Anyone here following Skip LaCour’s workout journal? This guy is amazing! Unbelievable the amount of disciplined preparation this guy puts in. Skip is the greatest natural bodybuilder out there. Also, the workouts he does are absolutely brutal. Nothing like what has ever been discussed here, by either king or poliquin. Just wondering if anyone else here follows what Skip is up to. He is off to the world championships in 2 weeks.
Keep in mind that if Skip is natural (and this could be debated endlessly) the average person probably couldn’t benefit much from his program. I think I’ve read that Skip goes to failure all the time and keeps his reps in the lower ranges most of the time. The average person wouldn’t grow much with lower reps (Skip obviously has some blessed muscle fibers) and would end up overtraining. I’m not taking anything away from Skip. He’s certainly dedicated and admirable. I’m just saying that his stuff wouldn’t work for the average Joe, at least not for long. It’s like all those guys who followed Arnold’s workouts and diets to the T and ended up fat and injured.
Skip is a genetic freak of freaks,period. I followed his work for a year or so with great enthusiasm. I tried one of his training routines that consisted of 6 days of training a week, 45-60 minutes a workout. I lasted 3 weeks and became so goddamned overtrained I had to quit. I still continued to read his monthly columns and looked up to him until I met him in person. He was guest posing at a show in town and I was very excited to meet him. I approached him at his booth and asked him a couple of questions. #1- Do you ever take an extra day off if you’re real sore or feel overtrained? His answer, " I really don’t feel that soreness in my muscles ever and I don’t believe in overtraining but rather undereating." #2- Do you perform deadlifts in your routine? His answer, “Deadlifts make you blocky and I’m trying to work on my shape.” Skip is a nice guy and great motivational speaker but he got to the level he’s at right now with GREAT GENETICS, not extraordinary training routines or supplements. Don’t follow the training advice of someone who will grow just taking a shit.
in the first or second week of his new training journal there is a picture of his brother. his brother does not even lift, but is bigger than skip (and I’m not talking fat). skip benifits from training so heavy because he is frequently on a very strict diet for months on end. the heavy lifting helps him hold onto the muscle mass he already has.
I have to agree with Matt W. The hard work definetly does pay off for him in that regard. I think we should also note that Skip is really not that huge. He’s big for a natural bodybuilder, but as far as contrasting against the pro’s, take a good look. he’s half the size of those guys, if not less. In the journal, there are pics of him with Dorian, Shawn ray, Ronnie Coleman, and a few others. He’s the size of their arm. If he was juicing, he’d be much bigger.
But the real reason I'd have to say that he's not taking steroids is that if you followed his journal over the last 3 years or so, and even in the magazines before that, the guy hasn't changed that much. This guys been dieting like a maniac for years on end. He dosen't have an "offseason" like the pro's. He never gets fat. Always lean. You'd see changes in a lot of things if he really wasn't natural.
I believe he grows, and stays lean by his extremely strcit lifestyle, workouts, and eating plan. I mean, this guy dosen't even eat an extra grain of rice 30 weeks pout from a contest. Works out at 3:30 a.m. half the time on 3 hours sleep, and does countless other things that make him champ. No one is more dedicated, or works harder.