I’ve done all of his programs to completion. (SS, Limping, Arm Program). Of these three, I thought the Arm Program was the best.
Also, if you’re looking to rehab, then I definately recommend the King upper-body program. I believe the first phase is particularly good for that purpose, provided you’ve allowed the injury to heal sufficiently.
To All:
I’m curious to contrast people who made good progress with King’s programs, and those that did not. I’m willing to guess that those who made good progress were relatively new lifters. That is, under a training age of 3 or 4. Of course, there will be exceptions to this, but it seems that more experienced trainers (Sully, for example) don’t seem to benefit from the program.
In other words, I think King’s programs have a greater utility for those with a shorter training background.
I did some of king’s workouts, and while I thought they were well planned out, It was too low of a volume for me. I got a little stength gains out of them but I’ve had a lot more success with EDT,5x5, and Chad waterbury’s antibodybuilding hypertrophy program.
I also want to say that I incorporate many of Ian’s ideas in my training. Things like splitting legs into hip and quad dominant. I also like his explanations on keeping pushing and pulling exercises equal. I just found his programs to be too low of a volume for ME.
I had five years of consistent training under my belt before I started the programs. I may have still made some “newbie” type gains because it is only in the past year that I’ve started paying attention to my diet, and that obviously makes a huge difference regardless of the type of program.
Ike-I believe you are correct. I think it is good for newer lifters (esp. if they are more slow twich oriented), but the slow tempos suck for me (fast twich/8+years training).
I also agree with what Ike has said on this thread. All of it.
I tried the leg program and didn’t see anything from it at all. No size, no strength, nothing.
That said, I do have to admit that I wasn’t as strict as I could have been about the various hand placements on the bar and so on. Had I followed these more closely, it’s possible that my results might have changed. Regardlesss, though, I think that there are better programs out there for the experienced trainer.
That said, I do think that King has some very important ideas that more or less everyone could benefit from. His thoughts about muscle balance, stretching, and rotating exercises (in terms of priority within a mesocycle) are very important and should be incorporated by virtually everyone. Do that and you’ll see your longevity in the sport increase.