Greg Doucette
Coach and IFBB pro · Harder Than Last Time
Nova Scotia bodybuilder and powerlifter who turned two decades of competing into a YouTube channel with more than a million subscribers and 300 million views. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in kinesiology, earned his IFBB pro card in 2012, and at 40 set the Guinness record for the heaviest sumo deadlift in one minute in front of a crowd in Halifax. His site says he has coached more than a thousand clients. He sells cookbooks and training manuals through Coach Greg Inc. and owns the supplement brand HTLT.
- Entries
- 19
- Does
- 7
- Recommends
- 12
- Discusses
- 0
The gear and products they use
All 7 products in this stack
- SupplementRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Protein powder
Advising athletes training through Ramadan, he put eggs and whey protein in the fast-digesting camp for the meal that breaks the fast, next to fruit and rice. Slower protein such as steak he saved for the pre-dawn meal, so amino acids keep releasing through the day.
Source: The New Arab: How to stay in shape during Ramadan lockdownView item: Protein powderBacked by 16 of 54 stacks - GearRecommends$$$Expensive: Several hundred dollars and up.
Home gym
Thousands of home gym products do nothing for a physique, he says, so the book lists the few he thinks earn their space alongside workouts that need none of them. Waiting until the gear arrives is, in his framing, just a way of not starting.
Source: gregdoucette.com: The Home & Hotel Hypertrophy HandbookView item: Home gymBacked by 4 of 54 stacks - SupplementRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
Melatonin
Among natural sleep aids he singled out melatonin when the subject was broken sleep during Ramadan. The article notes it sells over the counter in the US and needs a prescription across the UK and Europe. No amount was given.
Source: The New Arab: How to stay in shape during Ramadan lockdownView item: MelatoninBacked by 4 of 54 stacks - BookRecommends$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
Harder Than Last Time! The Complete Muscle & Strength Training Manual
Sold by experience level on his own site, the manual gives 50-plus pages on how to train before the programs land, four per level, split by goal and by whether a session gets 60 or 90 minutes. Cardio and diet guidance are folded in, which he notes most training books skip.
Source: gregdoucette.com: Harder Than Last Time training programsVisit gregdoucette.com (opens in a new tab)Backed by 1 of 54 stacks - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Circle Diet
Keto, paleo and carnivore work, his page grants, but only temporarily, and that gap is what he says this book fills. It is his own product: a download of more than 140 pages of dietary techniques and strategies, sold from his store with refunds refused.
Source: gregdoucette.com: The Circle DietVisit gregdoucette.com (opens in a new tab)Backed by 1 of 54 stacks - BookRecommends$$$Cheap: Roughly under $50, or under $15/month.
The Home & Hotel Hypertrophy Handbook
Written for travel and thin hotel gyms, the 80-page handbook he sells himself covers training when equipment is the limiting factor: nine programs by level, printable worksheets, an exercise library by muscle group, and 20 pages on tempo, time under tension, rest and deloads.
Source: gregdoucette.com: The Home & Hotel Hypertrophy HandbookVisit gregdoucette.com (opens in a new tab)Backed by 1 of 54 stacks - BookRecommends$$$Mid: Roughly $50 to $500, or up to $50/month.
The Ultimate Anabolic Cookbook
His own cookbook, sold through his site, is now on a 3.1 edition: over 180 recipes, more than 60 of them new to this version, each carrying its nutrition information. Protein-heavy pancakes, bars and smoothies run through to dessert, and the pitch is that anyone can follow them.
Source: gregdoucette.com: The Ultimate Anabolic Cookbook 3.1Visit gregdoucette.com (opens in a new tab)Backed by 1 of 54 stacks
Protocols
7 entriesRepeatable, mostly free routines with a defined trigger and dose.
Back in his powerlifting years he described training the whole body every four to five days, squat, bench and deadlift on separate days, with about half of each session spent on those three lifts. Intensity rather than volume is what he said gets people strong, and he ran higher reps in the off season to let joints and old injuries settle.
Source: Critical Bench: Interview With Powerlifter Greg DoucetteBacked by 41 of 54 stacksPrepping for several bodybuilding shows, he said he was eating a low-calorie, high-protein diet, which had also dropped him back into the 82.5 kg class for powerlifting. He was chasing both sports at the same time.
