In a single motion I rocked forward in my adjustable lounge chair, pushing down on the foot-rest lever as I got to my feet. My back felt mildly stiff, my knees felt the taint of an ache. I shuffled to the bathroom for a different kind of relief. A thought struck me: ‘You are out of shape!’ I announced to my sub-conscious the decision to get in shape. The first step had been taken on my road to fitness. This is the story of that journey.

My sub-conscious worked amazingly fast, for in no time the current issue of ‘Men’s Health’ appeared on the desk of my boss. In a purposeful, though casual fashion, I thumbed through the pages. An unusual biceps routine caught my eye. I read the workout, mentally noting its uniqueness, but also typing the author’s name, Ian King, into a Google search to see what I might find. Google took me to the “Get Buffed” website of Ian King. I began to read everything on the website. Ian King seemed to use all the words that described exactly what I wanted: “bigger, stronger and leaner”. I pored over every article from the “Get Buffed” website and all the articles with links. This included several articles and specialization programs published on T-Nation. For example, “Top 7 Ways to F___ Up in the Gym”, “Great Guns” and “12 Weeks of Pain”. By now I was very interested in the ideas of Ian King.

The ideas in the workouts and articles were particularly insightful and detailed. Each article provided an extensive and specific explanation of the workout, including how to do each exercise. The articles showed similar insightfulness, humor and wit, as well as a dominating knowledge of strength training. Ian King understood strength training’s past and present; what produced results and what did not. A physical preparation coach with brains who could write and show a bit of attitude to boot. Ian King sounded like a maverick and I liked mavericks. I immediately ordered “Get Buffed”. It would be my ‘get in shape Bible’.

My new routine for fitness was to view the Get Buffed video (I wanted to do it right), record the workouts in the diary (if it wasn’t written down, I wouldn’t remember it) along with my own notes, then view the video again before heading to the gym. After six weeks I noticed some definition in my shoulders and arms. I was stunned! What was more interesting, was that I could see my shoulders had pulled back from their normal position of slumping inward. This was better than I had expected. Instantly, I felt a rush of motivation. During each succeeding three week stage, I was able to increase the loading from the previous week’s workout. Close attention to Ian King’s load selection plan, along with good form, was paying off. I could see results in the mirror and liked what I saw. I ordered “Get Buffed II”. I was ready to “get more buffed”!

By now I had read all those ‘additional’ chapters in “Get Buffed”. The material was very interesting. I launched into “Get Buffed II” with great inspiration and expectations for I knew I would get tremendous results. About a month into the workout, I was squatting and my right hamstring tightened. I also became aware that my abdominals seemed to feel fatigued during squatting. I realized I needed to stretch and do abdominals, previously ignored up to this point. I got both of Ian King’s videos on abdominals and stretching and added them to the GBII workout. Yes, I was that dumb!

One afternoon, I was going up the stairs at home. Incredible, I could feel sensational strength in my legs at each and every step. My motivation rocketed up another notch. I couldn’t wait to get to the gym each day to workout. I even changed my gym attire. I now wore a three-quarter sleeve shirt over my T-shirt and I used a bath towel over my shoulders. I liked the feeling of getting warm with the extra shirt and staying warm with the towel over my shoulders. Everything Ian said worked exactly as he said it would. As I completed my GBII program, I ordered GBIII.

I had always wanted big arms, so I took a break between GBII and GBIII to do Ian’s “Great Guns” workout. As I started it, I couldn’t wait for the days to pass so that I could get to the gym again and be that much closer to finishing the workout. As I got to the final week of “Great Guns”, I experienced a pain in my right pectoral area during a close-grip bench press. I couldn’t get rid of it. I didn’t know what to do. By now, I had signed up on coachking.com. I posed my dilemma on the coachking.com forum. I got some good advice and a personal referral from Ian to work with one of his coaches, Mike Pimentel. I took Ian’s advice and called Mike.

Mike Pimentel is in Boston, MA and I am in southern California, but geography didn’t matter. I wanted this shoulder fixed so I could get back in the gym. In short order Mike wrote a specific stretching program for the shoulder, working from photos I had emailed him and an assessment questionnaire along with a personal interview. When I reported back that the shoulder seemed the same, Mike had me double-up the stretching. When next I reported still no progress, he tripled the stretching. This was followed by an individual rehabilitation program using control drills and light loads to augment the stretching. Over the next eight months, the shoulder finally came around and I was able resume training. I was convinced stretching was the key. I could now do lat pull-downs behind my neck and shoulder presses behind my neck, which I did not have the range of motion to do in the past.

