A truly basic fitness program
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patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
A few weeks ago, I read Trevanian's novel "Shibumi." It's the story of a successful ******in named Nicholai Hel. At one point in his career, Hel finds himself in solitary confinement for three years. His cell is essentially a six-foot cube with a mat to sleep on. If memory serves (and I don't have the book with me right now), he was fed twice a day: water, fish, rice, coarse bread, and whatever vegetable was in season. There wasn't a lot of food, but it was fresh and healthy. He was let out into an open yard to run around for, I think, twenty minutes once a week. In addition to this running, he exercised in his cell every day.
This situation brings to mind a couple of questions I'd like to ask the group.
If you were in this position, what kind of exercising would you do, and how often? What kind of results do you think you could achieve?
I ask for a couple of reasons. For one thing, whenever I read a book or see a movie, I think it's fun to wonder what I might do if I were in a given character's position. For another, I hear a lot of people say they can't work out because they don't have room/can't afford a gym membership/don't have time to go to the gym. Any routine that would work for Hel would work for just about anyone, I'd think.
Have fun with the question, and I look forward to seeing the answers.
Patrick Falcon falconeyes29 at yahoo.com
"Big Lee" leemicha...@home.com
Actually if you are a bad boy, you don't have to pretend. You can get incarcerated and if you play your cards right you can get placed into solitary dofinement. Then you will have the opportunity to try out any program that you desire. Let us know how it goes when you get out!!
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patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
LOL . . . I might be tempted, except that I have a couple of lovely children depending on me. Maybe I can get my cardboard box back from Gabrielle and work out in there?
"Bob Tokyo" robertd...@japan.com
What is it with these yummy prison meals novelists feed their protagonists?
I've always supposed that writers just tended to spend a lot of time fantasizing about food and it spilled over into their work, but maybe prisons are the last great enclaves of the culinary arts.
Squats, one legged squats, squat thrusts, pushups, clapping pushups, hand stand pushups, one handed pushups, bridges, chins if their was something to hang from. In the real world I could achieve avoidance of death by boredom (or Bobo). In a fictional world, I would naturally hone my strength to the peak of human perfection, my reflexes to razor sharpness, and my mind to the very limits of what may still be named a man. I would then use my superhuman abilities to beak out somewhere in the next three chapters, p*** out revenge and rewards as needed, and face down the main villain somewhere before page 370 (with a nice juicy sex scene between pages 224 and 229, and some thinly veiled homoerotic stuff going on around page 173).
No it wouldn't. He's a fictional character, and can learn a foreign language from zero beginner level to near native fluency within three pages, become a master swordsman in less than twenty pages, and build a working particle accelerator from three sticks of gum, an egg, and a candy bar wrapper. That carping aside, Bryce has a web page for training without weights; http://b_movie.tripod.com/in_shape.htm It's good stuff. As far as fictional training programs are concerned, I kind of like Heinlein's NOTB routine ( regular sex and light calisthenics ) .
-Robert Dorf
"Bob Tokyo" robertd...@japan.com
I didn't proofread before hitting the send button. Typos fixed below.
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"Scott K." skurl...@spamcop.net
Calisthenics, stretching, skill stuff. If he can collect rocks (or spoons, or dead mice, or whatever) he could become a GREAT juggler - nothing like twelve hours of practice a day. The low ceiling would make numbers stuff challenging; even sitting down, a 6' ceiling is very damn low for 7 balls.
One-handed spinning handstand (pike or tuck or split, of course; damn low ceiling again) pushups, anyone?
I took plyometrics off my list because of the 6' ceiling; not practical unless you're even shorter than Lyle. You could still do floor kips and clapping pushups, though, and scissors jumps for speed, not height.
"Ryan" a...@anon.com
Speaking of food in prison, check out what death row inmates in Texas request as their last meal: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/finalmeals.htm If the chair doesn't kill em the cholesterol will.
Ryan ...
"Big Lee" leemicha...@home.com
They sure aren't hungry when they die!!! I think it would be a near death experience for me to eat that much food at one sitting.
Lyle McDonald lyle...@onr.com
Anthony Dalgatto (sp?) would still be better.
Lyle
"Scott K." skurl...@spamcop.net
Gatto.
Yeah, I know. He breaks world records (usually his own world records) every year, on an hour of (supremely well-coached) practice a day. The current hypothesis is that he sold his humanity (soul, personality, sense of humor, empathy, et cetera) to the Devil in return for absolute numbers juggling supremacy.