Source: Critical Bench: Interview With Powerlifter Greg DoucetteBacked by 19 of 54 stacksBands go on squat, bench and deadlift and nowhere else. Everywhere else he says he would rather push a set further with forced reps, a drop set or a superset, and his advice on quad work finishes with training very hard, then resting long enough to give the next effort everything.
Source: Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg DoucetteBacked by 4 of 54 stacksBulking is one of the biggest mistakes people make, in his view, and he says he has never done it. Off season runs at roughly 3,500 to 3,800 calories with body fat near 10 percent; a diet phase averages 3,000 to 3,300 and takes him to about 4 percent for a stage.
Source: Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg DoucetteBacked by 2 of 54 stacksHip surgery took squats away from him, so the sumo deadlift carries that load instead and he credits it for most of his glute development. Deeper squats hurt, he says, and he stopped taking the leg press down to parallel after reinjuring the hip.
Source: Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg DoucetteBacked by 1 of 54 stacksAsked how somebody should build the outer quad, he said to keep the exercises they already do but lower the weight at half the speed they raise it, and to keep the reps high enough that a set runs past 40 seconds. Too little time under tension is the fault he named elsewhere in the same interview, alongside using weight too heavy to control on the way down.
Source: Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg DoucetteBacked by 3 of 54 stacksThe catchphrase is also the method. His training manual spends 50-plus pages on mindset and on how to progress in both the short and the long term before any program starts, then specifies sets, reps, rest times and intensity for each exercise so the next session has something to beat.
Source: gregdoucette.com: Harder Than Last Time training programsBacked by 1 of 54 stacks
Habits
5 entriesDaily practices held long enough to become default behavior.
The playlist shifts week to week, but Pitbull is the one he named as reliable for getting himself worked up before a heavy session.
Source: Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg DoucetteBacked by 5 of 54 stacksMeal prep barely registers for him. An hour a week cooking in bulk, then two to five minutes per meal after that, was his whole answer when asked how long it takes.
Source: Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg DoucetteBacked by 3 of 54 stacksBroken sleep raises cortisol and ghrelin and leaves the next day hungrier, is how he explained the problem to the reporter, so his answer for Ramadan was short naps spread through the day, while carrying on with any natural sleep aid that already works.
Source: The New Arab: How to stay in shape during Ramadan lockdownBacked by 6 of 54 stacksDiet plans his team writes are built on target calorie ranges rather than one fixed number, with hundreds of meal options that fit inside them, guidance on meal timing and frequency, and instructions for handling social meals. Flexibility is the pitch, not precision.
Source: gregdoucette.com: Custom diet programBacked by 4 of 54 stacksFor a lifter trying to reach the next level, his advice was to hire a coach or train with other lifters, and to never stop asking questions. He also called training alone one of his own weaknesses, since being the leader meant he never had a partner to learn from.
Source: Critical Bench: Interview With Powerlifter Greg DoucetteBacked by 3 of 54 stacks
In their own words
Checked word for word against the linked source
“It feels absolutely amazing to have set a Guinness book world record. I have been dreaming about holding a Guinness record ever since I was given my first Guinness book when I was a kid. I am 40 years old, and only weigh 210 lbs but with 30 years of hard work, determination and dedication I was able to achieve my dream of owning a Guinness World Records title.”
Guinness World Records: Watch Canadian bodybuilder destroy world record for heaviest sumo deadlift (opens in a new tab) · 2 Dec 2015 “I NEVER bulk, That’s one of the biggest mistakes people make. I stay in good shape year round. off season calories is around 3500-3800. When I diet I eat on avg. 3000-3300 calories per day.”
Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg Doucette (opens in a new tab) · 20 Apr 2016 “Do all the exercises your currently doing but try to lower the weight at half the speed that you raise it. also keep the reps high enough so that the sets take 40+ seconds.”
Fit World Blog: Q&A With IFBB Pro Greg Doucette (opens in a new tab) · 20 Apr 2016 “I believe that intensity not volume is the key to getting strong. One other factor that separates my workout from most is that I believe in doing higher reps in the off season in order to build bigger muscles and allow for joints and injuries to heal.”
Critical Bench: Interview With Powerlifter Greg Doucette (opens in a new tab) “I've accomplished a lot in my fitness career. I have achieved just about every goal I have set for myself. My new passion is being able to use all that I have learned over the years to help other's achieve their goals too.”
gregdoucette.com: About Coach Greg (opens in a new tab)
Stack notes are paraphrased. Anything in quotation marks is a short excerpt copied from the transcript it links to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.