Prison Training :: Q&A with Lambo

MT member Lambo is a personal friend of mine and now also works for MT at our events helping out in general and also with keeping Team MT happy with running around.  A few years ago he was detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure and whilst inside he wrote this very popular article: Improvising your Training in Prison

He was let out nearly 2 years ago, and since then has made some great progress and holds some serious muscle.

Alex Mac, editor of The Beef, caught up with him last summer when he was helping us with a photo shoot for Carly, Daz and Micky, and copied the article into The Beef.

Here's some background as written by Lambo aka MA8124 himself:
 

Unfortunately in November 2005 I was convicted for x2 possession of a firearm, theft, blackmail and x4 assaults. I was certainly not proud of this; however, I just had to face the consequences which happened to be a 4.5 year custodial sentence. I actually served 2 years 4 months, however it wasn’t all easy, I had various fights, I fell out with numerous prison officers and had quite a few adjudications not to mention getting stopped from using the gym. But it wasn’t all bad as mad as it sounds, I did have some good laughs in prison and meet some funny people. One of which I still keep in contact with today and has become a mate of mine, Scott Mckimmie.

When you are sent to prison it is drummed into pretty quickly on who is important your getting two sets of letters: one being from your misses and the second being from your good mates, and believe me you find out who your true mates are. James collier being one of them, when James first came to visit me he knew I had some troubles in there and could see that I was down, I think at that time I still had over a year left. I informed James that I was on 23 hour a day bang up and the sort of exercise and ideas I was coming up with to keep myself active which gave him an idea to get my mind off  things, James was impressed with the exercises and prison issue equipment I was improvising with, he told me to put pen to paper and create an article about training prison ‘what it's really like’. I did this and after tidying it up James uploaded it to MuscleTalk, to both of our surprise the article was a mini success and received a fair bit of interest so much so nearly two years after my release Alex Mac from the Beef magazine asked our permission to print it in issue 47. (see below)

Since January 2008 when I was released from prison I have received various PMs on MuscleTalk from readers of my article, thanking me and telling me how much it had helped them or somebody that they know and I cant explain how pleased that makes me feel. In a funny kind of way not everybody who gets sent to prison is a bad person as most of the time its just a matter of circumstances and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and for those people I am more than happy to help.


So Lambo came up with this idea of having a section on MT where people can ask him about himself and prison life.  Use this topic to ask him about training and eating inside, prison in general and how he coped.  Indeed, feel free to ask him about his training now he's out.

Lambo has been in the members' interview before: http://www.muscletalk.co.uk/fb.ashx?m=3501571

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thanks james

prison is unfortunatly something i know alot about, so will look forward to answering any questions.

Hi mate - one aspect of this I am particularly interested in; nutrition.

How on earth did you manage to build/maintain muscle while on the inside?

1. What kind of food were you served? Could you request items, or was it standard stuff?
2. Were you allowed supplements to be brought in? I'm assuming you'd need someone else to send your supplements in for you as your assets are frozen when you are incarcerated?

Genuinely interested to know what you think about being incarcerated and the rehabilitation process - did it work for you, did you see it working for others, what criticisms do you have?

I remember reading the stuff you wrote - did the training help you a lot mentally while you were inside? Coping with the difficulties of being locked up 23hours a day?

Hey TR
 
well the food in prison as you could imagin s very poor, so the nutrition isnt great. on the 'training in prison' article there are copys of a standard prisoners canteen list, on this list are all kinds of luxurys from cans of tuna to cookies lol.. (aslong as you have sufficiant funds in your prisoners account you can have what ever you like). some prisons do sell protein weight gainers on the canteen list but not all. depending on what you get done for your right the police can freeze your assets but once you are in prison you have anew account made for you so that friends and family can send you in money. also your prisoers account is used to pay weekly wages because most likely you will be allocated a job which you will be paid for. 

Thanks mate, very enlightning - I literally had no idea about any of the things you just wrote about. Prison accounts and freedom to purchase supplements is news to me; although I think it's fantastic - just because someone has fcuked up, doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to look after their body.

Cheers for the info.

hi there essex_chris
 
great questions.. i personally think the way prisons are run is a shambles. i can not say that the rehabilitation system doesnt work because there is no such system in place.
 
the prisons are over crowded, under manned and badly run because of this simple things like the use of the gym can be prolonged for weeks on end causing frustration on the wings.  no doubt when you do get to use the gym its a great sence of release.
 
i personally was classed as a high profile prisoner there for i was always placed in a single cell, being banged up 23 hours a day believe it or not doesnt affect you after a wile as you do get used to it. to be fair  prison is what you make it and unforunatly at first i madwe it pretty difficult for myself, even whent to the point of assulting an officer and recieving 2 1/2 months down the block (segregation) not good.
 
