This prob the best introduction to Waterbury with everything laid out…
if want “more work”/6-7days in the gym look up
‘Summer Project’ or ‘Get Lean without dieting’
Anyone have thoughts or experience with how a high frequency full body split works with enhanced bodybuilders?
Is a HF total body program typically just as effective as a split or at that point is it best to use a more traditional split of some sort? Better? Worse?
Good point. When and why did bodybuilders shift to split workouts?
Also, I looked at the summer plan and the “no diet” one too. I like the looks of the 8 week summer plan.
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There’s only so much you can do in a single workout before you can’t recover by the next one.
Since we are talking about Waterbury here, his “full body routines” are actually a semi-split routine and you are training most thing three times in two weeks (even though he does “full body” it’s really more of an AB split if you really look at it), and his workouts nowadays are “only” 3 exercise.
Usually the A workout is something like Squat pattern, vertical press and pull. And the B is hinge pattern, horizontal press and pull. Done for a set amount of “hard” reps. So in any particular week you are doing 3 exercises at most for any body part, and less so for pressing muscles.
I think that while this may build a big strong dude… a person training like this will probably never have the size and detail of a John Meadows type, aka someone who does 4-7 exercises every week. The time devoted to training on a BB split is also much higher. I bet a Meadows back workout takes as long as my entire workout week these days.
Now I suppose you could just add in extra exercises and sets and reps to the full body plan, but the catch is you have to recover in 2-3 days and do it all over again.
I imagine the split routines grew out of that problem.
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I think there is scope for debate regarding traditional bro splits. The issue will always be that anyone with half-decent genetics will make appreciable gains using an array of approaches. Mike Mentzer is a classic example here. He is probably best known for extreme infrequent, low volume training. Yet, how much of his physique did he build using these methods?
Waterbury is somewhere in the middle but his approach is based on a tried and tested method, i.e. full body, thrice weekly training. I have not seen any convincing evidence showing this method is inferior to bro splits. Of course, the dynamic changes once you start adding PEDs into the mix, as CT has written about.
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I think we can look at Olympic lifters on anabolics to see that high frequency full-body training can be a successful way to program, but for bodybuilding, because of how gear changes the ability to handle more volume and intensity, high frequency work isn’t as “necessary” (for lack of a better word).
In the '30s and '40s, competitors were judged on appearance (muscularity, symmetry, etc.) as well as on “athletic points”, most often in the Olympic lifts.
When the Weiders branched off with the IFBB and starting holding their own contests, they removed athletic points from the criteria, so lifters began training more specifically for physique improvements. In the years that followed ('50s and '60s), a wider variety of training equipment further promoted the idea of focusing more on individual bodyparts.
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haha. Nice. Makes sense.
I love John Meadows BTW…good dude and has a great physique and great programs.
Excellent, thanks. Makes sense. And…the former history teacher in my loves hearing the background. I like the athletic component being part of it. I suppose strongman is sort of that piece but doesn’t have the physique judging component.
This dude might answer some of your questions.
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Thank you! Jeff is amazing. Funny but I just watched that video (and subscribed to his channel) about 4 days ago in this research. 
Thank you. Had never heard of Jeff Nippard until researching this HFT topic. Have enjoyed learning about it from you all and others.
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