Be prepared: some of the days in his PPL programs are long!
I like your first option better: do the 3 base days every week. The pump days are optional and meant to add volume/ frequency when everything else is going great. I wouldn’t want half my weeks to be the secondary days only. I think it would be less effective and boring.
He throws some options at the beginning of the book, but I try to treat the base days as “must-do” and the secondary days as “time/ recovery-permitting”. So maybe some weeks you train 3 days a week and some weeks it’s 6.
Are you and the dude at the gym going to run it together? I think that would make these more fun, but my schedule doesn’t fit with anyone.
Not going to run it together unfortunately and are training times don’t normally align (although i always see him at the gym at the same time lol).
I’ll do a Pull, Push, Legs, upper pump (or maybe just back pump) then. I’ll figure the details out this weekend.
I am nervous that the workouts get longer as i only have 1hour to train before work but will just see how it goes by supersetting (where i can) or cutting down some of the later rest periods.
Looking at the programme, its not materially different than a lot of the meadows stuff i’ve been doing but i think the progression is. Either way i’m excited! Might need to amend my Log name!!!
I’m excited to follow along. To your point, his program structures don’t change enough that there’s a big learning curve, but they’re different enough that it’s a new challenge every time.
I’m sure you can do an hour if you superset the push day stuff especially - it’s not like you need warmups for the way he does shoulders and triceps.
BB 1 arm Row (1.3m rest)
3 x warm up sets
20kg on the bar 4 sets of 8 (wow my lats were on fire)
Lat pull down (1.15m)
70kg x 8
x 8
x 8
Pullovers SS with shrugs (1.15m rest)
Pull overs
28kg x 10
x 10
x 10
Shrugs 2 second hold
28kg DBs x 12
x 12
x 10
Hypers SS with preacher curls (1.15m rest)
Hypers
x 10
x 10
x 10
Preacher curl Machine (feels better than DBs)
4 (on the machine) x 10
5 x 10
4 x 10
4 x 10
Leg raises SS with hammer curls (1.15m rest)
Leg Raises
x 12
x 10
x 10
x 10
DB Hammer Curls
16kg DBs x 8 (too heavy for these)
14kg DBs x 8
x 8
x 8
Had a massive pump after this, hope i manage to recover while cutting but feel massive right now!
As for the cut
Day 1 106.6kg
Day 13 104.9kg
Down 1.7kg down which is good. Haven’t drank for 13 days either (which is a new for me). Been drinking diet coke for the first time ever but i guess its better than beer for now.
Hell yeah dude! John used to say this was the best cutting program, I think. The idea was you can just turn your brain off and crank the volume. It’s going to be awesome to see where you end up. I’m definitely going to be fat after I finish Unity, because I’m eating everything I see, so maybe I’ll follow in your footsteps and jump on this train as you’re getting off!
I love diet soda when I’m trying to shed some pounds. It tastes good, the caffeine is always welcome, and the carbonation fills me up a bit. I actually have started drinking the carbonated waters for the same reason.
It will not.
Have you done any of his programs all the way through before? CD2 is really high volume; if you don’t love his programs, you’ll hate that one.
I forget if we’ve talked about it, but I definitely recommend trying his free program on this site before buying one (I think it’s actually the first 6 weeks of his paid program 9 just each week repeated before moving on):
Haven’t done any Meadows stuff before but have always enjoyed high volume. Only thing I have a hard time getting past is programming it… I like my excel sheets and they work great unless you change out exercises - which he does pretty frequently.
That free programme got my Meadows bug going so id definitely recommend it.
There are also a load of other ‘mountain dog’ training articles around that you can use.
They do take a bit of prep to write it all out for the gym though (unless ppl use their phone in the gym to check). I actually really enjoy writing it all out on a Friday for the next week. Feels very therapeutic.
They’re definitely not that spreadsheet friendly, but he does typically keep an exercise or two in there (squats, inclines, etc) that you could track. The way the order and technique changes, though, it’s likely to frustrate you.
I did that before too, but now I use the app RepCount and it’s just perfect ! You have access to all your stats, on all your lifts, you can put your routines into it, it gives you the last weight/reps used. You also have stats by year, and you can export to excel too.
Just want to say as i type this (the day after) my triceps still ache like a mother f******** !
DB Press (1.3m rest)
Warm Up sets
34kg DBs 4 sets of 8
BB incline press (1.15m rest)
3 warm up sets
3 explosive sets 65kg x 6 reps (3 sets)
Machine Press (1.15m rest)
40kg each side
8 reps, 30 seconds rest then 8, then rest, then 5, then rest then 3
fly SS with reverse fly
Fly
68kg x 8 (10 second hold on last rep)
75kg x 8 (10 second hold on last rep)
x 8 (10 second hold on last rep)
Reverse fly
40kg x 4 sets of 15 reps
Cage press (1.15m rest)
Really struggled to find somewhere to do this so did it seated in the smith machine
20kg x 4 sets of 6 reps
Pushdowns (1m rest)
50kg x 10
50kg x 10
50kg x 8
45kg x 10
Laying triceps extensions (1.15m rest)
12kg DBs x 12
12kg DBs x 10
10kg DBs x 12
10kg DBs x 12
This session felt more brutal than the Pull session. My weight is down to 104kg now. Sticking to my diet 100% so far. I took my work team out for beers yesterday and just drank diet coke. Was proud of myself.
