Updated--DC Training Newbies ***read This First And Then Ask Questions Later
[HR][/HR]
DC training Newbies ***read this first and then ask questions later
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Dante’s Inferno
Who is he, and why is Doggcrapp training building so much muscle mass?
Interview by Ron Harris
RH: Would you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Let’s start with Dante, is that your actual name or an alias?
D: That is my actual name. It's my middle name but its what I go by, unless we are talking about the guy on the freeway yesterday who called me something else. (kidding)
RH: Do you have a background in sports, and how did you get involved in bodybuilding?
D:I have always been a good athlete in every sport, but back in the day, when I got into Junior High school something strange happened. I stopped growing. I went into my high school as the 3rd shortest person out of about 1000 people in the school and I was a complete stick to boot. My freshman year in high school I was 92lbs and I ended up graduating at 5'7" and a strapping, robust 122lbs (laughing). I had always excelled at basketball and baseball but found it very tough going-being so small. I grew 5.5 inches after high school and wound up at 137lbs at 6 foot tall at nineteen years old. While driving my car by a grocery store one day in my hometown of Gardner Massachusetts, I saw two time AAU Mr Massachusetts (and AAU America and Universe competitor) Donnie Lemiuex. The man was monstrous at 5'7" and a lean 240lbs and I was shocked to see someone look like that. I was determined right then and there to put my nose to the grindstone and I researched/studied every single facet about bodybuilding I could find right down from the basics to the molecular level. Donnie Lemiuex actually became my training partner later on and to this day we remain great freinds.
RH: Did you publish your own newsletter at one point?
D:Yes i published Hardcore Muscle from 1993-1995 and that is when I started to first put out my thoughts on multi-rep rest pause and other theories I had to the public. It was a very cutting edge newsletter and I was very proud to say that my readership was a list of who's who in bodybuilding at that time. I had a whole slew of pro's, top amateurs, doctors and researchers on that subscriber list. I was on the phone with Phil Hernon, Tom Prince, Curtis Leffler and a majority of other competing bodybuilders at that time gathering information for each issue. Even your old boss Lou Zwick was a reader of that mag Ron.
RH: Have you competed in powerlifting or bodybuilding? If not, do you have any desire to?
D: Three times in the last few years I have dieted down for shows and every time I pull out because of the same reasons. I have worked 2 jobs for a long time now (usually working 7 days a week) and I just get absolutely burnt out with the 1 hour of training and (up to 2 hours) of cardio I need to do to come into shows just absolutely shredded to the bone. I admire anyone that can compete in todays modern society working 40-60 hours a week because I know I sure as heck cant do it. This last time (early 2005) I was determined to follow thru and I went from 292lbs to 258lbs (15 weeks) but with 5 weeks to go my father was diagnosed with a tumor on his liver and both my wife (competing in figure) and I both pulled out of the show. Bodybuilding shows come and go but family is forever-that was an easy decision to make, and luckily my father was operated on and is fine and in good health now.
RH: How and why did you come up with DC Training? Had you grown frustrated with other styles of training? Did DC Training evolve over time?
D:I started out with the old volume training concepts just like everyone else does who reads what Arnold and the boys did and what the newstand magazines put out there as "the golden rules".....but I got to a point where I started thinking "there is no rhyme or reason to this". It all seemed based on obsessive-complusiveness instead of deductive reasoning to what truly builds muscle mass. I think alot of modern day bodybuilding routines are built on "the must principle" which is fanatical bodybuilders thinking "I must do inclines and declines and cable crossovers and flat bench and pec deck and flyes for chest this workout or I wont have all the bases covered and I wont grow". I think thats flat out wrong and again comes from direct obsessive-compulsiveness. DC training did evolve over time as I trained more and more bodybuilders and noted their results. Back in the early 90's it was the same basic concepts as today but had slightly more volume to it. Thru trial and error over the last 13 years or so Ive honed it down to what you see today.
RH: Why the name, ‘Doggcrapp?’ I mean, from a marketing point of view, you’ll remember it, but didn’t you have second thoughts that it would be mocked?
D:Yea that was a real ingenious move on my part was'nt it? I definitely should be nominated "idiot of the year" for that one (laughing). What happened was 6 years ago I was a member of a small but elite bodybuilding board on the net which had about 50 members. I never posted, I just read the board. I had viewed some posts by advanced bodybuilders on that board that I felt were very detrimental toward their health. I decided to respond and posted with the anomynous screenname of Doggcrapp. I thought it would be one post and kaput, done and over with. BIG BIG HUGE MISJUDGEMENT! People were intrigued with what I had to say and kept asking questions and I kept answering and it became an encyclopedia. That post became 118 pages long and had over a quarter of a million views. My posts back then were cut and pasted onto bodybuilding sites all over the net, people started using my methods and gaining rapidly, telling freinds....and it carried on thru word of mouth like a wildfire and sadly to say Im stuck with the name "Doggcrapp" now. If I could do it all over again Ron trust me, I would of given myself a much classier name.
RH: What are the basic principles of DC Training?
D:Heavy progressive weights, lower volume but higher frequency of bodyparts hit, multi-rep rest pause training, extreme stretching, carb cuttoffs, cardio, high protein intake and blasting and cruising phases (periodization).
RH: Can you give me an example of how the bodyparts might be arranged in a typical training week?
D: For the majority of bodybuilders who are in need of size the following works the best
monday=chest, shoulders, triceps, back width, back thickness
wednesday=biceps, forearms, calves, hamstrings, quads
friday-repeat of mondays bodyparts
monday-repeat of wenesdays bodyparts
This above way bodyparts are hit twice every 8 days or so
For advanced bodybuilders (and with that I'm talking very elite bodybuilders and extremely strong people) I sometimes go with the following
monday=chest shoulders triceps
tuesday=biceps forearms backwidth backthickness
thursday=calves hams quads
friday-repeat of mondays bodyparts
monday-repeate of tuesdays bodyparts
tuesday-repeat of thursdays bodyparts
This way bodyparts are hit twice every 9 days or so and I can work on advanced bodybuilders lagging bodyparts somewhat better with this split.
