prison muscle

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

This topic regularly pops up, so I thought I’d relate a little story which in many ways flies in the face of so much of what’s considered gospel in bodybuilding.

A few years back, I had a friend, let’s call him Mickey. He was a very close friend, until he started getting involved with hard drugs, went to prison, and upon release was paroled to another state, after which I lost contact with him. Anyways, this guy was always a ‘natural’ in terms of his physique and athleticism. Short-ish (5’7"), fast, and powerful. Anyways, he ended up going to prison for about three years. When he went in, he had a decent build, but nothing that dramatic, as he didn’t train that often especially when he started the downward spiral of hard drugs (amphetamines, to be specific).

When he came out of prison, the guy was HUGE. His shoulders, chest, back, and arms were absolutely massive and ripped, with veins and striation everywhere – he easily put on about 40 pounds of muscle, going from around 165 to over 200 lbs.

Now here's where it gets interesting -- he was in a medium-security prison, in lockdown about 22 hours out of the day (only let out for meals and a "recess" period where he could walk around the yard). And get this -- there were NO weight rooms in his prison. The state experimented with removing the weight rooms to lessen complaints that prisoners were coming out of prison stronger than ever and more capable of comitting violence. His workout routine? Pull-ups in his cage, bodyweight squats, sit-ups, and push-ups all day long, approaching 1000 reps per day, spread out over the entire waking day, with added resistance provided by his cellmate sitting or lying on his back (OK, this is where you can make all the Oz jokes you want :) ). That's it.

As for food? Well, crap prison food provided only 3 times a day, with some occasional low food-value snacks he could eat in his cell. I know many people will start shouting 'steroids' here, but let me just say, Mickey was always VERY honest with me about his drug usage -- sometimes TOO honest to the point that I worried about becoming an accessory after the fact. He had no steroids at all, no supplements, no magic powders.

So, is this guy just a genetic freak? Or were his gains attributable to the fact that all he did was work out in his cell and eat, even if the eating wasn’t that high quality? If anyone posted to t-mag a workout routine similar to Mickey’s, everyone here would be laughing if the poster thought that such a workout would produce massive gains in size and strength. So what gives? Should Mickey just be written off as a genetic one in a million rarity, or are we taking our ‘scientific’ approach to training too seriously when simple approaches can often work just as well?

As a side note, I also read an interesting study that indicated that men in prison experience elevated levels of testosterone because of the enclosed, highly competitive, all-male enviroment. Just a theory with a little research backup, but still interesting.

2

Although it is true that this topic appears occasionally, it is a fascinating phenomenon. I think that the elevated T-levels, combined with a constantly T-oriented mental and emotional state would allow these individuals to become, as we often express, hyoooge. This increase in anabolism seems to ovveride even the most dire of nutritional intake. Furthermore on this topic, I think that the addage of physique success being “70-80% nutrition” is applicable in the majority, but not all individual cases. Take our little psudo-T teens who eat doritos, drink that god-awful looking Code Red Mountain Dew and walk around jacked. Take them and slam their bacnon cheeseburger heads into a wall. But I digress. It is quite obvious that in these instances, proper nutrition is not the main catalyst for growth. While it may impede upon potential growth and will most likely cause hinderances in the future, diet is not the main determinate of progress. Just thought I’d share. Haven’t had a long-ass ramble in a while. Lata.

MBE: “If you’re gonna kill it, you’d better eat it. Since 1874.”

-Eric

3

First of all, I am sorry to hear that he had(or has) a drug problem. Hopefully that is in this past now. But as far as his amazing gains, could belive that he as natural. I imagine that with 3 years of nothing to do but exercise, eat and sleep would place you in a “perfect” environment for progress. Sure, he did not have access to state-of-the-act equipment (which gives much merit to BASICS), but I imagine this guy NEVER missed a meal, NEVER miss his “workout”, and was finally clean of his drug addiction which could of kept his weight down as amphetamines would have jacked his metabolism way up. Sure he would come out with a greaet body, maybe not one to step on stage, as surely he may have some muscle inbalances due to the lack of equipment etc, but 3 years is a long time to dedicate yourself totally to one thing without distraction…most likely his workouts kept him sane during this time. Again, I feel these results are possible especially since it was apparent that he was no where near his potential.

