Why Jeff Nippard & Stephanie Buttermore's 'Women's Specialization Program' Is Terrible 

Time stamps: 0:11 Chapter 1. Introduction 5:00 1.1. A caveat 5:21 Chapter 2. Why the 'Women's Specialization Program' is bad 5:37 2.1. Inbuilt junk volume 10:34 2.2. Excessive volume 14:29 2.3. Excessive frequency 16:49 2.4. Excessively high rep sets 19:26 Chapter 3. 'BACKED BY SCIENCE' - really? 19:50 3.1. On frequency 22:51 3.2. On high rep sets 24:10 3.3. On volume 27:59 Chapter 4. Is the 'Women's Specialization Program' plagiarized? 38:48 Chapter 5. Conclusion

Hey Solomon, sorry I missed your email on this. I’ll send you one now. I respect your feedback and you know your stuff. I’ll still leave my thoughts here so people can read. First, the updated bench press program is in design now and the new version should be re-released soon. Thanks to your video for that. The new version is a lot better. This program also needs an overhaul. It was actually released in 2018, not 2019, and I haven’t actively promoted it in over 5 years (not that I can remember anyway). If you go to my website, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom, past all my other programs to find it. It’s easily one of my least popular programs (probably because only about ~5% of my audience is female these days and like I said, I don’t promote it). Anyway, I agree that the volume is too high, the frequency is too high and the reps don’t need to be as high as they are (although this isn’t such a problem imo). The problem is, we originally wrote this program with the target user being someone who is advanced and at a plateau. Someone who has already run all the basic glute programs, has hit a wall and wants something really specialized for glute growth (that’s where the name comes from). A bit of background. Around 2015-2017 my audience was actually very niche and advanced. Thats around when I was doing those interviews with Lyle and company. My info was almost entirely geared toward advanced/competitive lifters. Natural bodybuilders, bikini athletes and competitive powerlifters were my target audience. I often got feedback that my content was “too complicated” so I gradually started to adjust my presentation to appeal to a more mainstream lifter. Then around 2018/19 I started to reach more general fitness people and my audience grew a lot. I honestly think at this time, I was still massively overestimating how advanced my audience was and how advanced the people were that were buying my programs. I don’t make this mistake anymore and actually err in the opposite direction. Most people are less advanced than they think. So the super high volume was seen as an advanced glute specialization thing, for my advanced, specialized audience. If you remember, super high volume was actually pretty in line with what a lot of the top “science guys” were promoting then. “Volume is the primary driver” and all that - do you remember? Interestingly, Lyle (the guy you accused me of plagiarizing) was one of the only people in this niche who was cutting against high volume training at this time. But it was definitely very much a thing. Side note on super high volume: have you seen the new Enes et al study from this year showing gains up to 52 sets per week? (PMID: 37796222) It seems the upper threshold for volume may be a lot higher than many think. At least for short term periods like specialization phases. Again, I agree that the volume in this is too high for a generic program and for someone with an audience my size. But still! There is some science-base for super high volume training. Oddly enough, there’s sometimes a gap between what looks good on paper and what people actually like. This program got overall great reviews from customers who ran it and people said they loved the workouts and got good results. You’d think based on your critique (which again, I thought was fair overall) a lot more people would complain about how brutal the workouts were, but I got almost none of that. In my experience, women can do and recover from a LOT of volume, especially for the lower body. And 50+ sets has recently been shown to be effective for the quads in a new study. The glutes can probably tolerate more than the quads. So maybe the overall positive feedback isn’t sooo surprising. Regardless, I am with you - it is too much. Oh and as for the plagiarism claim. It’s a coincidence. I’m obviously a long-time fan of Lyle’s work, so it shouldn’t be surprising there are similarities in how we program. I was actually on Lyle’s affiliate program at the time I released this, and we were in fairly regular contact (since he was paying me each month for promoting his books) so I wouldn’t just sneakily copy his program like that while working for him. Idk if I’ll be able to change your mind on that, but that type of upper body programming is so common and standard it’s hard to even tie it back to Lyle specifically. There’s probably some things I didn’t address but I’ll hit you up in email. Thanks for the thoughtful critique.

You do not understand Solomon. As natural lifters (like jeff and stephanie) we need to train exponentially (as in to the power of n sets) more than the pros. That is why we end up with hundreds of sets per week. It is the most cutting edge science. Citation needed.

There's such a discrepancy between their programs and the way they present themselves in their videos. Jeff and Stephanie have been doing this for so many years, and for the most part, what they recommend in their videos is reasonable and sound enough. How is it possible, that such obviously terrible, misguided, fundamentally wrong programs come from the same hands? It all seems very suspicious.

21s on lateral raises are the most bro thing you could ever come up with for a program. That's hilarious

First video of yours I've seen. Really good stuff. The wink after saying Jeff and Steph are natty actually made me lol. You got my like and subscribe.

Nice channel, one that doesn't just repeat the same basic shit the bigger channels spew

I have watched Jeff for years, so when it was time for me to change to a new exercise routine, I did consider purchasing this one. I ended up doing another one instead, but it seems like I would've been disappointed

I'd like to see your definition of success, when lifting, and in life in general (since you're also a philosopher). Another great video Solomon!

Endorsed by Lyle, bashing Nippard, hell yea! Sign me up

nice work! i believe this video pushes these influencers more than any simple praise comments ever

What started with fail ended with an epic fail.

Review Kinobody Superhero program

D'y'think people call them "Jeffanee"?

So thorough! Thank you, Solomon! Excellent work here!

Good video but I feel like the plagiarism critique is out of place. Lyle's upper day is very basic and you would see most bros come up with something very similar on their own. Additionally, even though there is similar exercise sequencing, the movements chosen do differ in their functions - for example, an ohp targets significantly different muscles than a close grip bench. Lastly, there are only so many ways you can program an upper day and there are only so many exercises you can pick from.

I too was so disappointed when I bought that program. More, I was disappointed with all the programs I bought. He invests more in his videos on RU-vid than in the programs he is charging for.

I'm confused about how a dumbbell lateral raise with exactly 15 reps and an RPE of 9 with no rest works. Dumbbells usually have significant weight increments. I agree, the program is really awful. However, I don't agree with the plagiarism accusation because small variations can be considered original. There's very little unique thought in programming, so most programs have some similarities. I really don't get why most people think like this: 'turkesterone is bad, obvious rip-off,' but 'a $40 science program is good and necessary to buy because it will provide much more gains.' Disclaimer: The muscle you build with turkesterone or with a new science program is your own work. It's just the placebo effect of an arbitrary fan product that you pay for!

Which programs are good to get?

Wow at copying Lyle's LOL

New sub ❤good stuff