 

thanks TR
 
very true! prison especially in the UK has come a long way in the las 20 years. but thats not always a good thing because in some aspects it is rediculous what a prisoner can get away with..

Sounds like you came through it ok. Do you feel bitter about your treatment inside at all? Can you see things from the other side of view?

I'd imagine that like with doormen there are bad apples in the prison system - on the guards side that is. Am always interested to hear what people think can be done to improve things as opposed to just criticising.

I'll often reference the prison system when talking about making things like drugs prohibited. Even in such a carefully controlled environment they are still rife - prohibition just doesn't work!

Did you take any opportunity to do any study, or just to read much while locked up?

Great article lambo, gald you came out the other side ok.

My step dad did two years in durham for possesion of a fire arm and he confirms exaclty what your saying - the food is shocking. He also had celiacs and milk allergy, they didnt really care.

Questions though, i always wondered about people saying how important the diet is to grow but yet you see massive guys in films in jail is this a true reflection  
or can the sheer volume of training you can pack in coupled with all the sleep you can get that makes the difference?

Also did you use the time to study anything, human biology for example?

Cheers

to be honest essex_chris i think it is a good thing that i went to prison  when i did as i was on a self destruct mission back in 2005. and would have only gone in at a later date for something more serious.
 
i do feel bitter about the way i was treated by some officers as allot of discrimination goes on inside especially when you look pretty big or above average in anyway, they dont like it and most officers (not all) but most are very quick to make it clear whos in charge and that they are not intimidated when really its crystal clear they are lol..
 
i have met allot of bent screws on my travels, how do you think most of drugs and phones get on to the wings!
however if you fall out with officers you have to be smart and 'think ahead' as when i come to getting physical and kicking off its simple you will not win.
 

hey theITman
 
yes i did study towards the end of my sentance. i achieved my city&guilds in motorbike mechanics at HMP wellingborough.
 
you can get in good shape in prison however it is not like you see on the films i can assure you. for instance if you have a job on the servery then you pretty much get to eat what you want and loads of it. if you work as a gym orderly then you get to train as much as you like.

Cool man thanks for the reply, i kinda suspected it wousldnt be i just got chatting to some guys one day who were convinced diet was irrelevant and there argument was, the size of guys in jail.

Good stuff on the city and guilds, are you working now?

Maybe there's a future for you in some kind of prison training area.

I'm all for making use of smart ways to help people change and in effect become rehabilitated. You might have to use the stick to get people to stop, but unless you use the carrot when you take the stick away it's too easy to slip back.

Did James jokes help keep you sane while locked up? Or was there a sweet relief from being away from them for 161 hours a week

Hi Lambo

Back in 1999 you could get Creatine in Downview, there was also alot of gear about.

I have done 5 prison sentences and training got me through all of them. When we were on lock down back in 1989 in YO i used to do a circuit in my ceil. I always remember the night screw coming round telling me to keep it down because I would pull my matteress through the back of my bed and stand it up on its head to use as a punch bag. I would eat loads of tuna and swap tobacco for extra food off the servery. The worst time was in Wandsworth down the segregation unit. I could only use my body weight but it still helped me get through the long days.

In prison the only place to be is the gym even better gym orderly!!

Good Luck
Hothead

yes theITman i am working, over the last year and abit ive been working for myself and muscletalk and im enjoying what im doing.

true words essex_chris
 
im enjoying what im doing now to much to change anything.
 
lol james jokes had me on the verge of suicide lol lol  

hi there hothead
 
what you say about prisons back then is pretty much what its still like now, trading is the only way to get what ya want lol.. some prisons do still stock creatine however there was a big whoooo haaaa about it withion the system. some officers were complainig it contained steroids lol and prisoners were getting too big, i know its stupid.
 
there are alot of steroids in prison but to the average prisoner they are very exspensive and you dont get musch of a choice plus your buying stuff you dont know from people you dont really know.. never a good thing
 
 

Hi Lambo,
                Just interested in what sort of equipement the prison gyms had.
Which prison had the best gym ? 
Was it mainly old machines, or did it have some free weight stuff.
How tough is it to become a gym orderly ?
Thanks, Beanie_Man

hey Beanie_Man
 
 
surprisingly most prisons have good up to date equipment, the problem is being allocated time to use it lol they do have dumbbells but mostly only a limited amount so its more than likely they will be taken when you want them.
 
Although i remember in HMP swinfen hall they put chains on the pins so you could only lift a certain amount on the stack, i dont know why this was.
 
depends on how you look at it, becoming a gym orderly can be easy if you get on with the officers however it only takes falling out with just 1 officer on your wing and that will mess everything up as obviously they talk to each other.