Hi folks. I’m going to leave a brief (whoever has read my writings knows that isn’t true) review of my experience on the Unity program by Date Tate and John Meadows (RIP). While I’m at it, I’ll talk through the supplements I used and my experience. It will be somewhat rambling, because that’s how I roll; I don’t plan these out ahead - I just start typing.
I have long been a fan of Mountain Dog programs. I first fell into his work after some injuries and found that I could push pretty hard while still getting some of my function back… or at least not damaging things further. In retrospect, I could have done this with a lot of programming, but this spoke to me as a lot of my goal in the gym is competitive - I don’t really have a competitive outlet anymore, so being able to grind out sets and glare at 20-year-olds is a big win for me. The point of all that is I have a lot more experience with his side of the programming than the Tate side.
The Unity program is 3x 3-week blocks for a total of 9 weeks of programming. The weeks are set up like a conjugate split, with DE and ME lower and upper days, with a back and bi day in the middle - so it’s 5 days a week.
I have tried running this program twice before, and simply wasn’t able to complete it, I’d crash around week 3 or 4, but this time I finished; I’ll talk about that more as I go. To set the tone for the pros/ cons I’ll outline, I am 40 with a family and travel 50% for work. During this program I moved my family (again), got Covid (again), and needed a round of cortisone (again!). All that to say, I have a pretty stereotypical middle-aged life and I know how far I’m willing to go in different aspects.
The Unity program is hard. The DE days have you doing up to 20 sets of box squats/ bench with 30 seconds rest between, and some of the leg days included max effort squats, leg press and BSS drop set of death (google that one)… for 3 weeks straight. I can honestly say, because I did the experiment on myself multiple times as I mentioned, I could not have completed it without Surge Workout Fuel. The workouts were never less miserable as I was doing them, but my ability to come back the next day changed significantly. I didn’t feel like crap really until about the last week, and it has some high percentage work that I’m really not used to.
The Unity program is extremely high-volume. It’s legitimately as if Dave and John each wrote their programs separately and then just put them on top of each other. Some of the days would take at least two hours if you were following the rest recommendations, and 75-90 minutes was an easy norm. For me, at this point, that was too much; it doesn’t leave time for much else. I still made it a point to take a lot of calls on walks and the like, to get some other movement in, but I certainly wasn’t doing any real athletic stuff other than this. The tough amongst us can remind me there’s no way I didn’t have another 5-10 minutes in the day, which is fair, but the length of the sessions was a bit of a negative for me.
On top of the sessions being long (and keep in mind, I’m adapted to volume), a lot of the volume was just simply boring. After a big bench day, you’d finish with 12 sets of triceps pushdowns and extensions… absolutely mind-numbing and I did not enjoy that.
On the positive side, the DE days were fun - it’s a different challenge to get all those reps in, explosively, in the time they dictate. I also think the frequency of the lifts was a benefit for me. I noted frequently in my log little tweaks or things in my form I was “discovering” just from touching the lifts more often.
This was also the longest I’ve stuck with percentage work. The DE days waved up and down and even some of the ME days prescribed your backoff sets. Although I still prefer being able to go as miserable as I can muster on a given day, there was some freedom in knowing what I had to do that let me just go in and get the work done in a different mindset.
There is no taper or test on this program, so maybe next week I’ll hit some big numbers, but the last week had a couple opportunities to work up to heavy-ish stuff on variations (not the main lifts, though). I squatted 405/4 on a narrow-stance high bar squat and 255/2 on incline bench. I’m not strong, normally, but neither of those lifts is a huge lift for me - I can hit them both whenever. Again, there wasn’t a peak or test or anything, but I wouldn’t say I got a ton stronger. I did gain 3-4 pounds, but that’s the kind of weight I can sneeeze off (or inhale on, it seems).
Overall, the program was fun, and I’m glad I got it behind me. I would not revisit it. The sessions take too long, they can get pretty boring (I’m a diva), and I may have survived the volume but I definitely didn’t thrive. I’m not really sure when I would benefit - you do too much to really get stronger like a powerlifter, and you spend too much time at the higher intensities to thrive on the hypertrophy-driving volume for a powerlifter. I think it was a cool idea, and I love that they did this project together before he passed, but it runs into the problems anyone does when chasing two rabbits. I guess if you’re an offseason high school or college athlete this might be a good option - you get to touch heavy weights, you’re working enough your conditioning won’t be complete garbage, and if you eat a couple pizzas a day maybe you put on some tissue.
In terms of supplements, I already mentioned Surge Workout Fuel - it’s a 10/10. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wouldn’t have completed the program without it (which I’ve proven before). Grinding through any single day isn’t a problem for me, but I often have to string a lot of days together or work out one evening and then 6 hours later the following morning due to my travel schedule. Timing this all out with perfect meals is theoretically possible, but I’ve never done so successfully. I really felt the Surge Workout Fuel kept me in the game, and I probably really only had 2-3 disappointing sessions out of the 45; that’s pretty incredible when you think I literally moved houses and hit the gym before walking in the door and had to catch up immediately after my Covid “isolation.”
I also took I-Well, Flameout, and Indigo-3G. I don’t think I have enough to go on yet to evaluate the Indigo-3G, because my carbs weren’t constant throughout this experiment. I’ll come back and review this one in about two months after I tighten my diet up. I haven’t done blood work again since taking these, but I can say my blood pressure has come down a couple points consistently (this is something I struggle with) - that’s with everything else going on, so that’s a huge win for me and I’d definitely recommend anyone starting to edge over normal maybe give these two a try and see if it helps. I’d imagine it’s a combination of the curcumin and fish oil, but I really don’t know. When I do bloodwork again, I’ll report back any HDL or cholesterol changes as well.
Anyway, that’s it for me. I’m happy to answer any questions if there’s anything that would be helpful, but I wanted to get my thoughts out because I know folks are curious about John’s programs. I guess my big recommendation would be: start with Reactive Hypertrophy on this site if you want to get a feel vs. something like Unity.
