After following Julian Smith for about a year on Instagram, I decided to go ahead and give his Daily Pump program a shot… and I have to say… I was a bit surprised by what I found when I bought it.
We’ll get more into that in a bit. Regardless, if you are debating whether or not to subscribe to the daily pump, or if you are just curious to know what its all about, you have come to the right place. This post should give you a pretty good understanding of EXACTLY what you can expect from Julian Smith’s program.
Who am I?
Hi.
My name is Ethan and since my teenage years, I have been weightlifting in pursuit of putting on muscle. Years ago, however, I started out like most people: I didn’t really know what I was doing. I slowly figured out how to build muscle effectively through trial and error and by learning from the many fitness gurus online.
I am much better at lifting now than I was when I first started out, and I can say that I have the results to prove it. However, I know I still have MUCH to learn. That being said, in an effort to continue my muscle building education, I decided to give Julian Smiths program a shot.
Why I purchased Julian Smith’s Daily Pump
I have been following Julian’s Instagram for about a year now and I have always been intrigued by his weight lifting style. If you have ever watched any of Julian’s videos you know first hand that he has very distinct training methods. Julian often lifts with a very slow tempo and often demonstrates unique exercise variations. That being said, Julian simply trains differently compared to most Instagram bodybuilders and the novelty of his methods is what first got me interested in his account.
However, my interest in Julian’s training methods is only part of the reason why I purchased the program. The main reason for why I purchased this program is so that I could review it and share my thoughts.
Simply put, I have found that there are dozens of extremely popular fitness influencers on Instagram that sell programs, however, there aren’t too many people online verifying these programs or providing feedback on these programs. As a result, it’s really hard for people that are interested in these programs to tell if they are really worth the money or if these fitness influencers are trustworthy.
That being said, I took it upon myself to review some of these programs and to share whether or not I think they are worth the money. In doing so, I hope that my readers can benefit from the feedback I provide on these programs so they can make a more informed decision on whether or not to buy the program.
Who is Julian Smith
Julian Michael Smith, AKA “The Quad Guy”, is something of an Instagram fitness celebrity. With well over 1 million followers Julian is certainly well known and he has grown quite a successful business built around his passion for bodybuilding. He has even launched his own supplement line, arms race nutrition.
Julian officially started lifting at age 15 when he got a squat rack for his birthday. He was inspired by the physiques of some of the greatest bodybuilders on Flex Magazine and Muscular Development Magazine and he desperately wanted to be on the cover of one of those magazines himself.
In 2013 Julian won his first bodybuilding competition. He claims that at this point he made a transition from doing bodybuilding as a hobby to a career. Soon after he won his first competition he started his Instagram and started regularly posting training videos. Slowly but surely he built his personal brand and eventually launched his website, and soon after the Daily Pump Program was born. Today Julian Smith is still very much preoccupied with recording videos for his Instagram and keeping the Daily Pump up to date.1
The Daily Pump: the full breakdown of the program
Before we get into the break down of the actual program, you might be curious to know exactly what the Daily Pump is in the first place.
Julian refers to the Daily Pump simply as his exact workout from the day prior. The Daily Pump is a list of the sets he does with the number of reps, tempo, variations, techniques included. These workouts are posted every 24 hours so you can try a new workout every day if you so wish.
Keep in mind though that these regularly posted “Daily Pump” workouts are just one part of his membership program. When you pay for the Daily Pump you pay for so much more than just the regularly posted workouts as you can see from the list of program features below.
Member home
On the home page, you can see the latest updates to the Daily Pump program as well as a contact form to get in touch with Julian directly.
The Daily Pump
The Daily Pump lists exactly what Julian promises- muscle building workouts updated every 24 hours. In the Daily Pump section, you can find today’s workout, as well as yesterday’s workout as well. You can also see Julian’s current split (the order of muscle groups he works per day, e.g. chest/triceps one day, hamstrings/glutes the next day, ect.). Julian also indicates if each set is just a straight set, a drop set, a superset, a pyramid set, or a “go until failure” set, and he has explanations that cover what these concepts mean if you don’t already know. Julian also has video coverage of him explaining important technique and methods at the gym such as how to properly warm up, how to pick the right amount of weight, ect.
Monthly mobility
In this section, Julian goes over monthly exercises to improve your range of motion and performance in the gym. For each month he posts a different series of either stretches, or movements that can help to loosen up a certain muscle such as the shoulders for instance. However, Julian doesn’t just have one video up at a time, he also keeps his older videos up from previous months so that you can learn and experiment with movements for basically every part of the body.
Demo videos
Here Julian has a set of videos corresponding to every muscle group. For instance, if you check out the chest section you will find dozens of videos demonstrating various chest exercises. When I say he has videos corresponding to every muscle group I mean EVERY muscle group you could possibly exercise. He has videos for everything from the neck to the calves.
Instructional videos
Here Julian has a series of videos for numerous exercises. In these videos, Julian explains how to perform each of these exercises effectively to build muscle and avoid injury.
