Ex-con’s prison fitness regime is no hard cell

Gino Gioe's "Jailhouse Workout" can be done in small spaces and in a limited time

Gino Gioe claims yoga, pilates, gyrotonics — and whatever other fitness flavor of the month comes next — aren’t nearly as effective as pumping iron.

By Janon Fisher - New York Daily News

Monday, October 8, 2012

Now you can get the hardened body of a felon without doing hard time.

Ex-con Gino Gioe’s “Jailhouse Workout” relies on a back-to-basics approach that can be done in small spaces, with limited time — qualities that defined Gioe’s 10-plus years behind bars.

“In prison, your time is not your own,” the jailbird turned gym rat said in Little Italy. “The bell goes off and you have to go back inside. You’re on their clock. You have to go b---- out.”

His fitness regime is based on strength building, endurance and sculpting, and can fit within the schedule — and capabilities — of even the doughiest office drone, Gioe said.

One grueling, thigh-burning workout incorporates a set of deep knee bends, pushups, mountain climbers and jumping jacks — nothing that couldn’t be completed in a 6-by-8-foot cell. All it takes is about an hour a day, which is about the time he had in the yard during stints in state and federal prisons.

Gioe also spent two years in solitary confinement for what he described as “aggressive, assaultive behavior,” lonely time that may help explain his philosopher’s air. “Most people are prisoners in their own minds,” said the 45-year-old, who grew up in Queens but now lives in Little Italy.

Gino Gioe, creator of the Jailhouse Workout, doing a squat; Concentration Curt; at the gym. (Jefferson Siegel for New York Daily News)

His workouts use body resistance and dumbbells of varying weights — lifted in relentlessly high reps — that he says will make you look and feel strong. “It’s a no bulls--t kind of training,” said Megan Newman, publishing director at Penguin Books.

Thanks to Gioe, she can dead-lift more — 210 pounds — than any of the men in her gym.Gioe grew up in North Flushing around wiseguys and fell into the life early, he said. In the 1990s, he was busted for tax evasion and stock fraud. He also did time for operating a stolen car ring.

Inside the joint, he threw himself at the weights.

“When you’re inside, you’re taking your anger out on your weights,” he said. “You’re not picking up a dumbbell, you’re picking up a psychiatrist.”

Gioe got out in 2000, started training at Crunch on Lafayette St. and picked up celebrity clients including Ben Affleck and actress Beverly D’Angelo.

By 2005, his hard-driving personality pushed him back in prison. “It had to do with drugs,” said Gioe, who was freed in 2010.

He also claims yoga, pilates, gyrotonics — and whatever other fitness flavor of the month comes next — aren’t nearly as effective as pumping iron. “Weight resistance is tried and true,” he said. “All that other s--t is just boutique stuff.”