John Meadows vs. Scott Abel

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
21

As someone who has read up on Scott, and after my studies are done, will read more up on John, I would ay the approach is different but similar.

Similar because they both apply aspects of high volume to their training. But different as Scott has always considered himself focused on the “art” of bodybuilding s opposed to the science. More the philosophy then the supposed letter of the law.

It’s hard to explain in a way that’s relateable for most. But once you go through and experience the workouts you have a better idea what he’s talking about.

Reading Vern Gambetta, JC Santana, and Ian King helps a lot.

Scott advocates increasing intensity by explosive movement, speed, velocity, and believe that is equal to increaing weight.

Also very big on increasing range of motion and/or speed of movement before increasing weight.

He actually has truly innovative and good ideas and a few more . . unique ones.

I would say principle wise he and John are similar in certain ways. But as far as method goe, they would be conidered on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Scott does use body specialization routines but only as he deems them useful, but he is more likely to do full body routines majority of the time.

Just to give an easier comparison, this would be “Abel” style delt specialization routine:

1)SA KB Snatch 5-6x5-8

2A) Seated DB Press 3-4x6-15rep
2B) Low to high cable chops 3-4x6-15rep

3A) Another form of shoulder press 3-4x6-15rep
3B) Kettlebell Swings 3-4x6-15rep

4A) Some form of shrugs 3-4x6-15rep
4B) rotational movement 3-4x6-15rep

Now thi is not anAbel routine, but it gives you a rough idea. He wants to tax the muscle from all angles. He will add in other movements as both a form of active rest and to get the most “metabolic effect.”

Where as John will occaisionally use the higher rep schemes. Scott will usually cut it off at 20 reps and either increase intensity by focusing on speed, ROM, combining different exercises, etc.

John seems to push for muscle failure in certain scenarios, where Scott would prefer “metabolic failure” so to speak, where you are gasping for air, I mean major oxygen debt.

I’ve always felt Scott was misunderstood in his approach. And once you read his stuff, granted doing it more than a couple times helps, you find he’s not that far out there. He just has a different approach to the principles of exercise.

Writing wise, I have to say John does come off more approachable, and easier to grasp concept wise. Which is proably why his methods are more accepted.

Just my view.

Apology in advance for any spelling/grammar errors. I’m rush typing :slight_smile:

22

OK, my previous post didn’t come up.

edit:

it’s up now :slight_smile:

23

I’m subscribed to Scott Abel’s youtube channel and I’ve read some of his articles, I find a lot of it fascinating but I wouldn’t trust myself using his philosophies (if he was coaching me in person I’m sure it would be great though lol). It’s hard to even know what he’s advocating. “Weight on the bar doesn’t matter! …but you should get stronger.” Talks a lot of theory and it must be going over my head.

I never got that same impression with John Meadows. His articles seem very practical and he explains exactly why he does things. Mostly basic exercises and conventional logic… just shows a good way of ordering them and how to use them?

24

If you go look at Ebomb’s log and his thread about his first show, you’ll notice he has made huge improvements in his shoulders and back width in the last few months. He contributes that to utilizing Mountain Dog principles. SO there’s an example of at least on Natty who’s benefitted from Meadow’s approach. I think BugeishaAD has also had some great success with it…

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[quote]cnk06 wrote:
I also had some concerns how a natural lifter would be affected by the mountain dog training. I decided to give it a try because of John’s claim that his programing would allow you to gain size while keeping you injury free, which for me was a big point seeing how I had separated my shoulder during college hockey. I went from training with 5/3/1 method, which was great for increasing my strength but lead to pain in my shoulder after 6 cycles.

And I can honestly say that after completing two training cycle of Meadow’s program, I don’t think I will be switch to a different program anytime in the near future. Meadow’s program allowed me to gain noticeable difference in my legs, shoulders and arms. I also no longer have pain in my shoulder after a chest and shoulder day.