RH: One very radical aspect of DC Training is that there are no isolation movements. How do you answer those that believe muscles need to be worked from several angles at each workout for ‘complete development?’
D:Let me clarify that. My trainees have kind of put the notion out there that no isolation exercises are ever being used. I honestly dont care what exercise someone uses as long as he can be progressive on it over time. If someone really believes in an exercise then they can have at it. Obviously a tricep dumbell kickback which you can hypothetically go from 15 to 45lbs is going to be alot less effective than a close grip bench press where you can start at 200lbs and end up at 405 in my scheme of doing things. I think this all comes down to the "Must" principle again I was talking about earlier and obsessive compulsiveness. When Ronnie Coleman came into this sport from powerlifting did anyone see big gaps of muscle missing from his physique? Is Johnnie Jackson playing catch up with certain bodyparts from powerlifting all those years? I dont see distinct weaknesses in their physiques. They were just somewhat smaller versions of what you see today. People are doing every foo foo exercise under the sun thinking it bombs muscles from all angles and in my opinion all your doing alot of the time is wasting energy resources. Once a growth response is reached in a workout then pretty much everything done after that is just cutting into recovery time and burning up glycogen (and god forbid muscle mass). Steve Michalik and his gang were doing up to 75 sets per bodypart and with elite genetics to boot set absolutely no difference in size or advanced development than the people doing 20, 15, 10, 5, or even 1 set a bodypart (mentzer).
RH: Could you walk the readers through a set, DC style? Let’s assume the person is properly warmed up and ready to do a set on say, close-grip lat pulldowns.
D: They would explosively pull it down to the chest and then on the negative return they would resist (control) on the way up. I don't want specific seconds, or a certain time amount, I just want control on the negative to the point if they had to, they could easily reverse direction. They would keep going to the point in the set where they would reach failure, hopefully between rep 7 and 10. At that point, they would take 10-15 deep breaths (usually 22 seconds or somewhere in that area) and then start the exercise again and go to failure once again . Then another 10-15 deep breaths. And then once again to failure. During the rest pauses you do not stay strapped to the bar or anything, you take your 10-15 deep breaths and then get back in there. Oxygen is the key here. What I'm looking for in a restpause set usually is a 11-15 rest pause total (with 3 failure points in that set). That usually comes out to something like 8 reps (failure) ...10-15 breathes....4 reps (failure)....10-15 breathes.... 2 reps (failure) = 14 rp. (hypothetically a total of 11-15 rest paused reps is what im after).
RH: Because of the rest-pause nature of DC Training, there tends to be a good mix of machines used. Do you believe that machines like Hammer Strength can stimulate muscle growth as effectively as barbells and dumbbells?
D: I would like to see everyone build a base and use free weights whenever possible. If someone has a training partner, there is no worry at all using free weights with my methods. But sometimes my trainees don't have a spotter and in those cases I try to set them up on machines that they can "save" themselves on while going to the 3 failure points during a rest pause set.. For example, it's very easy to save yourself on an incline smith press at a failure point, you just turn the bar and rack the weight, while with the free weight barbell incline press, i would hate to see one of my trainees sitting there with a guillotine bar on his neck at failure and have no way to get out of it without screaming "help!" Regardless a lot of people misconstrue this as a love for machines when in actuality I'm trying to keep safety in mind for someone who does not have a spotter. Its as simple as that. If push comes to shove my choice would always be a free weight exercise over a machine if it can be done safely. Thats why I tend to use power racks and smythe machines alot, so someone can go to the well and back and not worry about becoming "tomato canned" for lack of better words (laughing)
RH: Here’s a direct quote from an Internet hater regarding DC Training: “It’s a lazy man’s training program guaranteed to turn you into a fat tub of lard.” How do you respond to a statement like that?
D:Well with any training routine regardless if it's mine or someone elses, if you throw cardio to the wayside and eat like a glutton your going to end up with an accumulation of adipose tissue (bodyfat). I have seen many people use different training methods while not having their diet dialed in - who end up eating gross amounts and the wrong types of food thinking thats the secret. They end up being a fat pile of "lard" and blame it on the training routine instead of the real reasons...lack of cardio and an idiotic diet.
RH: How is DC Training fundamentally different from other abbreviated training systems like Heavy Duty?
D:To be honest Ron this one always rankles me. The HIT advocates love to shove anything thats a lower volume training routine under their gigantic HIT umbrella. I don't beleive in Menzter's theories, I kinda though he went off the deep end at the end there getting crazy about overtraining and in no way want to be associated with "HIT" protocols. My methods are lower volume but extremely heavy. My whole mentality is based around progression over time. With the normal bodybuilder training a bodypart 52 times a year (once a week) and with my clients training bodyparts 75-92 times a year (hence that body part growing 75-92 times/yr instead of 52), thats how I am getting these guys up in muscle size so fast. I can't have them doing 15-20 sets per body part or I cant get them recovered and that defeats the purpose of this all. So its heavy, progressive, lower volume training with recovery in mind so I can get these guys training that bodypart frequently. People have such a hard time grabbing this low volume per workout concept. But in actuality Im doing the exact same things as most volume trainers out there if they look at the big picture. They might be doing 4 different exercises for their back in todays workout (hitting back once a week). Im doing those same exact 4 exercises in a weeks time, but in two separate workouts while training back twice in a week.