During the eight months of getting the shoulder back into shape, I did running and treadmill work. When I resumed training, I began with the Intermediate Program in the “Book of Muscle”. Almost immediately I had a breakthrough. I had been regularly stretching my legs for cardio work over the last eight months, while rehabbing the shoulder. After the first squat day, I left the gym grabbing the rail to get down the stairs to the lobby. My legs quivered and shook. I wobbled to my car and pondered why my legs were so trashed? Of course stretching had increased my ROM, which had increased the depth of my squat. I experienced directly the effects of stretching affecting my ability to squat more through increased ROM.

My journey has been a scant two years but I’ve come far. I’ve learned the value of stretching first-hand, both from a rehabilitative perspective and as an extremely valuable strength adjunct. More ROM means more opportunity to build bigger muscles. I felt the power of control drills in getting the target muscles to fire appropriately when exercised. Mastering form with an appropriate load and then adding load proved to be a key point. I was able to add load every week of my training. Therefore, feeling progress via more loading and seeing results in the mirror motivated me each and every day. The world of physical preparation was, indeed, as Ian King described it.

Finally, I thank Ian King for his seminal body of work in physical preparation. I achieved results beyond any expectation I could have imagined. Thank you Mike Pimentel for the rewarding rehab programs you designed and the opportunity to experience the effects of stretching and control drills. You have both so inspired me. I have become a student in physical preparation, learning to “teach the world how to train” the Ian King way!

My name is Brendan Quinn, I’m 30 and I live in Auckland New Zealand. I’d like to tell you about my experience with Ian King’s Get Buffed program, which I did late 2003. I’ll start with a little background about myself and my training history. My aim is to show the contrast between my previous results, on programs that the majority of your average gym trainers like me use, and my results with Get Buffed. Bear in mind the Get Buffed program is by no means the pinnacle of Ian’s routines…even better results are achievable when you understand and apply the principles with which the GB program was designed. There’s also a lot more that could never be incorporated into the GB routine because it is only a single relatively short cycle, it isn’t specific to any particular sport or activity, and more importantly it’s not specific to any individual person. Anyway, here’s my story:

When I grew up I would usually spend the whole day playing outside until I was called in for dinner. Back in the seventies it was what most kids used to do, and New Zealand also has a very outdoors-oriented culture. Unfortunately things seem to have changed and kids spend more time inside. I got a lot of exercise, running, jumping, climbing and tussling. I had endless energy, in fact for one entire school holiday break I woke up at 3am every morning and got up to play, and had to be coerced to go to bed at night. The only formal sport I played was rugby, which I quit after 4 years. From then on I wasn’t as active as I had been. However even though I turned into a bit of a bookworm, I still walked to and from school, ran for fitness, rode my bike, and played informal sports, especially soccer. But I didn’t go the athletic route.

I started lifting weights when I was 16 in order to put on size and strength because I was so tall and skinny, and was very introverted and shy. I’m a classic ectomorph. I’m 192cm tall and my natural untrained adult bodyweight is about 80kg. I also have proportionately long limbs, so I’m at a mechanical disadvantage for many activities. When I started training I couldn’t do a single chin-up, and only about 4 press-ups! I could however do several hundred sit ups and eat whatever I wanted, so there were some advantages! (Also when I put on muscle it looks great because I have relatively small joints and high definition…)

I went and got a barbell set and for the first few months all I did was bench press. The first set of my life was 36kgs for 10 reps! I didn’t have a proper bench with uprights, so I used an old rickety wooden bench of my Dad’s, set up on the concrete outside. Take my word for it, having to deadlift the barbell, then basically perform a ‘sit back and clean’ to the beginning position on an unstable bench, is not an ideal way to train! I was always just waiting for the day when I would slam back into the bench and keep going until I hit the concrete, and collect 50+kg of barbell and a shower of kindling. Every increase in weight was tinged with apprehension that I would now be too heavy for the bench. However my strength grew quickly and within a year or so I was benching 60kg for 8 reps. During this time I added bent over rows, shoulder presses, bicep curls and a few other exercises.