But the negatives of the program are; it has had an adverse effect on my strength level due to moving the main lifts from the beginning of the workouts. I can say that I had to focus a lot more on recovery than I ever had to with 5/3/1. With 5/3/1; I could use foam roller after the workouts and be perfectly fine the next day without muscle soreness, I could get a bad night of sleep and still recover fairly well.

With MD training; I had to up my usage of the foam roller, if I didnÃ?¢??t sleep atleast 8 hours I felt like I was experiencing rigamortis. But once I figure out the proper recovery method to include with MD training, which was 10 minutes of foam rolling the night before on the target muscle groups and 10-15 minutes after the workout, I didn’t experience any overtraining warning signs.

I’m still sort of baffled how IÃ?¢??m able to recovery. So I decide to check my food and workout logs to see if there was any major difference between my time with 5/3/1 and MD. And after reviewing the logs, there was no major difference in calories consumed, cardio time or GPP work with the sled. The only thing I can think of is that my training volume throughout college makes it conducive for me to use a higher training volume method for hypotrophy.
[/quote]

[quote]actionboy wrote:

[quote]cnk06 wrote:

And I can honestly say that after completing two training cycle of Meadow’s program, I don’t think I will be switch to a different program anytime in the near future.
[/quote]

agreed. i love it. [/quote]

Interesting, thanks for the input. Cnk06 can you go into detail with how you’re routine is set up? Also are you sure the gained size is legitimate muscle growth or possibly just sarcoplasmic/inflammation/etc. due to higher volume? MD training is certainly more BBing-style than 5/3/1 but the fact that you’ve actually lost strength (rather than just maintaining and/or slowing down the strength gains) concerns me for my own use because it seems like strength has really been the only determining factor for me for growth in the past (i.e. I got bigger when I got stronger, I got no net gains when I got no net strength).

[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Think I’ve got a good idea as to how he structures things, but this is only an educated guess: All his articles are specialisation articles (something not specifically stated). As such, specialisation involves training just one or two bodyparts with high volume (and/or frequency). The part that makes it “doable” is the fact that other body parts are put on hold/maintenance (i.e. low volume).

That’s my theory [1]

Is that the case? I wasn’t under the impression that those were specialization routines.

Thanks Barachiel for the input, I wasn’t aware Abel was at all into full body stuff, at all lol.

Spidey you mean his 5/3/1 log? I’ll check it out

  1. /quote ↩︎

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nevermind about ebombs log lol the 5/3/1 one was just the first to come up, I see the one you’re talking about

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[quote]pumped340 wrote:
nevermind about ebombs log lol the 5/3/1 one was just the first to come up, I see the one you’re talking about[/quote]

Yeah I was wondering what you were talking about. lol. But yeah, he doesn’t follow Meadows to a tee, but enough to where Meadows featured his s the ‘member of the month’ on the Mountai Dog website.

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The Mountain Dog stuff is great. HOWEVER, I think one must be careful, especially as a natty. I began a full-fledged routine closely based on the sample workouts from the articles posted here in the first stages of a recent diet I just completed. I had some great workouts, and the pumps I got were unreal.

However, as I got deeper into the diet (6 or more weeks in), my caloric deficit was more and more severe, and I was getting weaker and feeling burned out. Transitioning back to a more traditional meat and potatoes bodybuilding routine, I found that I wasn’t able to use nearly what I had been in regards to poundages on big lifts, and I’m STILL trying to gain that strength back.

ALL THAT SAID, as a natty, I think using this style training is good as a tool, and sprinkled throughout your training. If you are going to do all out high volume MD style routine, make sure you’re eating enough. :wink:

I’m currently using a pretty vanilla bb’ing style routine, but I still incorporate a lot of my favorite Meadows movements and techniques (3 second negatives, partials for shoulders, various things for arms and back, etc). I have definitely benefited in the long run from my time using MD training because it reallllly made my negatives on all movements super tight and controlled, and I think as I start to finally eat more, I will see some nice growth.

29

[quote]bugeishaAD wrote:
The Mountain Dog stuff is great. HOWEVER, I think one must be careful, especially as a natty. I began a full-fledged routine closely based on the sample workouts from the articles posted here in the first stages of a recent diet I just completed. I had some great workouts, and the pumps I got were unreal.

