Anyone purchase Charles’ Q&A and articles website? Is it worth getting?
I’ve found his knowledge on strength training and body composition very good at times but didn’t need the esoteric information on how to change the viscosity of the synovial fluid of the knee joint by eating Icantpronouncethisherb found on the foothills of Hentii mountains picked exactly one day after the rainy season ends for maximum potency.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve known Charles from way back, before MM2K, but haven’t communicated with him for some time. I think he is one of the brightest and hardest working guys out there. A trail blazer for many in the industry. But some of his work on nutrition, blood testing and supplementation just aren’t applicable or economical to all of the people I work with.
“eating Icantpronouncethisherb found on the foothills of Hentii mountains picked exactly one day after the rainy season ends for maximum potency.”
Thomas, didn’t you know that it is tribal custom to wait TWO days after the rainy season before the herbs are harvisted?
CP is an interesting fella, but I’m not coughing up any money to read his articles. I was able to attend a couple of his seminars in the mid-90’s when his prices were reasonable, but now you’d better be a trust-fund child just to listen to him talk for a couple of hours.
You can still find most of his articles on t-mag anyway. I’d rather subscribe to a website that brought more strength coaches together, not one that shares one aspect of performance enhancement (elite athletes with endless budgets). Perhaps we could purchase a charliefrancis.com group membership where we all share the log-in and password of one member (unethical, hmmm!)
heheh, that might be a tempting idea, Speed. I agree that CP’s propensity for concentrating on elite athletes and programs with endless funding is the biggest problem with his methods.
I recently got a chance to look at the pay website and believe me you aren’t missing much. There was an article on David Boston’s arm routine in which CP reveals that the secret exercises are Scott curl, close grip bench presses and dumbbell curls. There also was an audio interview with some doctor talking about mineral deficiencies (very useful if you plan to get your hair samples analyzed for mineral traces). All in all the old q&a and articles section was much better.
I can’t believe he is still trying to bank on the fact he gave David Boston bodybuilder arms, yet, Mr Boston still can’t play the game. Obvious to me Poliquin knows what he is doing since the majority of professional players see results by bigger muscles. They too want to roll up their sleeves on game day.
jovisha, thanks for the info. I just don’t know how consistant he will be about updating his site and who’s answering the questions. If I’m paying $200.00 for Q&A and articles I want filet mignon not balony.
I don’t even get an e-mail returned about phone consultations. Maybe the site is making him enough money.
Every once in a while he’ll only answer one or two questions with a “The answer is beyond the scope of this…blah, blah, blah” Which by the way is now the canned answer used by nearly every strength coach/writer on the net. I understand time is money and he deserves to get paid for his knowledge.
Or an answer written in French. Not to hold back any information to the French only readers, but that answer may be why I didn’t learn that new exercise and I’ve never fully developed the radial head of my flexor digitorium superficialis that’s why my slapshot is so slow.
Just kidding Charles, you’re very smart.
Why is Charles so involved in exotic supplementation and extremely detailed blood work anyway? Hmmm
I must admit I was a bit pissed when good old CP slapped the $$ mark on the website.
After I have all my foods, books and supps bought I can’t exactly pay for more website membership.
He is one smart dude, not only in strength training but also in terms of business.
It’s interesting the hate ok bad feeelings that CP generates just because he slaps a fee on the site. I was learning alot from his answers and stuff.
OK he ain’t exactly George Bernard Shaw and he sin’t going to give alot away, but he forces you to address every single aspect of your training.
It’s also true the routines he did with DB and his arms etc. generated alot of publicity, but lets be honest here every guys wants big arms and if DB is paying CP $90k a year or whatever to train him and asks for big arms what do your think CP is going to say?
I’ve got the online membership now. I got $100 bucks off the online membership for starting my PICP program with them. Planning on doing either a Technical/Practical seminar or an internship there over the next year.
Content is decent, some decent new stuff and a lot of the old stuff. The webmaster does a pretty crappy job with the html or whatever the hell it is. The text on some articles gets a little screwy. Besides that, it’s what I expected. It should help me save money (being an online member) when I do either the seminars or the internship. But if anyone here knows me a little better, they’ll know that I’m a pretty big advocate of CP. It’s the structure that helps me more than the botanicals. To me, it’s Charlie for a complete program, CP for structure, and Ian King for practicality/flexibility (I’ve also managed to purchase 3 of Ian’s texts for half the cost of the PICP Theory Manual/Certification; in all fairness Modern Trends in Strength Training, German Body Comp, Manly Weight Loss, and Winning the Arms Race are all very affordable). And JB for nutrition.
I would imagine that Kim Goss (editor of BFS magazine) has done a pretty extensive amount of ghostwriting for CP, but I don’t have any real insight into that.
