Since I got a gig as a Personal Trainer (go ahead, point your fingers, yell ‘Traitor! Kill!’ and throw your rocks), I thought Id benefit from a perspective coming from a myriad of different weightlifters.
Hence this post. Simply put, what is THE best:
1.workout routine for leaning down you’ve done
2.workout routine for mass-gain
3.Best mass-gain diet
4.Best diet for leaning down
5.Best STRENGTH gain routine
6.Best Cycling/step aerobics routine (Ok, THIS ONE is a joke, lol)
Your input will be MUCH apreciated. The more the merrier. Please be sure to include wether you’re mostly slow-twitch, fast-twitch, or half&half and wether you have a slow, medium or fast metabolism IF KNOWN.
Ill start with mine. I have half&half slow twitch/fast twitch, and a medium metabolism.
From personal experience,
Best leaning down routine consisted of supersetting antagonist muscles (I.E. back/chest, bis/tris) followed by two mins cardio, with no rest in between. I was VERY skeptical of it at first but 4 wks of it yielded the best results Ive seen so far.
2.GVT
3.Massive Eating by John Berardi
4.T-Dawg diet version 1. The best diet ever devised, with the possible exception of T-dawg 2.
5.Again, GVT. Im confident however that OVT and a few others from Renegade Training will yield comparable or better results.
Again, THANX for contributing! I just want to have an idea about what works best for different people, and how different the general opinion will be from mine.
All the Regulars’opinions - I.E. Goldberg, Patricia, Brider, Old Lifter, Irondoc, and many many others I cant begin to think of their names but you know who you are, will be much apreciated.
Mind you, Im asking this to gain a better understanding as to how much different individuals vary in what works for them. I do have a strong base of knowledge and experience. Having only trained myself, I think it’s only wise to get some statistics from different individuals.
diesel in order to become a successful Presonal Trainer is not to find what the best program out there is. But, it has do with your program design for that particular client that you are dealing w/ diffrent clients have diffrent goals.
I agree with fitone. Someone might not want one of these programs, but rather a program specifically designed for themselves. The Personal Trainer where I lift does a very good job of this. One time when I was lifting, he had 2 different clients. The first client was hypertrophy based and the 2nd was muscle maintenance/fat loss based. It was great to see a good personal trainer. I still told him about this site and gave him a bunch of articles from here, and he seemed very grateful to learn new things/programs. This is the kind of personal trainer you need to be.
I agree…you can’t put a 40 year old newbie on OVT.When I was a trainer I had a chart I went by based on age and fitness level for how many sets…reps…etc.I looked around for it yesterday but I must have thrown it out…sorry
Here’s a scenario a client comes up to you he’s 40 years old has a heart condition (high/blood pressure) 160/90 due stress and increase in weight is 15lbs overweight has torn acl repaired when he was young and also is currently experiencing some knee pain (probably due to the increase in weight). He also has extensive background in weightlifting he was a college lacrosse player. And he’s been active. The reason he’s going to you is that he’s look for a different approach to fitness. And his blood pressure and weight is not decreasing. His doctor gave him the okay to workout. So, what are you going to do with him?
And by the way this is not a far fetch scenario I see it everyday.
Diesel I’ll tell you something else you probably wouldn’t find a program for him in t-mag. Maybe a eat plan but that?s about it and even there as a Personal Trainer I would advise you not to go there unless your a certified nutritionist. You give helpful hints and guideline on nutrition but are careful on giving out diets. Sorry for the long post.
I’ll bump this for there rest of t-men to help deseil create a work-out for this guy. Deseil this what you are going to deal w/ if you can’t answer this type of question you shouldn’t be personal training… And not believe me I am not trying to be hard on you.
Personal Training, has a lot to deal w/ problem solving and if you are not ready for that you will not be successful in this field. And I know you are going ignoring this post. But all I am doing is trying to help. Put all what you have learn hear on t-mag and create a work-out for this client. Or at least explain to me what you intent to do with him I can help you if you want but if you think finding the best work-outs, flexiblity, exercises, in t-mag and use it on a client and thats going to make you a good trainer your sadly mistaken.
I am only here to help I been in this business for along time and have seen it all.
Obviously these are my opinions that work best for me and are not generalised to the rest of the world
Best mass gain program: MAX-OT (AST program, sorry guys)
BEst mass gain diet: Massive eating
Best strength program : westside (only 6 weeks experience and it already blows away everything else)
Best cutting diet: T-Dawg 2 (dont diet principles and carbs modified to suit training)
Best work out for leaning down: training for waterpolo! (how to plummet from 235 to 200lb in weeks
Best workout for leaning down without fading away: any intense weights (5x5, MAX-OT etc)
Just my opinions wouldnt want the world to think this is facts…
I know exactly what to recommend to someone who comes to me. I know how to analyze his situation, his strengths, his weaknesses, what he needs to do to get where he wants to be.
Im not asking you to tall me to what to recommend to ANYBODY. WAS MY ORIGINAL QUESTION ‘what should I recommend to this individual’ or was it ‘What worked best for you’?!?
Some things worked great for me, some worked terribly. These things that worked terribly I will likely not be recommending to anybody. However, by getting some data, some statistics on wether it was just me, or wether everybody else failed with those things, I will be in a better position to recommend it or not, withotu being partial and biased.
I will not be copying workouts out of T-Mag to give to anybody. Heck, I myself dont follow these workouts - I take all the valuable tips Ive learned and put them together to create something that works for me. Again, by figuring out if there are individuals who failed on some of these tips that worked for me, would make me think twice and look into wether it might work for that individual.
GVT is a DAMN GOOD protocol for strength gain. My chinups went from 3-4 to 10 in my 6 weeks of GVT, and my dips went from a laughable 9 to 25. I attach 70 lbs to get 10 reps. My upper body strength prior to GVT last year was pretty laughable. 6 weeks later it was excellent.
So, tell me, how is GVT a poor choice for strength development?
GVT is a volume based program where you use a low percentage of your 1RM to achieve that required volume.
It is NOT a strength routine, and the vast majority of people who’ve done it report that they’ve LOST strength while on it for a significant amount of time.
You say you gained strength. Well, that’s great for you, but it does not extrapolate to the general population very well based on anecdotal reports.
You asked a question, and you’re getting answers. Settle down.
Fitone’s post was, in my not so humble opinion, right on cue. Perhaps you didn’t need a lecture. Perhaps you did. Either way, I wouldn’t tear his head off for such a relevant addition.
Calm down bro, he was just testin’ ya. It’s not that big of a deal.
I wouldn’t recommend OVT for strength gains. Although YOU gained strength on it, most people haven’t. It may just be a different type of training that your body liked. I know I would do OVT for mass, not strength. For strength, I would do Westside or a modified version of it, or an olympic lifting routine.
Best diet for cutting - T dawg or don’t diet or cheaters. They are all great. Most people I know modify them to include at least 2 of the 3.