However, as I got deeper into the diet (6 or more weeks in), my caloric deficit was more and more severe, and I was getting weaker and feeling burned out. Transitioning back to a more traditional meat and potatoes bodybuilding routine, I found that I wasn’t able to use nearly what I had been in regards to poundages on big lifts, and I’m STILL trying to gain that strength back.

ALL THAT SAID, as a natty, I think using this style training is good as a tool, and sprinkled throughout your training. If you are going to do all out high volume MD style routine, make sure you’re eating enough. :wink:

I’m currently using a pretty vanilla bb’ing style routine, but I still incorporate a lot of my favorite Meadows movements and techniques (3 second negatives, partials for shoulders, various things for arms and back, etc). I have definitely benefited in the long run from my time using MD training because it reallllly made my negatives on all movements super tight and controlled, and I think as I start to finally eat more, I will see some nice growth.

[/quote]

Thanks for the input, yea it definitely doesn’t seem like a good idea to do it when starting a cut lol. Would you mind sharing some before and after lifts during your time on it? Given the drop in strength did you lose a significantly amount of muscle?

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[quote]pumped340 wrote:

Interesting, thanks for the input. Cnk06 can you go into detail with how you’re routine is set up? Also are you sure the gained size is legitimate muscle growth or possibly just sarcoplasmic/inflammation/etc. due to higher volume? MD training is certainly more BBing-style than 5/3/1 but the fact that you’ve actually lost strength (rather than just maintaining and/or slowing down the strength gains) concerns me for my own use because it seems like strength has really been the only determining factor for me for growth in the past (i.e. I got bigger when I got stronger, I got no net gains when I got no net strength).

[/quote]

My routine is set-up into a 4 day split consisting of SUN Legs MON Arm THU Back and FRI Chest/Shoudlers, during my off days I either walk for 20 minutes or do some type of sled work (mostly bear crawls and rear sled drags). I based my routine on the articles here on T-Nation and off of John’s website where he releases sample workouts and a lot of other training related articles.

Now for a sample of my routine I choice my leg day from phase 2 of MD. I usually switch my exercises up weekly, so with my example a included the exercises I prefer to use. Now as far a MD intensity protocols this change weekly as well (3 second descents, 3/4 reps, etc.), the only one I prefer not to use is 1.5 rep squats or leg press because I feel my form goes to complete garbage:

Legs: A) Leg curls (lying or seated or uni-lateral) 2 warm up sets followed by 4-5 working sets with the last set being a drop set of partials. The rep range is normal 8-15 and sometimes I use pyramid reps.
B) Banded Leg Press or Squats (Back or Front) 2-3 warm up sets with 5 sets of 6-12 reps with ramping weight, with the last set being a drop set. I use a variety of stances on the drop set.
C) Hack Squats or Machine Squats 4 working sets of 10 with last being a tear drop set or sissy hack squat
D) Unilateral Machine Squats or Unilateral leg press 3 sets of 10
E) Stiff Legged DL or Ham Killer 3 sets of 8-12

If you want I will write up examples for the other days.

As far as muscle gains while on Mountain Dog, some of my muscle gains could be due to a increase in sarcoplasmic fluid. As with MD method I have include more “Pumping” reps, short rest periods and exercise schemes then I did with my 5/3/1 accessory work. But, I unsure how I would accurately gauge how inflammation has affected my size gains. For me it has always been about scale weight (which I weigh myself in the morning on a empty stomach) and visually difference in my physique. Which I have gain 12 lbs (some which is fat due to my bulking diet) and have notice difference my physique in a variety of different areas.