August last year i was 100kg, this year if i loose another kg I’ll be the same body fat but 2 kilos heavier. So in theory I’ve added 2kg of muscle in 1 year (by adding nearly 7kg and dropping 5).
Part of that is me getting fatter than i wanted and part of that is the surgery so not bad in a year overall i think.
I’m on week 3 of Creeping Death 2 and I would say it’s a good cutting program if you have amazing recovery. Mind you I’m cutting, but it’s tough af. Yesterday after the heavy Push day (27 hard working set, that’s crazy volume) my head started to ache and it only stopped when I fell asleep 6 hours later. But I’m stressed a lot and fatigued. I even have ED and I think this has lasted for 2 years so I probably have low T lol…
I think Colossus would be better for a cut. But I still enjoy this program hehe.
I don’t know what the policy is about sharing programs and stuff (meaning acceptable/morality/ethics etc). Maybe I could share it/trade it with you? But yeah 210$ that’s twice what I charge for a customized program of this length ahahah
I keep my phone with me. Honestly it just made think about creating an app for my clients, specifically designed for the phone. I was influenced a lot by Meadows for my bodybuilding coaching so I use lots of directions/specific cues etc like he does…
Yeah the push session are probably the toughest (they have the most volume). Legs are actually not that bad on that one.
If you’re on a cut, I would advice you to take 20-30g of your carbs from another meal and have a nice preworkout drink to survive these sessions. Maybe add some EEA or a bit of whey and some cafeine if you take some
Struggled to get the weights right today, need anther week i think to nail down the weights on the correct rep effort.
Seated Curls (1.15m rest)
WU sets
52kg x 10
x 10
x 10
x 10 with a drop set (dropping the weight 3 times) Love and hate this at the same time!
Pause Squats (got the weight way too light here) 1.3m rest
WU sets
60kg 5 sets of 6 explosive reps with a 1 second pause
Bulgarian split squats of death - Jesus Wept!!! (1.15m rest)
10kg x 8
12kg x 8
14 kg x 8
Then
14kg x 8, then 8 second hold at the bottom, then 12kg x 6, then 10kg x 3.
Should have 8 on both drop sets but just couldn’t!
DB RDL (1.15m rest)
34kg DBs x 8
32kg DBs x 10
Seated Calves (1m rest)
20kg x 6 sets of 10 reps
Altogether a sweaty session but need to figure out some better weights on some of the exercises.
It’s normal. You’ll get better at it. Also, sure you’re not the strongest guy on earth, but I believe your rest periods could be a little longer on the 3 first days (on the 3 last days it’s 1min rest for everything). Especially big coumpounds like bench, squats or RDL, bump it to 2 at least.
Use lighter jumps, maybe something like 14 kgs then 8 kgs then bodyweight. It’s really horribly tough
And remember a 3 secs eccentric ahah. Don’t get too heavy at first! The 2 following weeks the weight will increase
That’s a Meadows program constant, though: the recovery is a full-time job. That’s part of the beauty, because it forces me out of some bad habits; I can’t drink all day if I think I’m going to knock out one of his disgusting leg workouts tomorrow!
I’ll echo @aldebaran that the weights on this just don’t matter. I often have to stand up for a second on the last drop or two, as well, or I can’t get the reps in. I find it’s more terrible to get the reps in than not, so I err this way.
Your comment of ‘sure you’re not the strongest guy on earth’ made me laugh because in simple terms i look much stronger than i am and i am also a lot weaker now than when i was 15kg lighter.
A lot of this is driven by back/hip issues and surgery but in general when would you class someone as strong or not super strong but what would have made you not make that statement?
I know my squat is very poor but my upper body numbers should be average I hope
Edit:
To expand on this a bit more, I’ve taken my DB bench press to a good 45kg each sides for sets but after switching to bench for a bit I’m back doing 34kg each side. Same with BB bench, I improve then have a set back and end up a lot weaker but still the same size.
Don’t take it the wrong way mate, I’m not super strong either ahahah. What is super strong? Well hard to define, and it depends upon one’s capacities. I just mean that you can’t squat 250 kgs and rest 1 minute. And you most likely won’t get to be super strong using such short rest period.
If anything, I think that your rest periods are too short for you to express your strength potential. And since you’re coming back from injuries and such, your strength right now is way lower that what it could be/used to be. Hence the short rest periods. For instance beginners or people that use easy weight feel quickly bored between sets and gravitates towards lower rest sets. If the sets are brutal, you won’t want to have short rest periods.
The fact that you’re telling me that you have trouble finding your weight is proof that your brain is not used to these exercises. You’ll see, your strength will progress very quickly as it is mostly neural driven
No worries and didn’t take it the wrong way at all just curious really. I used to rep 140kg on the squat (which isn’t huge I know) but My legs are the same size and definition now as they were then.
I think the only thing that’s shrunk is my traps when I stopped deadlifting.
