152.2 lbs > 142.1 lbs
I’ve got a lot of respect for Doug. He’s a busy family man and successful businessman and there was plenty of travel for work during this time. In short, he had plenty of opportunities to make excuses for himself, but he didn’t. His commitment is unparalleled and I find his continued success in balancing these things inspiring. As of the time of writing this we’re continuing to work together with his bulk, and I’ve been coaching Doug for 8 months.
******
Interview
What was your reason for hiring me?
I was looking for accountability and someone who could take ALL the guesswork out of things and deliver the results I have been chasing for most of my adult life. I bought your books, The Last Shred and The Muscle and Strength Training and Nutrition Pyramids, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
What are your thoughts on the process so far?
I couldn’t be any happier with the process you’ve laid out for me so far. I love the structure of the system and the results do not lie. It’s brilliant, based on data that backs up the results. If you follow the plan you are guaranteed results plain and simple!
How do you feel about the results?
The results are amazing…as I got lower and lower in body fat, I felt it became more important to have you by my side to keep me focused. There is so much conflicting and wrong information out there, it’s nice to finally have found someone who knows what he is talking about and knows how to deliver results.
What are your thoughts looking forward?
We are just commencing the bulking phase. I will say bulking is certainly more difficult (for me anyway); because you have to have a completely different mindset than cutting. For most of my adult life I have been wary of over eating, so this process of consistently increasing calories is a paradigm shift for me. I completely trust Andy and have learned more working with him in the last 8 months than the past 8 years by myself. I would highly recommend his services if you are serious about your goals.
******
Training details:
- Doug had a preference for a low variety of exercises in his routine. We used a high frequency, varying intensity, barbell lift focused three-day split. I’ve taken a screengrab of this below.
- You’ll see that ‘RPE’ (a way of autoregulating training intensity) was used. This is explained by Eric Helms and I, here.
- For his bulk Doug said he would like to change things up, so we moved a four-day bodybuilding-style split. Exercise selection has been increased, rep ranges expanded, and volume increased overall to take advantage of the calorie surplus and thus improved response to training.
Doug’s Cutting Routine
For those that have a copy of The Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid, you’ll see the principles of the intermediate powerlifting sample programming (page 154), except that you can see it is contracted over three days, and has a slightly reduced volume overall given that he was cutting. You can get an idea of his bulk routine from the intermediate bodybuilding sample programming section. Be sure to read all of the example program notes (pages 126-150) and progression rules (pages 60-89) prior to jumping in.