As far as strength lost while on Mountain Dog, not all my lifts have experienced strength lost. My DL has steady improved 25 lbs PR on my 6 rep max Dead lifts and 20 lbs PR on my 10 rep max Stiff Legged DL, which could be due to preforming some variation of Dead lifts on two of my training days (Back and Legs days). My squats has only decrease by 20 lbs on my 10 rep max, which I feel is due to moving squats to later in the workout and not performing every week like a did with 5/3/1. My bench has always been fairly weak lift due to my shoulder and it is where I saw the majority of my strength lost; 45 lbs to be exacted. But since I have seitched to MD method I rarely flat bench because it destroys my shoulder. But when I do flat bench I now use a more elbow flared BB style bench rather than Elbow tucked powerlifting style I did with 5/3/1. But, I’m starting see a vary slow increase (2.5 - 5 lbs increase) in strength in my chest exercise (incline bench, DB Twist press, Incline DB, Flyes, etc.)

31

OK so really not too bad besides bench, I would definitely expect a large drop off of strength if moving squats to later in the leg workout. Sounds good overall.

That looks like an insanely tough leg workout by the way, especially if rest periods aren’t very long

32

Oh and I’d definitely be interested in other sample workouts if you feel like posting them

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[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Oh and I’d definitely be interested in other sample workouts if you feel like posting them[/quote]

i changed up some of the arm work to suit me better so i do:

1)rope push downs superset with rope hammer curls (10 seconds rest between the supersets)
2) weight dip negatives (4x8) ss with one arm preacher curls (6 rep max and then i assist with my free arm to do another 6)
3)incline curls (2x8)
4) PJRs (4x15) finished with close gripping the EZ bar on each set
5) standing alt curls with 3 second negatives (2x8)
6) in-human press 4x10 finished with partials at the bottom of the ROM and then the top of the ROM

with shoulders i took out the destroyer set for rears and put it with lateral swings, so 60 swings with a heavy weight, half that weight and shoot for another 60, half that and then do full ROM until failure. its crazy.

34

[quote]actionboy wrote:

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Oh and I’d definitely be interested in other sample workouts if you feel like posting them[/quote]

i changed up some of the arm work to suit me better so i do:

1)rope push downs superset with rope hammer curls (10 seconds rest between the supersets)
2) weight dip negatives (4x8) ss with one arm preacher curls (6 rep max and then i assist with my free arm to do another 6)
3)incline curls (2x8)
4) PJRs (4x15) finished with close gripping the EZ bar on each set
5) standing alt curls with 3 second negatives (2x8)
6) in-human press 4x10 finished with partials at the bottom of the ROM and then the top of the ROM

with shoulders i took out the destroyer set for rears and put it with lateral swings, so 60 swings with a heavy weight, half that weight and shoot for another 60, half that and then do full ROM until failure. its crazy.[/quote]

Certainly sounds tough, I might try more “bodybuilding”-oriented training like MD style stuff after I hit some certain strength numbers. I’ve done fairly low volume for arms especially for awhile now

35

ya man, give it a shot. you wont know until you try it. and if after 6 weeks you hate it, whatever? you’ll probably still build some muscle and you’ll learn what works for you. its win-win.

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[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Oh and I’d definitely be interested in other sample workouts if you feel like posting them[/quote]

Back phase 2, with back intensity really depend on holding the contraction and focusing on continues tension:
A) Unilateral Row (Meadows, DB deadstops, one arm row) 2-3 warm up sets followed by 4-5 working sets with a stretch. The rep range is normal 8-12 and sometimes I use pyramid reps.
B) Pedley Rows, Seated Cable Row or HS ISO Low Row 3 sets of 8-12 reps with a 1 second contraction
C) Some Form of stretch exercise (MD stretchers, DB pullover, Heavy Partial pulldown with a force stretched) 3 working sets of 10-12.
D) Shrugs (DB, Barbell or HS) or Rhomboid work (T-bar Row with flared elbows) 2-3 sets of 8-12 with a 3 second contraction
E) Erector spinae work (Racked DL, Conventional DL, Banded Hyper extensions) 2-3 sets to failure

