Eating Your Own Dog Crap

Our most recent issue of Muscle Mag International had an interesting story which made us want to switch workouts. We're getting busier over the summer, so we have less time for working out, but don't want to lose the gains we've made. In fact, we'd like to continue making them even with shorter workouts. People are all over eating dog crap as a nutritional supplement, so we thought we'd try it, too.

What? We mis-read the article? Dog crap (DC) is the name of the training method? That's seems strange, but OK ...

DC is all about intensity. It is another take on High-intensity training (HIT), which can help people get past plateaus and kick their bodies into overdrive. We though we'd try it, too.

Frequent Body-part Hits
Just like the Total Body (TB) workouts we've been doing, DC depends on hitting the same body parts much more often than the standard one-body-part-a-day bodybuilding workout. Since muscles start to atrophy after only 72 hours without lifting, this means that there is little time when muscle growth is in reverse. Our old TB workout hit the body parts three times as often as a one-a-day approach, while DC will hit twice as often. DC leaves room for more isolation exercises, though, which means that I can correct the lack of proportion in my arms and calves that the emphasis on compound exercises has left.

I should note that I'm not unhappy with TB. On the contrary, I recommend it for every beginner in order to jumpstart his or her metabolism and body growth. I have been doing TB or a variant for a long time, though, and emphasized compound movements over isolation in order to grow quickly. It has worked, but my calves and arms have lagged behind. Part of the lag is genetic: my father has toothpicks for arms and legs. Part is history: I was a swimmer growing up, and we all have thin arms and legs with beautiful chests, shoulders, and backs. Still, some of my problem relates to not having days devoted to legs and arms, when I would have burned up my biceps and calves. Really, my triceps aren't in trouble, so no worries there.

Rest-Pause
DC training relies on the rest-pause (RP) set. I've never used this method before, so I had to do some research. You train with a single RP set, but it's similar to three quick sets to failure. Choose your 6-7 rep max, bang out seven reps to failure. Rest for 10-15 breaths. Knock out another set to failure -- probably 4-5. Rest 10-15 breaths. Knock out a final set to failure -- maybe 2-3 reps. Your total will be 11-15 reps for the RP set. When you hit 15 reps, increase your weight on the next day. Pretty simple and pretty damaging. Get your body part out of the way in under two minutes.

My only concern with this method is that I'm not warming up. I've been doing two warm-up (Cutler calls them "feel") sets for a long time, and normall spend that time making sure my form is right before I go heavy. I'm concerned a cold muscle will pull on me. Stretching and pre-workout cardio becomes more important in DC, I guess.

The Widowmaker
We used to do our last set high-rep. Some exercises in DC are too dangerous to do with RP training, so they generally do a normal, heavy set and one low-weight, high-rep set called a widowmaker. I don't see how this last set differs significantly from what we've been doing for months, and I feel it is a good addition to any training regimen.

The Split
Days are split into roughly upper-body and lower-body days, though biceps and forearms go on the lower-body days. There are three different workouts for each, which I've imaginatively titled A, B, and C. Since our workouts are four days a weeks (MTTF), we'll do the upper and lower A workouts on Monday and Tuesday and the upper and lower B workouts on Thursday and Friday. Next week Monday will start the C workouts, while Thursday will see a return to the C workouts. Get it? No? Maybe a table will make it clearer:

		Day A	Day B	Day C
Upper Body	Chest	Inclined Smith Presses 11-15	Hammer Strength Presses 11-15	Decline Barbell 11-15
	Shoulders	Military Presses 11-20	Machine Shoulder Presses 11-15	Upright Rows 11-20
	Triceps	Reverse Grip Bench Presses 11-20	Close-grip Bench Presses 11-20	EZ-bar Tricep Extensions 15-30
	Back Width	Chins 11-20	Close-grip Pulldowns 11-15	Front Pull-downs 11-15
	Back Thickness	Deadlits 6-9 Straight + 3 mins rest + 9-12	T-bar Rows 10-12 Straight	SL Deadlifts 6-9 Straight + 9-12
Lower Body	Biceps	Preacher Curls 11-20	Barbell Drag Curls 11-20	Dumbbell Curls 11-20
	Forearms	Pinwheels Curls 10-20 Straight	Forearm Hammer Curls 10-20 Straight	Reverse Grip One-arm Cable Curls 10-20 Straight
	Calves	Leg Press Toe Presses 10-12	Hack Squat Toe Presses 10-12	Seated Calf Raises 10-12
	Hamstrings	Lying Leg Curls 15-30	Seated Leg Curls 15-30	Sumo-style Leg Presses (heels only) 15-25 Straight
	Quads	Free Squats 6-10 Straight + 3 mins rest + 20 rep Widowmaker	Hack Squats 6-10 Straight + 3 mins + 20 rep Widowmaker	Leg Presses 6-10 Straight + 3 mins rest + 20 rep Wido

	Week	M	T	W	Th	F
	1	UB A	LB A	OFF	UB B	LB B
	2	UB C	LB C	OFF	UB A	LB A
	3	UB B	LB B	OFF	UB C	LB C
	4	UB A	LB A	OFF	UB B	LB B

There. Is that clearer?

We did the first workout this morning, and the reverse-grip bench presses were a little strange for me. I kept feeling like the bar was going to slip out and land on my face. Hmmm. The chins were good, though, and I did eight on my first set. Gale did them with me assisting. I think she'll be able to do them on her own soon enough.