I for one am against cutting weightrooms out of prisons…no one ever held up a bank with 20 inch guns.

4

I should also point out here that even if he did have access to steroids and didn’t tell me about it, he sure as hell did NOT have any significant amount of money to spend on any serious cycle, and even with anabolic support his routine and nutrition still fly in the face regarding what most of us consider truisms about muscle building.

5

Thanks for the replies so far, long replies make for such good reading :slight_smile: Myosin – you’re absolutely correct, Mickey did comment that working out was the ONLY thing keeping him sane…prison life was more than anything else INCREDIBLY booring.

6

Didn’t Bill Pearl once talked about this and said that he thinks food and routines are secondary. You do what you have to in order to survive and these people have to get big in order to survive. Interesting theory about testasterone, I gues if it can happen with females and their periods, why not test.

7

I think that some people are missing a thing here. The rest of us lead sedentary lifestyles… We sit and sit and work and sit ect. ect. Now back when we were cave-men we did stuff all day. Running around killing deer or humping Helga the cave-slut. We didn’t sit in a office or a desk. And when was the last time you saw a drawing of a cave-man who wasn’t ripped? They’re all huge. I think that just about every person could get huge like that if they gave up they’re entire lives and just lifted/ate/slept. I know I can’t really prove any of this, but it seems like it makes sense. Everyone knows a guy or two who just lifts all day and is ripped and huge because of it.

8

this goes into the dark are of bodbuilding that no one can ever really be honest about without it bein related to ego. Genetics massively determine how you will look, they are a greater factor than food and excercise. as you said this guy never worked out and had a decent physique despite being a tweaker, cmon its all genes and this guys spoiled. oh well.

9

if you had to spend 3 years with a bunch of convicted murderers who called you ‘Mary’ and couldn’t wait to get you in the shower, then you’d FIND a way to get real huge too, laws of physiology be damned. Theres nothing quite like incentive to inspire progress.

10

I have read/heard that the percentage of men with XYY chromosomes as opposed to the usual male XY is substantially highter in prisons. Although XYY is still called “normal”, XYY men usually are slightly larger and possess characteristics of higher Testosterone levels both physiologically and psychologically. All this I am remembering from a past Biology class and Criminal Justice class so I may be leaving something out but it is all very interesting!

11

“Genetics massively determine how you will look, they are a greater factor than food and excercise”

Horseshit. I look at myself as a example to why this kind of thinking holds you back. Since highschool I’ve lifted and been athletic, yet weighed 135 in HS and still was only 155 at 6’ for over a decade. I was fit as hell, just not growing “big”. In the last two months I’ve shed a good 5% bf and went from 160 to 170. How? Mindset changed. I’m more like that guy in prison now. I stay home (obviously not everyone can DO this, but it’s relevant to the original post), and basically lift, do housework eat and sleep. I take no drugs. When you have the luxury (or in the case of inprisonment - misfortune) of lounging around all day, eating and lifting, you can grow. A lot of the old, great Olympians used to write how a successful bodybuilder would have plenty of time to rest and “take it easy”. Thats why this guy grew. Lift (dont discount his "primitive moves, he was still exerting) eat and sleep. It’s just that most people aren’t able to DO that…little things like JOBS get in the way. sigh to be cavemen again…hehe

12

The theory that an enclosed environment full of highly competitive males increasing the inmates T-levels is very interesting, as is the extra Y chromosome one. I’d like to know if there are any respectable studies out there on either. Like Bruno mentioned, close quarters affects women’s hormonal patterns with a degree of menses synchronization. I once worked in an all female office (35 women, and no, I didn’t stay there long) and it was constant HELL WEEK as on average you had 8 women on the rag, 8 PMSing and about to start, 8 ovulating and having higher than normal sex drives (read aggressiveness) and the rest running for cover. Damn estrogen and all it stands for! To quote a favorite movie line “Why can’t a woman be more like…a man?!”

13

The information you quoted has long since been refuted as valid theory. Just an FYI.

14

When was this refuted? I saw something about this on TV not too long ago, and would love to see some newer evidence.

15

It is totally possible. I made the best ganes in my life when I was locked up. As Dan Duchaine once wrote ‘you can meet some of the most impressive physiques in prison’.