Chest/shoulder phase 2, some chest day I focus on solely incline or decline work but for most of the time I use this kind of exercise arrangement:
Warm up with John’s band press that can be found in his training lab section
A) DB Twist, Pec Dec Flye, or DB inlcine 2-3 warm up sets followed by 4 working sets with a stretch. The rep range is normal 8-12 and sometimes I use pyramid reps.
B) Incline Press (Barbell or HS Plateloaded Machine)4-5 sets of 8-12 reps using intensity methods of Rest Pause Explode or 3/4 reps. The last set is always a drop set. In between set I do John’s band Pec stretch.
C) Decline Work (DB Decline, Smith decline, Banded HS decline) 4-5 working sets of 8-12. I really like 3/4 reps with decline.
D) Random Chest exercise (Pec Minor Dips, Flat Bench, Machine press, Push ups with stretch) for 2-3 sets of 8-failure (depends on exercise)
E) Hanging Swing or Rear Pec Dec Flyes 4 sets of 20-35 reps with heavy weight (for swings) or 2 sec flex for Flye
F) Lateral swings, Machine Lateral Raises superset with swings or raises , or Wide Grip OH press 4 sets of 20-35 for swings and 8-12 for OH press
G) Rear Cable crossover or Rear delt swings/raise for 4 sets of 20-35

Arms phase 2:
A) Brachioradialis Curls (Hammer Curls, Reverse grip curls) 2-3 warm up sets followed by 4 working sets of 10-12 with no more than 45 second rest. 1 second flex
B) 3-Second Descent Curls (EZ Bar or straight bar) 4 sets of 6-10 reps
C) Preacher Curls (machine or free weights) 4 working sets of 8-12 reps and sometimes I’ll do drop sets,partials or both.
D) Cable Triceps Exercise (pushdown or rope extensions) 3 warm up sets followed by 4 wroking set of 10-15 with a 1-2 sec flex and rest no longer than 45 seconds.
E) 3-Second Descent Dips (weighted or machine) 4 sets of 6-8 reps.
F) Some Close Grip Work (JM press, Floor Press CG, Decline CG) 4 set of 8-12 reps
G) Tricep Extensions (Incline Skullcrushers, L extensions, Rest-Pause Skull crushers) 4 sets of 10-15 reps.

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[quote]its_just_me wrote:
I can understand building up to high volume, although everyone’s opinion of high volume is different (if I remember rightly, John doesn’t seem to do low volume (under 10 sets/bodypart). For me, 10-12 sets/bodypart is high volume (typically, for long term gains, I do better with less than 8 sets/bodypart, and even less for higher rep sets like for legs).

In fact, I’d question how many natties with average recovery (or less) would do well long term with what John says is “medium” volume (assuming the lifter is putting in 100% effort).

It really would help if his articles weren’t so specific to a certain area, and covered more of the principles. But I guess if you make your living through coaching you’re obviously not going to want to reveal too much.[/quote]

Hi guys - just wanted to say I don’t mind revealing anything about my training. I have nothing to hide :slight_smile:

A couple of things. Let’s say person A squats 315 x 8 reps. Then when they start with me they do leg curls first, and let’s say they do leg presses first that day. Now when they get to the squat, they can only do 315 x 5. Did that person get weaker. Nope. They are simply just not as fresh. Everyday I get emails from people saying they were curious and went back and tried a squat or dead etc first, and they were actually stronger than before.

Also - nutrition is key - this training is meant to push you to the limit, and if your nutrition isn’t on point, yes it will not work 100% the way it’s meant to work. Training and diet work together, and that’s the way you have to approach it, all parts of one big system…

Thanks guys for the comments!!

All the best,
JM

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^ Good to see you post :slight_smile:

Have to say, I like the arrangement/order you do for legs…really helps to get blood pumped in there before the big moves. Started doing that myself - it feels so much safer (injury-wise/warmed up) and better targeting

39

you can argue about volume and intensity all you want.
but I tell you this, John’s mountain dog back article contains some ideas that have given me great gains on my back. he’s great!

40

Hey Mr. Meadows,
since we have your attention, can you give us an example of what a phase 3 workout would look like? any body part really, im just looking for an example.

thanks