Pushups in the Prison System and Their Role in Silat Sharaf Training
Pushups, a basic bodyweight exercise, hold a powerful place in the prison system, where fitness isn’t just about health—it’s about survival. In the violent, often unpredictable world of prisons, physical strength and endurance are essential. Inmates face constant threats, and the ability to defend oneself becomes crucial. This environment has turned pushups into a staple exercise for building the kind of raw strength, stamina, and mental toughness needed to survive. For Silat Sharaf practitioners, adopting this approach to pushups training can be transformative, because this is not just an exercise, it's a tool to increase your close-quarter knife attack skills exponentially when trained correctly in the manner we describe below.
1. Pushups and the Prison Environment: A Survival Mechanism
In prisons, brutal violence can erupt at any moment. The harsh realities of prison life demand constant vigilance and physical readiness, which is why pushups are so prevalent. Without access to weights or gyms, prisoners have no choice but to rely on their own body weight to build muscle and endurance. Pushups, in their many forms, are used to create raw physical power that can mean the difference between life and death in a confrontation.
Prisoners, unlike hobbyist martial artists, often train for hours, with nothing but their bodies and sheer willpower driving them on. This creates not only strong muscles but also an unbreakable mindset and determination, two key ingredients in winning real fights. They are preparing to fight opponents who are just as hardened, determined, and relentless as they are. In this sense, Silat practitioners who adopt prison-style training should recognize that they are not just building physical strength—they are preparing themselves to face individuals who have honed their bodies and minds under extreme conditions.
2. Train to Fight The Prison-Caliber Opponent Not the Bodybuilder
In Silat Sharaf, we focus exclusively on battle-focused training that should simulate reality enough that we can defeat the intensity and mindset of any opponent. You’re conditioning yourself to take on someone who has nothing to lose, someone who fights with raw aggression, stamina, and unyielding determination. These are the kinds of people who have pushed their bodies to the limits because their very survival depends on it. These are what we term "sophisticated adversaries" in our system.
When you train, picture yourself going up against such opponents—individuals with the grit to train hundreds, even thousands, of pushups a day. You need to train as if you’ll face someone with that level of physical readiness, mental toughness, and experience. The volume, intensity, and focus of prison-style pushup workouts translate directly into the attributes you need to succeed in Silat: explosive power, sustained endurance, and the mental resilience to keep fighting, no matter how difficult the challenge or how wounded you are. That's real Pencak Silat as it was trained in the past to fight in wars against the myriad of enemy empires in extreme violent man to man combat for centuries. And this can never be forgotten when you are training.
3. Prison-Style Pushup Variations Perfect for the Explosive Knife Fighting of Silat Sharaf
Diamond Pushups
This pushup variation requires placing the hands close together beneath the chest, forming a diamond shape. This exercise targets the triceps and inner chest muscles, crucial for quick, powerful strikes in Silat. Diamond pushups are favored in prison workouts for building punching power, upper body strength, and fast knife stabbing attacks that create a devastating combination of speed and force.
Handstand Pushups
Another favorite among inmates, the handstand pushup develops extreme shoulder and core strength. In the confined, often violent spaces of prison, being able to defend oneself from multiple angles is essential. For Silat practitioners, the ability to control body movements from any position translates directly into increased versatility and combat effectiveness.
Wide-Grip Pushups
This variation targets the outer chest and shoulders, enhancing lateral power and the ability to control an opponent’s movements. Silat’s fluid strikes and transitions demand both strength and mobility, making wide-grip pushups an ideal exercise for building this kind of dynamic muscle.
4. Corrections Officers: Why They Need To Be As Tough Or More
Over the years we have had many Corrections officers use Silat Sharaf training and mindset preparation in their job responsibilities. As much as they have learned from us, we have also learned from them to improve the system and make sure it can adapt to deal with a host of different challenges. So eventhough in this article we put a lot of attention on the physical conditioning of prisoners, corrections officers also need to be at peak fitness. Their job places them in one of the most dangerous environments on earth. Corrections officers face the constant possibility of violent confrontations, often outnumbered by inmates who have spent years or even decades hardening their bodies and minds through relentless training. This is why corrections officers need to be just as physically tough, mentally prepared, and technically skilled as the prisoners they are responsible for controlling. Inmates are not the only ones doing pushups in prisons. Corrections officers undergo rigorous physical conditioning as part of their training to ensure they can handle the demands of their job. They need strength, endurance, the ability to overpower or restrain aggressive inmates, and the wisdom to understand how to apply force in the blink of an eye. Much like prisoners, they rely on bodyweight exercises like pushups to maintain their readiness for sudden physical encounters.
For corrections officers, every day could bring an unexpected challenge—a fight breaking out between inmates, a sudden attack, or a full-blown riot. In these situations, there’s no time to prepare. Corrections officers need to be in a constant state of readiness, both physically and mentally. Pushups, along with other bodyweight exercises, build the kind of strength and stamina necessary to control violent situations and protect themselves, their colleagues, and other inmates. This is real-world functional strength, not bodybuilding for fashion shows.
Corrections officers must train to deal with prisoners who have achieved what’s often called “prison strength.” This is not bodybuilding muscle mass, but the endurance, resilience, and toughness developed through high-repetition, high-intensity workouts like pushups practiced for one sole purpose: combat. A corrections officer who is out of shape or unprepared can easily be overpowered by an inmate who has trained for years, with nothing else to focus on but survival through the skilled application of violence. So the corrections officers that we've worked with over the years maintain their own rigorous training routines, ensuring they can meet prison-strength head on and outmatch it when adding the technical skills learned in Silat Sharaf. Their pushup routines often mirror those of inmates, focusing on the same qualities of explosive strength and endurance that are necessary to manage violent encounters. For Silat practitioners in general, understanding the physical and mental preparation corrections officers go through can provide valuable insight.
5. The Prisoner's Mindset: Mental Toughness in Training
Beyond the physical benefits, prison pushups develop an unshakable mental fortitude. In an environment where failure to maintain physical dominance can be life-threatening, prisoners cultivate a mindset of never giving up. Every pushup represents not just an effort to build muscle but to build survival skills. As a Silat practitioner focused on edged-weapons usage in close quarters, this is your standard mindset and as you practice in your Jurus and Langkahs you should also practice in your physical fitness training exercises. Every pushup you do should reflect a commitment to becoming stronger, faster, and more violent with your weapons. When you train, push your limits. Visualize the kind of opponent you could face—someone who has been training under extreme pressure, who has pushed their body to the brink of exhaustion but refuses to quit. This is the level of intensity you should bring into your own pushup routines, Jurus, and Langkahs.
Some Last Words
Pushups are not just a foundational exercise; they should be a symbol of power and resilience for you in your training. And integrating prison-style pushups into your training will enhance the strength, endurance, and mental toughness required to excel in combat. To truly benefit, approach your pushup training with the same level of intensity and focus as someone fighting for their life. This mindset will not only transform your body but will sharpen your mind, making you a more formidable Pesilat, with or without a blade.