The next 10 years saw me training at the gym, where initially I followed a 5-day spit routine. I would exercise for 4 days and then take a day off, then go back to day 1. On top of the high frequency of training, my volume was high as well, for a relative beginner. That type of routine would bury me these days, but at the time I could handle it, although my results were below par. I got most of my training information from muscle magazines and other gym members. As before my main emphasis was on bench pressing…if I missed a workout in my 5-day split it was definitely not going to be bench day, and I always started the cycle with chest, fresh after my only day off. If I was really sick I’d still come in to the gym to do some bench presses. I was so keen on developing a big bench that I used to use terrible ballistic form, bouncing the weight off my chest at the bottom. Basically the gains weren’t coming fast enough (or at all) so I redoubled my efforts and used sloppy form to lift more weight.

I didn’t progress nearly as far or as quickly as I wanted to, eventually reaching a plateau and finding it impossible to eke out an ounce more strength despite huge effort. All I managed to do was injure my rotator cuffs through my bad bench press form, high volume, poor sequencing and lack of effort in upper back movements. I had to stop benching with a barbell, as well as some other movements such as dips and even lat pulldowns, and lived with shoulder pain for about 10 years, until about the last year in fact (more later). The sports doctor I went to diagnosed the symptoms correctly and the physio I saw was great in terms of designing a rehab program around the diagnosis, however neither of them mentioned my gym program at all, which was the cause of the problem! I’ve learned more from Ian about this issue than anyone else, simply through his forum on www.coachking.com.

During this period of my training I also briefly tried a method of training called ‘Matrix’ training which was promoted by a couple of Australian university professors. It was a huge trend in Australia and New Zealand, and quite far removed from what I had been doing. It worked really well for a while, mainly because it added some variety, but then I plateaued again. Towards the later part of this 10 years I learned to follow a weekly cycle where I usually only trained each muscle group once a week, which paid big dividends. My 4 days at the gym were now spread over a week, hence I had 3 recovery days instead of 1. I also learned, funnily enough through a muscle magazine, to cycle the load in exercises, which was what brought me out of my plateau and gave me some great gains. But not for long however. One thing I’ve picked up from Ian is to cycle far more variables than just load…exercises, time under tension, volume, form, grip, effort, frequency, rest between sets, sequencing etc.

The last 5 years of my training have seen much more variety. I picked up a sport that I really love, Jiu Jitsu, incorporating a style called Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which involves grappling on the ground. Because I wanted to develop a strong grip for grappling I decided to specialize in chin ups. I used the jungle gym in the local school and a tree branch at the local park. I always started with chin ups, and after my first set of as many reps as I could possibly do with good form I worked on multiple sets of a few reps until I had reached my goal of x reps, usually 50 or so. After a few months my biceps got a lot of great feedback from people. I heard “your arms are huge” or similar from loads of people, some who hadn’t seen me in a while and some who had never seen me before. My grappling partners also told me that my arms were really strong. My Jiu Jitsu instructor at the time was a 3-time World Jiu Jitsu champion. One day he decided to show a way to break a particular hold through physical attrition. He let me get him in a position called the closed guard, where I basically wrapped my arms and legs around him on the ground. He couldn’t break it despite trying for about 2-3 mins. (Of course had he wanted to show another technique to break it, he certainly could have, along with disarticulating some of my joints…) In this instance my long limbs certainly helped, and I was chuffed that I not only was I quite strong, but that it had paid dividends in my sport.

My overall progress however was still disappointing overall.

I decided to search the Internet for training information about 2 years ago, which has proven to be an excellent resource. I adopted the High Intensity Training (HIT) methods for over a year. Initially I had great gains, adding squats and deadlifts to my workout and going to the gym less often and for shorter periods, but with more intensity. I became an overnight convert to the HIT paradigm and espoused the method to everyone I knew. My gains were due to using a lower rep range than I ever had before, 6-8 reps as opposed to 8-12, as well as lowering my volume and frequency even more, and adding deadlifts, and squats. Unfortunately there wasn’t much variety after that initial change. In fact I briefly touched upon a fierce debate on the Internet at the time between the HIT school and the periodization school. The HIT squad (ha) were basically promoting their method of training as so superior that you didn’t really need to change your workouts, and should reach your genetic potential within 2 years. Despite being pro HIT, I didn’t think it wise to get into an argument with power lifters who could bench press several times their (and more importantly MY) bodyweight, and tell them that I had a better way for them to train!