16

Genetics is such a cop-out! That’s nothing more than an excuse to not train as hard as possible. “I don’t have the genetics to get like that, so why even try?” + I’ve never heard of anyone bench pressing 400lbs by eating right, maybe dedication, consistency & patience while on good routine has something to do with it? I bet if anyone had nothing to do with their time for 3 years but chinups for 16hrs/day, they’d get pretty good at doing chinups, especially if they constantly tried to improve every week or so. Why are you people so amazed that he wasn’t on anything? It’s like going to school, if you hauled ass studying something for 3 whole years you’d learn a lot about it, right? But who would accuse you of using brain drugs or think that you had a ‘genetic predisposition’ for learning a particular thing? Gimme a friggin break.

17

You might want to go grab a beverage ‘cause this post ended up way too long, but dammit I worked on it and I’m going to post the whole thing. :slight_smile:

Before rigorous research methods were developed, criminology was basically armchair theory. Early criminologists used arbitrary (and horribly inaccurate) criteria in an attempt to predict criminal behavior. For example, in the late 1800’s, body-typing was used to predict who was likely to end up a criminal. Compared to the general public, there is an inordinate amount of heavily muscled men in prison. So, it is only natural to assume that heavily muscled men commit more crimes, right? Well, no. Basically, early criminologists looked at prison populations to determine what traits to look for in the outside population. When the prisons are full of muscular blacks, who do you suppose these early criminologists look for as likely candidates for incarceration? You got it. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now there are more rigid standards. In the Social Sciences causation can be supported only after three criteria have been met. For example, to support the idea that variable X has a causal relationship with variable Y, one must first show that:

1. There exists and association between X and Y. That is, when a change occurs in X, a change also occurs in Y.

2. Variable X must occur temporally prior to Y. For example, you could never successfully make a case for your position if you tried to convince someone that your house burned down in 1995 because of a rewiring job that was done in 1998 (the DUH! factor is pretty high on this one, but it does need to be included).

3. Here’s the tricky one: You must prove a lack of spurious association between variables X and Y. In other words, you must come up with anything that occurs temporally prior to both variables and that might affect their association, and run your data tables controlling for those variables. If the association between X and Y disappears when you control for W, then you cannot support a causal relationship between X and Y. It’s tricky because someone can come by after the study has been done and come up with something that you hadn’t considered, control for it, and blow your X-Y association away.

So what the hell does this have to do with the original argument? Well, after body-typing was refuted as a valid theory, the genetic argument took over. The studies that showed an over-representation of the XYY chromosome in prison populations were aimed at explaining criminal behavior and predicting it in the future. The problem is that the association between XYY chromosomes and incarceration has never stood up to the three basic criteria to support causation. In fact, it usually fails the first one; there is often no association between having the XYY chromosome and going to jail. Even if you do manage to find a prison population in which the association occurs, it goes away when you control for such things as race and socioeconomic status (thus the association is spurious). So one can't really make the argument that male prisoners are more likely to have higher than average muscle mass because of the presence of the extra Y chomosome; it often simply isn't there.

Why does the genetic argument persist? For the same reason that people still go to phrenologists to have their skulls read, believe that creatine will cause renal failure, and use astrology to try to make their lives better: it is very hard to change a idea that was once accepted as truth.

18

haha. this forums gettin better i think. i only got 2 egotistical, self righteous replies denying the role of genetics in progress. This guy offers a phenomenon and i give an explanation, supported by facts even contained within the article. i did not relate genetics to my training results or anyone else’s yet yet two people retailiated with personal stories and egotistical ranting. the fact is this guy was about as big as nino is now, before ever lifting a weight in his life, and doing habitually tweeking out on speed. if thats not genes then what the hell is it? i didnt say genetics control your life, but rather they are a very large determining factor. of course you have to work with what you’ve got, but lets face it, the playing fields are NOT all level. the same thing applys with smarts, some guys can form well based arguments and well some people struggle to say the least. oh yea if you got straight As like i have at times, people might accuse you of being “smart.” lol

19

While all these replies are indeed valid, they seem to be dodging the obvious conclusion that the notion of overtraining is a crock of shit.

20

This goes with the higher t levels in a prison evironment argument. I notice when I go away on course with the army I will suddenly start to make amazing gains in the gym even though I am forced to eat crappy army food.