Frank Zane's 'The Workouts: Personal Training Diaries' Book

Has anyone tried the program in this? I have been lifting weights for about six years now and want to do something different. Zane has been an idol f mine. The book contains a full year of programming day-to-day laid out. Would you guys be interested if I ran the program and logged it?

sure, why not. Zane was a bad mofo

[quote]alexmiezin wrote:
Has anyone tried the program in this?[/quote]
I’m not familiar with that book, but I do have Mind, Body, and Spirit which was kinda interesting, if not a little trippy and wandering.

He generally seems to stick with a push, pull, legs split (chest/shoulder/tris, back/bis, legs, with abs whenever or with cardio). If it suits your goals, I say go for it.

Will you still do it if nobody’s interested? That’s the deeper question that Zane would appreciate. :wink:

I did subscribe to his quarterly newsletter several years ago and I always found some cool info in those. One of my faves was his description of one summer he did nothing but train:

[quote]"There were 2 months of solid training before I started my new job teaching math at a High School in St. Petersburg, some 20 miles away.

It was a simple lifestyle: Up at 7am, have 6 eggs for breakfast and hit the Tampa Bay beach by 10am. After a few hours of sun, get lunch consisting of one pound of fish at the nearby Mullet Inn, go home, take a nap and start my workout by 3:30pm, finishing by 6pm. Dinner was a pound of flank steak with a scoop of cottage cheese and a salad. After reading a few hours I’d go to bed 11pm…

That summer I trained 6 days a week with simple equipment: dumbbells, barbell, squat rack, preacher bench, leg extension/leg curl, lat machine, power rack, dip bars. I did a 2 way split routine: back, biceps, forearms, thighs, calves and abs one day, followed by chest, shoulders, triceps, abs the next. I did no aerobics and once a week would drive to Tampa to train at Smith’s Gym.

These workouts were heavy (I was squatting 10 reps with 375 pounds, doing press behind neck with 220, and doing parallel dips with 100 pounds around my waist.)"[/quote]
That’d be the life. Ha.

I’ve done a stint of his pre-olympia “Growth Program”

Day 1- back, biceps, forearms, abs
Day 2- thighs, calves, abs
Day 3- chest, shoulders, triceps, abs

It’s nice because it includes a modified powerlifting exercise in every workout along with good Zane variations of classic exercises where you train for the pump. These different techniques really spark some growth if you’ve never done them. I didn’t like how zealous Zane was about his ab work although I went from virtually doing none for awhile

[quote]alexmiezin wrote:
Has anyone tried the program in this? I have been lifting weights for about six years now and want to do something different. Zane has been an idol f mine. The book contains a full year of programming day-to-day laid out. Would you guys be interested if I ran the program and logged it?[/quote]

If it includes progress photos, I’ll tune in.

I read an interview with Zane where he said he took “tens of thousands” of color photos of himself…he said it gave him a competitive advantage to know what he looked like.

I can’t imagine doing that without a digital camera.

But, yeah, go for it man. If it works for you, I might try it someday too.

I met frank at the Arnold last year and have been training with his system ever since. I would actually write down in my log which workout number I was doing and pre enter the movements then just fill in the weights and reps. I love this system. Now I don’t go by the book any more because I have figured out the patern he uses and just repeat them.

Problems: the book starts out at a very low intensity level…maybe too low for someone already training hard and then gets tougher and more intense until his pre Olympia workouts which took literally hours and were beyond me
When that happened I went back to the point where I was having the best workouts and kept cycling them. I honestly dont think I will ever change from this training style. Other than a few weeks of a strength program an a few weeks of serge pump training I have been doing this consistently for a year and come right back to it whenever I stray.

personalization:Frank has said that his back hurts him sometimes from all those ridiculously High Rep sets of ab work so I do from 15-30 reps and add weight. Also I add in some high reps for delts al la meadows.
Favorite zane tip: notice he starts his push day with high incline/overhead press then moves on to chest work then delt Iso then triceps. This has really helped my shoulder health and helps avoid looking like gym rats with comparatively overdeveloped and droopy looking chests from an over emphasis on the bench press.
Good luck. Hope this helps. Best money ever spent on a training plan in my book.

Care to share your workout? Just to get an idea. Thank you

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