6 Week Muscular Demolition Program Review

Author

John Meadows

Special Focus

None

Specialty Equipment

Bands and Chains (if you don’t have chains, you can accomplish similar movements with bands.  Bands are a must have though.  Also, a safety squat bar is nice, but not a requirement)

Prerequisite Skills

• Back squat
• Bench press
• Deadlift
• Lunges
• Use of bands and chains in compound lifts

Other Key Points

The 6-Week Muscular Demolition Program is a program created by John Meadows for the elitefts Programs That Work Volume 3 book.  It’s one of the only free John Meadows workout programs I’ve come across.

I don’t believe it was originally free, but I found the PDF of elitefts’ site with a simple Google search.  I hope this wasn’t a mistake.  I really don’t want to be on Dave Tate’s bad side.

It follows a five day/week schedule with the following split:

• Legs
• Chest and Shoulders
• Back
• Chest and Shoulders (“pump day”)
• Biceps and Triceps
• Abs and calves can be placed on any day of your choice

Each muscle group is typically worked 15-25 sets per week.  Overall set volume staggers a bit, but generally stays the same, though intensity increases throughout the program.

It features a wide variety of exercises that can be completed in most commercial gyms that have a power rack, machines (leg press, chest press, cable crossover and GHD to name a few), dumbbells, chains and bands.  Nearly every muscle gets attention at virtually every angle (e.g., lateral, front and rear delts; upper chest, mid chest, outside chest, lower chest; tricep heads, etc).  A large variety of tension, concentration and rate of force is also applied (more on that below).

As noted, intensity varies a bit through the workouts, but it features several advanced bodybuilding training methodologies like cluster sets, rest pause, bouts of compound supersets, multiple consecutive drop sets, and added partial range of motion (ROM) reps post work set.  It is not for the faint of heart, and definitely not for novices or beginners (nor is this type of training even necessary prior to intermediate experience).

Goals of each exercise are listed in every workout.  They include explosiveness, constant tension/pumping muscle groups (transient hypertrophy), and movements that emphasize a stretch in the muscles being worked.

In the program outline featured in Programs that Work, rest times aren’t consistently outlined, nor are specific intensity levels (e.g., RPE).  Lifters who are accustomed to John Meadows’ premium bodybuilding programs may be underwhelmed by the lack of the aforementioned inclusions (his paid program feature them in robust detail).  Having said that, I can’t really blame him; if I was getting $250 for one of my PDFs, I’d leave a bit to be desired in a “free” (or heavily discounted) program as well.  Keeping that in mind, if you have completed a Meadows premium program (or are an experienced lifter), you’ll have a solid idea of where to apply the necessary rest times and intensity levels.  In fairness, he does provide enough general guidance for the average intelligent lifter to navigate their way through.

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