lee Teufel, PhD, my mom and dad, Michael Latimer for his guidance, Emily G., Sunil Malhotra and Sumi Pendakur, Mark Smith, Larry Ames, Frank Zito and Elevation Fitness, Jessica Porter, Ned Haspel, Richard Cardona, Jason Pease, Barbara Miletich, Linda Wallem, Lara Ingraham, Keith Knopf, Equinox, Body360 Nutritionals, APLA/T2EA, Rusty and Stephen, Lynn, Transcendence Theatre, and my clients for their support during the writing of this book: C. Peters, Dr. Parviz Javdan, John Solberg, Randall Gitter, Sam Loyola, Chelsey Santry, Kevin Kassover, the Mashians, Farid Pakravan, Jeff Jampol, the Milkens, and the Sandlers.

Trey

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our main men on the inside, Shant Der Boghossian and J. Pinedo. Through their insights we were able to fully grasp the inner workings of the prison system and the workouts necessary to help them maintain their sanity and save their lives. We would also like to thank all the inmates who allowed us to publish their workouts: Dennis James Baltierra, Jeffrey W. Goldstein, Israel Alberto Guilln, Tom McDonald, Manuel Meza, Alejandro Perez, and Anthony Sarmiento (also RJ Kaushaul and Yu Li for their insights into the federal prison system and allowing us to visit and eat chicken wings and strawberry cheesecake with them).

And a special thanks to our agent, Bob Silverstein of Quicksilver Books Literary Agency, and our editors, Brendan ONeill and Katie Corcoran Lytle of Adams Media, without whose support this book would never have been a possibility.

Contents

Foreword

When Bill and Trey approached me about writing the foreword to this book, I didnt give it a second thought. Anyone who is passionate about health and fitness will tell you that helping those who want to improve their well-being is very gratifying.

I landed in California State Prison in 1996, and within months of my arrival the weights were being loaded onto bulldozers and taken away from us prisoners. I was out of shape and now faced an arduous task of getting fit. Or so I thought.

Many people believe that it is impossible to get big or gain muscle without the use of free weights. Well, that is far from the truth. Granted, without weights you wont get huge. But with proper training, diet, and rest you can get in great shape and look good at the same time. Back then, I knew nothing about strength, endurance, or explosive training, let alone building size and power with the use of my own body weight. But, because I was around hundreds of inmates every day, it was easy for me to network and gather many different weight-free exercisesand it didnt even take as much time as you may think.

It is a common belief that prisoners are in such good shape because we spend hours working out. From what I see every day and from my own experience, forty-five minutes to an hour a day four to five times a week is all anyone needs to get in excellent shape. Couple that with determination and consistency and youll be on your way to a better you in no time.

Whether you are looking to build muscle, burn fat, or just try something new, within the pages of this book you will find workouts that not only are challenging but will put you on the path to reaching your ultimate goala healthy body and a strong mind.

J. Pinedo, K-14865

Introduction

In the mid-1990s, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation removed weights from all of their prison yards and left inmates to create their own exercise programs based on body-weight exercises. The result? Fit and healthy inmates who have learned to use their bodies as functional pieces of equipment with exercises like squats, pull-ups, and push-ups to build their stamina, burn off excess body fat, and increase their strength.

Being in shape is a matter of life or death for these inmates. Either they are fit enough to fend off an attack or they could end up in the morgue. Its that simple. But your life depends on you being fit as well. You likely dont have to worry about being attacked by a gang member with a makeshift knife, but you do have to be concerned about both staying healthy and improving your health. Fortunately, you can achieve a hard body without doing hard time and building up muscle and endurance isnt as time intensiveor as expensiveas you may think.

You may be thinking: Of course inmates are in incredible shape! They dont have anything to do but exercise. Inmates do have a lot of free time, but theyre only allowed to use a small portion of that time to exercise. In fact, most of the felon-approved workouts that we share with you here take less than sixty minutes to complete. And, since these workouts can be done anywhere from a prison cell to the privacy of your own home, the time you save by not driving to the gym will be well spent.

But perhaps more importantly, youll learn without a shadow of a doubt that the only piece of equipment you need to get in shape is your body itself. No shakes. No supplements. No gym fees. No home equipment. No magazines telling you how easy it is to get fit (it has never been easy, nor will it ever be easy). No personal trainers. No fancy clothes. No smoothies. No pills. No energy drinks that make you jittery and send your heart beating out of your chest. All you need is youand some objects that you likely have lying around your house already.

You dont even have to be physically fit to get started on this program. When we first started asking inmates about their fitness routines some of the men told us that they lacked strength when they were first incarcerated, and others couldnt run a quarter of a mile when they first started serving their time. But little by little they found themselves getting stronger and running faster, and the well-balanced inmate workout plans youll find here will help you do the same. However, these workout plans will benefit different people in different ways: If youre already muscle-bound, youll learn how to improve your range of motion with exercises like butterflies and cherry pickers. If youre already an aerobic bad-ass, youll learn how to increase your strength with push-ups, squats, lunges, and prison dumbbell exercises. And if youre just starting out, youll find combinations of aerobic routines and weight-training exercises to help you dodge a bullet or pry a shank from the hand of a fellow inmateeven if, in reality, that bullet is just a toy thrown by your three-year-old and the shank is a wallet youre trying to pry out of the mouth of your golden retriever. Youll also find tips that tell you how to enhance your personal workout program and help you eliminate exercises from that routine that often lead to injury.

So read on to find out what the inmates have to share about their personal routines, learn how to stretch properly, find an exercise philosophy thats right for you, and start working outwith conviction.

PART 1

Prison Dumbbells and At-Home Ingenuity

While the majority of the exercises and workout routines that youll find throughout the book require nothing more than your own body weight, occasionally you will need to use some equipment. Were not talking about expensive free weights or an exercise machine that will sit in the corner of your basement for years, though. If an inmate doesnt have access to these materials, you dont need to use them either. Instead, look around your house and youll find that you probably already have everything that you need. You just need to learn how to turn these everyday items into workout gold.