It's no stranger that I'm a John Meadows Fan. I've liked him since around 1999 when he competed in the USA. I'm an even bigger fan of hard training. Which is a big reason on why I "took" to his Mountain Dog style of training.
If you need a primer on what Mountain Dog is, follow these link and read the article. Even try the programs in the article.
Mountaindog For Intermediates
I followed Gauntlet one full time through. If you're not familiar with it, Gauntlet is a high frequency program, laid out in a 12 week format. I was six weeks into another run of it before something came up. I had to take a hiatus from the gym for awhile, and gave Gauntlet another go.
When I was finishing up week 11, I decided to try another program by Meadows after I completed Gauntlet....Creeping Death.
Why Creeping Death? No other real reason than that the name was cool and it was suggested by my buddy Nick Langer. He used it as he was getting ready for a show in 2015 and was shredded to the gills, so I figured a fat ass like me could use it as well.
I also like tough programs, so I dove head first into it.
CD is a five day a week program that is set up like this......
Day 1: Legs
Day2: Chest & Shoulders (plus odds and ends he puts in)
Day 3:Off
Day 4: Back
Day 5: Off
Day 6: Chest/ shoulders (pump day)
Day 7: Arms
I liked this split, at least initially. But after taking some pics I realized I needed a little more meat on my legs, So I just added a day around week 6 or 7. Talked to Mountain Dog veteran, Cris Edmonds, about the impending change as well.
The split looked like this after I tinkered with it.
Day 1: Legs
Day2: Chest & Shoulders (plus odds and ends he puts in)
Day 3:Back
Day 4: Legs
Day 5: Chest/ shoulders (pump day)
Day 6: Arms
Day 7: Off
Reason for the change, is like I said, I needed some leg size. There was no real pre set workout lined up for my second day. But what I do, is make my hamstrings a priority in that session. Reps weren't crazy high or anything like that.
But then I got another urge, I wanted bigger....MUCH bigger arms. So I added light arm workouts to day 2 and day 5. The best way to describe them was a "extra" workout. Not anything heavy or with a free weight for the most part . I made those arm sessions machine only really.
I know what you're thinking. Why mess with a great program?
Why not? I felt like I could recover from the change and get better, and I did. Arms are noticeably fuller and legs continue to fill out. Not anything on a Tom Platz level unfortunately.
Also I felt that making the change with the extra day would prepare me for Sentinel (another high frequency program). For the first four weeks alone, I train legs 3 times a week for the first four weeks, so an extra leg day on CD wont hurt me.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