So of course the gains plateaued yet again, and I even started backpedaling despite constantly trying to raise the intensity. I used to have a cup of coffee or a couple of energy drinks before every workout and psych myself up to a great degree, but I still couldn’t budge more weight or eventually even the same weight, which was very disheartening. At this stage I had a good physique and received plenty of compliments, but to be honest the results were simply not commensurate with the effort. Again I let my form slip in order to raise my intensity. Which of course isn’t actually what is happening when you lift bigger weights with less control.

More web surfing turned up some good sites, specifically Testosterone magazine (www.t-mag.com), an online hardcore bodybuilding / strength magazine. It’s packed with  excellent articles about weight training, and it’s free. I spent days reading back issues. Initially I tried a standard powerlifting cycle, by Ed Coan, and had some really good gains from it. I’ve come to really like training like a powerlifter, and it seems to me that powerlifters often end up with better mass than (natural) bodybuilders, even though their goal is strength and power. It’s a method of training that Ian incorporates, and I really like the strength and power phase of my workouts and will concentrate more on this phase in the future.

Ian has been a regular contributor to T-mag, and to illustrate the esteem they hold him in, they go so far as to categorize modern training into two evolutionary periods…before King and after King. That’s a huge claim to make, even from a highly esteemed resource like T-mag. And anyone who has read as many magazines and bought as many supplements as me will tend to tune out when they hear that kind of rhetoric. There’s just so much BS going on in the world of bodybuilding, mainly in terms of marketing, that you tend to develop of hefty sense of skepticism. But there’s often still enough curiosity to look further…and because it was free, I did.

Shortly after reading as much of Ian’s material as I could on that site I came to understand that this guy had put together in a synergistic way a hell of a lot of information that other people stumbled their way through and dwelled on specific parts of. It’s hard to explain, but having read and tried as much as I have (and I’m aware that many people have experimented with a lot more than I have too), Ian’s material just rings true. His ability to answer any question thrown at him, and comprehensively cover so many variables such as training age, volume, intensity, periodization, etc, made it seem in retrospect that everyone else had been looking for that one magic training variable, whereas Ian was the only person looking at the big picture. And yet the only person looking at the individual picture. Basically, if you only have one method to promote, you can’t really talk about individuals, because if it’s all about variable x, then EVERYONE needs to work with variable x. The Matrix routine had dwelled on hypertrophy exclusively, HIT promoted intensity over everything else, most of the muscle mag routines were high volume hypertrophy, then there’s Westside (power), GVT (volume), Super Slow (tempo) etc etc.

I dived straight into the free routines on t-mag, which I gather are basically the same as the routine in the Get Buffed book, which I’ve just ordered. I vividly remember my first workout, in a gym when I was staying in a different city for a couple of weeks. I remember I ended up benching something like 50kg at the end of it, and what a humbling experience it was. Even though I hadn’t bench pressed in almost 10 years, I had previously been using up to 45kg dumbbells! Thankfully Ian advised putting your ego to one side for a few weeks, until you had seen your results in Phase 2 of the program. And to be honest I actually really enjoyed the change in pace and the new exercises in Phase 1, and it was challenging as hell. In retrospect I still went too heavy towards the end, to the detriment of form and tempo, which is a problem I am still working on. But the feeling of joint and muscle control was very rewarding, and just a change from the same old boring back-breaking compound movements was very refreshing, physically and mentally.

The strength gains in Phase 2 were really amazing, considering that they had been elicited in only 3 weeks! All of a sudden I realized that not only could I now bench press again, but I could do heavy bench pressing, and heavier than I had ever benched before. My previous best in the bench, back when I was younger and could still perform the bench press, was 87.5kg for 11 (pretty crappy) reps. I had never really gone into the strength range of reps, it just wasn’t what my early programs were all about. All of a sudden I was using 90+ kgs for 6 reps with far better and slower form, and multiple sets.

The other phases of the routine brought more strength gains as well, in all of the main lifts. My squat gains weren’t as impressive, in terms of sheer weight, but this is because I had previously been using a wider powerlifting type stance, and going to a narrower stance decreased the load I could initially use. I ended up however gaining 10kg in my 8RM squat, with a narrower stance and more controlled and consistent tempo. In effect all things being equal I probably gained 15+ kg in this lift alone, in about 4 months.

I reached a personal best of 180kg in the deadlift. I learned to retract my shoulder blades at the beginning and throughout the entire movement, which has been the a big factor in the training aspect of my shoulder rehabilitation.

