Brandon Lilly’s “Cube Method” Review

Okay, so before I get into the juicy details of this program, I need to share some good (related) news!!

Brandon Lilly and the Animal Pak crew teamed up in May to do a promo. Brandon was going to pick 5 people to act as a test group for a revised version of his program, and also get to log all of the Animal products as well for FREE!!

Anyway, I entered in not expecting much, but lo and behold, I was chosen to be a part of the test group.

SO EXCITED!!

That being said, I am still going to be working with Alyssa Smith once this 10-week program with Brandon is up. We still have big plans for my training, and hopefully I am going to get something big out of this run with The Cube as well.

And, I am also hoping Animal came out with smaller T-shirt sizes. If not I might have to go with the bro cut-off method so I don’t feel like I am wearing a dress.

So. THE CUBE.

What can I say about said cube? Well, before giving my personal take/opinion on the program, I will tell you a little bit of how it is set-up and what the basic idea is first.

The Cube Method is loosely based around Westside principles, or conjugate periodization. This quote is straight from Brandon Lilly’s blog:

My waves are 3 weeks for squat bench and deadlift and they are modeled like this.

Week 1-Max Effort
Week 2-Dynamic Effort
Week 3-Repetition Method

I call it “Cube Training” as when its mapped out it looks like a cube. I never lift heavy on two lifts in a week. If I dead heavy, my bench is dynamic, and my squat is for reps, and as the weeks rotate the effort is rotated also. In the form of a cube.
Here’s the setup:

WEEK                  1     2     3
Deads-                  1     2     3
Bench-                  2     3     1
Squats-                  3    1      2

Sundays are always a bodybuilding day. Just pick a few exercises to focus on weak points, and I always include Military Presses, and leg presses as I like keeping my quads, and shoulders strong.This method has worked extremely well for me, in preventing burnout, and building excitement for my heavy days. Any muscular deficiencies addressed on Sunday.

 

A lot of people find that doing less max effort work can help them recover better, rather than some people who still do two ME days per week.

I am still trying to find out whether doing ME work once a week or twice a week is better for me. Definitely need to experiment more with this before I can really tell.

Now, I will admit I have never read the book. I purchased individualized training with Brandon Lilly, so he wrote something up different for me and my personal goals. I haven’t gotten around to reading it, but if you are looking to get more in-depth about the program, I suggest purchasing it and reading through it.

All in all I had a whole lot of fun with this program. Since I love bodybuilding-style training as well, it stayed interesting since this program includes quite a bit of accessory work.

PHYSIQUE CHANGES:

As far as physique changes go, I definitely got leaner, but seemed to stay the same weight. Strange. Maybe a little bit of a recomp went on? I was definitely eating lots more than usual, and I owe that to the high volume. Definitely responded well to it.

FINAL NOTES:

This is something that you need to run more than just once, I think, to get the full benefits from. Which is why I am very excited to be working again with Brandon to see what kind of further improvements I can make.

I also can’t give a full run-down of my strength gains, seeing as there were quite a few things that went wrong (i.e. my diet) that was likely preventing me from improving as much as I could have. But that’s behind now, onto bigger things!

Cliffs:

• This is a very high volume program.
• You will get tired.
• You might bleed.
• You will weep at the sight of stairs.
• You will profit.

 

Do it.

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For more info on The Cube Method:

Juggernaut Strength Systems – Store

Brandon Lilly Official FB Page

 

 

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