For that matter, I've heard the argument that without sufficient talent a person will NEVER get seven balls, no matter how much they practice, and the same argument again for nine balls.
So how do you find out whether or not you have the talent? Juggle twelve hours a day.
P.S. Gratuitous Gatto joke: A famous juggler dies and goes to Heaven.
While on the tour with Saint Peter, he sees someone trying to flash 13, dropping, cursing, trying again...
"Who's that?" he asks Saint Peter.
"Oh, that's God. He thinks he's Anthony Gatto."
"Linda Parkins" Li...@c895fm.com
"PatrickFalcon31 (pruned, heavily) group.
Any routine that would work for Hel would work for just I always question these people's stories, some are rather vague about the diets. A German relative was given by the Americans to the Russians during the war; sent to Siberian concentration camp. However, because of the shitty diet (thin beet "soup" doesn't offer much, and you had to get creative with trading for food), hard labor, and length of his stay (years); his long term treatment has him living with a pacemaker, but he's a very active 80+ year old bachelor. (with a host of lady friends)
tomfrom ...@aol.com (TomfromOSU)
You could do all of these exercises while in a cell like that.
pushups sit-ups leg raises wall-sits calf raises hand stand presses pull ups (if you had something to hang from)
patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
Yes, I've seen it. It is good . . . and it's putting some seeds in my mind for some future workouts. More on that later.
As far as fictional training programs are concerned, I Speaking of Heinlein, I want to know Lazarus Long's diet and exercise routine.
Now, there's a recipe for longevity.
patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
Good heavens . . . I didn't know anyone online ever did any proofreading. Is that legal?
"Big Lee" leemicha...@home.com
No it is not legal, but it is politically correct. Which is why it is rarely done on the net.
patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
I've been trying to do a three-ball cascade for years, and never managed it.
Maybe if I had twelve hours a day to practice?
That reminds me of a (true) story I read once about a pilot who crashed in the jungle. With nothing much else to do, he practiced knife-throwing. By the time he was rescued, he could have appeared in a circus.
Cool . . . I didn't even think of that.
patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
What about three?
patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
No, but you do, and you can. Are you thinking of combat conditioning? I need to look into that someday.
patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
Hmmm . . . I could do with a host of lady friends, but I don't think beet soup is the way to do it.
Probably the least realistic story I've read in this regard is Louis L'Amour's "Lando." The title character did six years of hard labor in a Mexican prison near the end of the nineteenth century, and when he got out, he was something like 5'10" and 210 pounds of rock-hard muscle. I could use a diet like that.
patrickfalco ...@aol.com (PatrickFalcon31)
Actually, I've been thinking about this some more, and now I'm curious to see what would happen. Not what would happen if I took the box from Gabrielle; I'll let her give it to the next houseboy Mistress Krista sends her. I meant what would happen if I tried that kind of basic program.
Right now, my goal is to get my bench press up, and for that, I pretty much need to use real weights. But once I meet that goal, I think it would be fun to spend about three months doing nothing but body-weight exercises. Then I can return to the weight room and see what kind of progress I've made, if any.
Hmmm . . . we'll see.
Patrick Falcon falconeyes29 at yahoo.com
"Bob Tokyo" robertd...@japan.com
First, pick your ancestors carefully. Second, do lots of military HTH drills off camera. Third, be a fictional character written by an author who permits you to stay healthy and attractive while consuming a diet that would make a real person swell up until they popped like a tick. Easy really. ;-)
"Bob Tokyo" robertd...@japan.com
In a just universe, no.
"Bob Tokyo" robertd...@japan.com
Lee, you think I'm politically correct? Americanspeak for Communist Dang Yankee? I had no idea.
"Bob Tokyo" robertd...@japan.com
Good read, basically just variations on calisthenics. Feury (like many coaches pushing a program) has a habit of claiming that his program (training without weights) is the be all and end all of functional strength training. This is not to take anything away from his callisthenic training recommendations themselves, which seem very practical. But looking at his description of his weight training experiences, he seems to have made poor routine choices, then ***umed that because he wasn't getting much of a carryover effect, such an effect did not exist.
"Big Lee" leemicha...@home.com
Mr Dorf, our resident diplomat, is once again polishing his skills. I wasn't making any comment about your politics. Just giving our resident linguist a little shit is all. (After all you literary types are such tempting targets.)
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