I lifted the heaviest I ever have in the bench, despite again using improved form and tempo. This compounded the results, and actually brought with it increased knowledge of proper form. I managed to not only bench 100kg for the first time, but I benched it 3 times with relative ease and good tempo. Again I learned a lot about correct form, specifically shoulder blade retraction, grip, tempo, knee angle, variety, where to lower the bar to, and back arch.

Some of my other more intangible results, and things I’ve learned, are as follows:

• Better joint and muscle control

• Better neuromuscular coordination through the use of low reps

• Introduction to the wave loading protocol

• Introduction to broad-spectrum reps and back-off sets

• More thorough understanding of the principles of periodization

• Improved form in many exercises

• Improved tempo and control in all exercises

• Re-introduction of my favorite exercise after almost 10 years off

• Better understanding of muscle balance and bilateral and unilateral training

• Understanding of the importance of regular rest weeks (I currently rest every 4^th week)

• The beginning of my understanding of the importance of form over load (work in progress!)

• Much more attention from other gym members!

• Compliments from people that I fit my frame better, my face has filled out, I’m “huge” etc (I’m not!)

What’s really exciting to me about the Get Buffed program is how much I’ve learned SINCE doing it…i.e. where it has lead me in terms of understanding not only my own body but training in general. And not just strength training. Simply following a ‘cookie-cutter’ routine is never going to be as good as developing the skills to design and troubleshoot a routine for yourself or someone else. I’ve come much further since joining the coachking website (www.coachking.com) and having Ian answer my questions directly, as well as seeing his responses to other questions, as well as his other coaches and some of the members on the site. Ian has taken the time to answer my questions directly and in great detail, and it has had a very positive effect on my training and mindset.

I am currently doing an even longer program, the Intermediate program from the Book of Muscle, which will take me 32 weeks all up. I am still in the early stages of it, week 5, and I’m just itching to get into the heavy loading phases that begin in the second stage of Stage 2. Because I took 2 weeks off before starting the routine, I haven’t lifted heavy in quite a while, but I know as soon as I do I’m going to be stronger than ever, and that’s just the start.

While I’m on the program I’m taking the opportunity to buy more of Ian’s material and I’m checking the coachking.com site regularly, especially the forum. I have a list of all of the resources I want and I am purchasing several every month. Over time I am adding to my knowledge and applying it immediately. I have high expectations for this routine. Not only will I be bigger and stronger at the end of it, but I have another 6-month routine to dive straight into, and more importantly, I will know so much more about modifying the routines and designing my own. So far I haven’t seen fit to make many changes, however when I do they will all be based around my weaknesses. Previously I was lifting to my strengths, but now I understand that addressing my weaknesses at this stage is the key to not only better gains, but also to improved joint health and posture. I aspire to work in the healthcare profession, possibly physiotherapy, and the issue of injury and posture rehabilitation is high on my agenda. I have some pretty serious postural problems, resulting in a sore lower back, knees, and shoulders. Ian’s material covers all of this as well, and it’s one of the yardsticks I will be using to measure my progress, along with the measurements, photos, and lifting stats.

Well that’s probably about enough from me. I’d like to finish up with a sincere thank-you to Ian for making this material available, and for being so kind as to give away the GB program for free. I can still remember simply not being able to believe my luck when I started Phase 2 of the program, being able to bench press again, and heavier than ever. I don’t have huge goals, I’ve only recently broken the 100kg mark in the bench, which isn’t huge. But for me it was a wonderful experience, and I’m looking forward to hitting 120kg or more in my current routine, then going on to either the advanced program from the Book of Muscle or perhaps the powerlifting routine from Ian’s recently released Get Buffed III book. It’s all up in the air at the moment, I’m going to read a bunch of books and watch a bunch of videos, modify my own workouts and see where it takes me. It may well be that I decide to hold off progressing much more in the bench press in order to address the balance between my horizontal pushing and pulling muscles. Either way it’s a win in the end, and will result in a bigger bench, and bigger muscles long term.

Lifting reasonably heavy weights with my naturally skinny physique and getting good feedback is very rewarding. You’d think that adding a bit of muscle wasn’t much to ask, but boy does it get complicated. My main thank you to Ian is for making it as simple as you need at any given level, and for making the results of my training commensurate with the effort I put in. When I first started I was training for over 8 hrs a week, now I train for less than 3, with the kind of results I expected when I first started!