re: Anybody done any of John Meadows Mountain Dog programs?

lol im doing Scorpion but i know the feeling

I need to work up to the point where my head hurts LESS than my legs.

On the last week of Scorpion. I've enjoyed it for the most part. It's been a very different program from anything else ive ran.

Pros:

-It's a back focused program, back is the only muscle thats worked 2x a week and one of those days is 95% straight LATS so due to this i got great results in my lats and this is by far the most ive ever punished them. Opened me up to some great new exercises

-Legs were only 1x a week but i like how it balanced each muscle of the lower body. Most leg days are straight quads with some hams and calves thrown in. In this program some of the leg days are straight Glutes and Hams. He focuses alot on hamstrings, glutes, and adductors. Ive never worked my adductors directly before and its a weird feeling once they start to develop, feel like i chafe more now . Also LOVE the hardcore hamstring work. Hams have always been an afterthought but after developing them i love how they feel. Also, theres 0 traditional squats all the quad work is leg press, hack squat, belt squat, and leg extensions with maybe 1 day of lunges. This works perfect for me due to knee pain when squatting free weight.

-loved incorporating 20 min of cardio at the start of each workout which is always something ive neglected. It's mostly treadmill walking with stationary bike some days but it was a good way to get warmed up and try to shed a little fat.

-i learned to like the 5 day split of taking off wednesday and sunday better than saturdays and sundays. With how my scheudle works, taking off wednesdays over saturdays helps me out alot.

Cons

-if you dont have access to a big commercial gym you're going to have trouble doing alot of the machine work. I go to a pretty big one that has a ton of stuff and i still had to sub a few things we dont have. One in particular that he LOVES to do is the decline hammer press rack for chest. We have the incline one but not decline so i had to sub decline dumbell press. Theres alot of specific exercises like this, i just personally hate having to find subs.

-other than back and legs i didnt get to noticeable of gains in the chest, shoulder, arm areas. He does state at the beginning you need to EAT on this program and i chose to cut calories instead to try to shed some belly fat before my wedding in february so this may be my fault. Chest has 0 barbell work and VERY little dumbell. Its all cables and machines which is fun and i understand is a staple of bodybuilding but it may not work best for me. Shoulders has 0 press work which i also found odd, he's big on lat raises and tons of rear delt cable work.

-this is the first time ive dedicated full days to arms. I didnt love it as much as i thought i would and it didnt seem to make any difference. Also, back day would sometimes be the day after arm day and my biceps would still be cooked enough to where it affected the "pull" on back day the next day.

-the workouts can get long especially with doing 20 minutes of cardio before every workout except leg day. This puts some of the workouts at 90 minutes.


All in all i enjoyed it and learned some things. I was going to go straight into "sub zero" right after this one which picks up where this one leaves off for another 8 weeks but im starting to think a PPL would be better for me. May take a week off then try gamma bomb. Not quite ready to go back to PPSA yet as im really enjoying doing full leg days again.

Each Gamma Bomb workout takes me about 70 mins, counting treadmill warmup/mobility.

RIP to a great man. I love his programs but do find them to be borderline to much volume, was great when I was in my mid 20's

Last few months ive been doing more Mentzer type training high intensity and more rest and I will say I feel so much better than I was doing high volume. Rest days are key :)

gamma bomb? depends on amount of rest you take and which day. I would say 75-90 min most days but the saturday lift is 24 total sets between chest, back, shoulders so prolly 90-120.

that sucks, hope you feel better.

I gained a lot on Gamma Bomb. Good luck!