Prep journal
In this section, Julian regularly posts videos documenting what he is personally doing to either bulk up or cut depending on his goals at any given time. For example, as Julian is cutting he explains everything from why he is cutting to his cutting diet, to his training habits that he incorporates to hit his goal. By simply listening to Julian talk about his methods, you too can learn how to go about achieving physique goals yourself.
Lifestyle
Here Julian lists his upcoming appearances, his latest Instagram live videos, vlogs, and other miscellaneous lifestyle-related content
Kitchen talk
In the kitchen talk section, Julian regularly posts videos (over 40 at this point) of him answering the questions submitted by the Daily Pump subscribers. These questions cover anything from nutrition, training to lifestyle. If you have a question, you can have it answered on kitchen talks or you can do a keyword search to see if your question has already been answered in one of his videos.
Trainer series
This section is a collection of full training videos where Julian goes into detail explaining the benefits of the exercises he is doing, as well as tips, trick and things to avoid while doing these exercises.
Nutrition
Here Julian explains what macros are, and how you can go about counting macros for the purpose of either bulking or cutting. He doesn’t list out a meal plan that can follow day in and day out since no one meal plan works for everyone but instead he gives you all the information you need to know in order to construct a meal plan for yourself.
Motivation
The motivation section is a collection of training videos. It’s very similar to the trainer series videos but there are just no explanations in between sets. Just motivational music instead.
Vlog
This section is comprised of all of Julian’s vlog videos that document him often doing various bodybuilding related activities.
Workout Wednesdays
This section is simply made up of a few of Julian’s old Instagram posts that detail various workouts you can try.
The Daily Pump Screenshots
In case you want to get a glimpse of what The Daily Pump section of the membership looks like, here you go:
My experience with The Daily Pump
I have followed Julian’s Daily Pump workouts for about a week now and if I’m being honest, it has not been easy. These workouts have really kicked my butt.
Before this program, I would usually do around 5 exercises with 3-4 sets per exercise. Julian however, likes to do around 9 exercises of 3-4 sets per exercise. That being said, not only did my workouts take longer to do but with drop sets, pyramid sets, and burnout sets thrown in the mix, it’s safe to say that my workouts got a whole lot more intense as well. Not only that but by following Julian’s workouts I ended up doing a bunch of exercise variations that I am not accustomed to doing. I was sore every day in places I have never been sore before.
What I like about the program
There is a lot to like about the program in my opinion. The daily workouts, of course, are excellent because they always keep you on your toes and keep things interesting at the gym. Following the same workout routine over and over gets pretty boring and Julian’s workouts certainly spice things up.
However, the daily workouts are really only a small small part of the subscription and to be honest, I think I might have even gotten more value from the other features of the subscription than the daily workouts. I learned so much by watching his demo videos and instructional videos. For the most basic exercises, I thought my technique was pretty much perfect, but by watching Julian explain these exercises in-depth, I learned a few tips and tricks that I have been incorporating whenever I now do these exercises.
I really appreciated (and was really taken aback by) the sheer number of videos that Julian provides and the exceptional quality of the videos as well. To put things in perspective, for chest exercise demos alone he has over 40 videos to view. There is just so much good quality content jammed packed into this subscription for a really reasonable price in my opinion.
What I didn’t like about the program
I don’t have all that many problems with the program but if there is one thing in particular that I wish was different. The Daily Pump workout is listed every day but I just wish that there were links to demo exercises for each exercise listed in the Daily Pump workout. For instance, if the Daily Pump workout listed “spider dumbbell front raise”, it would be helpful if there was a link to the demo video for this exercise right on the Daily Pump workout page so that I could see how this exercise is done properly. Clicking out of the Daily Pump workout to the demo videos and searching through until I have found this particular demo video for that exercise can be a bit of a hassle.
Other than that, I don’t really have any complaints.
Would I recommend it? Is the Daily Pump worth it?
Here’s the deal.
I have seen so many people on various bodybuilding forums post about how much of a waste of money it is to buy bodybuilding programs or monthly subscriptions from bodybuilders because you can find all the information in these programs online 100% for free. This reddit post below illustrates what I’m talking about.
I would agree with these people that you CAN most certainly find all the information you need online completely for free. It’s definitely out there.
However, I think there is something to be said about having a bunch of excellent quality content in a neat and orderly package such as Julian’s subscription service. It saves so much time and hassle of digging through the internet to find good quality information from reputable sources and by simply using a resource like the Daily Pump, you have access to that information in a matter of seconds.
That being said, I most certainly would recommend the Daily Pump and I do think it’s worth the money if you want to step up your game. I would say that 6 dollars a month (or what some people spend on a cup of Starbucks coffee every day), for regular workouts and a VAST collection of quality content, is a pretty good deal.
“Can I find Julian Smith’s program for free?”
To my knowledge, you can’t find this program published by anyone else for free given that this would be an infringement of the copyright on Julian’s program.
- “Julian Michael Smith” www.thequadguy.com, https://www.thequadguy.com/history
