I thought for the sake of balance it was time that someone that has had a negative experience with Ido put something out there. I was also a fan of Ido and his impressive feats of bodyweight strength also his no nonsense approach. Before I start let me give you some background on me I have been training with traditional weights for a long time and had achieved reasonably impressive results Im 5 10' and have weighed in at 90kg with 6% bodyfat so I understand training and also hard work.
However the type of training that I did also brought with it a range of problems to quote Ido himself a BMW body with a volkswagen's performance. Extremely tight hips, tight shoulders and a range of other mobility issues. A year or two ago I started moving slowly to more bodyweight orientated training after seeing some videos of hannibal for king and finding the website gymnastics bodies. I started messing around mostly with no clear understanding of what I was doing. After stagnating and becoming frustrated with the lack of resources available that were individually tailored I finally decided to bite the bullet and fork over the money to try Ido's 1 on 1 online coaching.
As I said earlier Ido is in fantastic shape and has some amazing marketing abilities but his online coaching was probably the greatest waste of money I have ever spent in my life. To start with for $1000 you don't even get an individually tailored program I bet I could post my program and It would look exactly the same as the guy who gave it a positive review. To highlight this fact I explained in detail my lack of shoulder flexibility prior to starting what was to be my first 6 week program. Included in that first program was a elevated bridge, no progressions no specific shoulder stretches just 5 sets of 30s bridges, as though he hadn't even read my email. Also when he sends you your first program he dosen't even send videos of the specific moves he has precribed. You have to go and try and find them yourself on youtube.
He has plenty of time to film himself doing one arm handstands but no time to film himself doing examples of the exercises he has prescribed to people who have paid him $1000. You then film your exercises he gets back with a few one line responses to them and that's supposedly it until the 6 week mark. I can honestly say the effort he would have given my initial program would have been perhaps 10 mins. After questioning him on some of the above issues you are made to feel as though you are weak and he could barely be bothered responding to your question.
I eventually just gave up and notched it up to experience. He even boasts about the fact that people pay him this ludicrous sums of money and then just disappear, well we disappear because we feel ripped off and what course of redress to we have because we have paid up front. Im not sure there are many coaches out there who are proud of the amount of people who are so dissatisfied they give up $1000. I am tired of hearing all the bullshit about how he is too busy to respond to emails yet he constantly is telling people how he trains 6 hours a day. Well he can train 6 hours a day because he gets suckers to pay him $1000 and then makes them feel bad if they expect any of his time, and ridicules anybody as being weak if they can't do what he does.
I have read alot of his work he has also previously stated that online coaching is rubbish yet again he is happy to do it and willing to take your money. I also love the fact that every so often he takes somebody who was a stuntman, or an acrobat and brags how they have progressed so far with him. If he is so sure about his methods why not offer a money back guarantee perhaps because so many people would ask for their money back he wouldn't have time to train 6 hours a day anymore. I will let everybody make up their own mind but here is a summary of the facts.
For $1000 up front you get 2 generic cookie cutter programs of which you have to find video's and descriptions of the exercises yourself online, you get an initial email with your programming as well as a review on the videos you submit. Then at 6 weeks you get another program and another review. At most I would guess he spends an hour of his time on you and that is being generous. $1000 an hour is pretty good money to pay someone who reckons there too busy too answer questions. If people are really interested in bodyweight training then there best bet is to go and look at the resources available on gymnasticsbodies.com.
Christopher Sommer is where Ido got most of his ideas from anyway and for a fraction of the cost you will get much more in depth information as to how to progress towards your goals and a community who is supportive of you no matter where you lie in terms of your performance.
