Chad Waterbury's Total Body HFT?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
41

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

[quote]BrickHead wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

[quote]BrickHead wrote:
I think this is a good forum because all styles of training for fitness (size, strength, maybe even some general conditioning and fitness stuff) can be discussed without it putting a damper on the bodybuilding thread. [/quote]

uh oh, sounds to me like Brick’s about to tell us he’s been Crossfitting…[/quote]

About to. :slight_smile: Only did two trial classes so far, but me and my woman will join a CF gym near here this month. Like I said, I wanted to compete, but with the way my job and life is now, it’s just not congruent.

Still a die hard bodybuilding fan and looking forward to attending the NY pro in two months. [/quote]

I hereby banish you from the internet!

:wink:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

I don’t want anyone else’s opinions affected by mine. There is simply some history here that I am still wishing they didn’t erase.

I am sure Chad is helping people reach goals.[/quote]

Why did they erase what you two discussed?

42

[quote]Eazy wrote:

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

Well, it will certainly get you leaner. The “bigger” and “stronger” stuff, however, will get left by the wayside.[/quote]

Not 100% correct. I train several Crossfit people on the olympic lifts and some have more than decent strength and muscle mass. I have two girls who could step-up on a competitive figure stage and win without even dieting one day, and they both clean & jerk over 190 (one does 210), deadlift in the 330-350 range and push press 175 or more.

And I have quite a few guys cleaning 280 or more and who are a very lean 200-210lbs at 5’10’’ or so.

Now, these are the more serious folks. These guys do not limit themselves to Crossfit WODs, they do strength training too, but you’ll find that it’s what goes on in 90% of the top crossfit people.[/quote]
I have seen way too many built Crossfit guys, so I’m going to agree with you. I’ve talked to them and the vast majority didn’t have a powerlifting/bodybuilding/weightlifting background, they just made sure to do their strength/power stuff first in the workout, and leave the conditioning for after. Wendler actually has a section in his 2nd ed. 5/3/1 manual about combining the main lifts and Crossfit.[/quote]

While they may not have had the Powerlifting/Bodybuilding/Weightlifting specific background, the fact is most of them were former athletes in some form or fashion. So, in that essence they had been doing some form of structured lifting most likely up through college on top of their athletic endeavors which certainly helped create their physiques.

I think the good ones you see competing now are former athletes who still want to compete in something and CF scratches that itch. Especially true for the females who i think you see a lot of former gymnasts, track, etc athletes. And obviously they are all hard workers, never done CF but i have a ton of respect for the work ethic and what they put their bodies through.
[/quote]
I’m talking about people I’ve personally met and talked to, not people who are on ESPN Crossfit or whatever, lol.

43

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

[quote]Eazy wrote:

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

Well, it will certainly get you leaner. The “bigger” and “stronger” stuff, however, will get left by the wayside.[/quote]

Not 100% correct. I train several Crossfit people on the olympic lifts and some have more than decent strength and muscle mass. I have two girls who could step-up on a competitive figure stage and win without even dieting one day, and they both clean & jerk over 190 (one does 210), deadlift in the 330-350 range and push press 175 or more.

And I have quite a few guys cleaning 280 or more and who are a very lean 200-210lbs at 5’10’’ or so.

Now, these are the more serious folks. These guys do not limit themselves to Crossfit WODs, they do strength training too, but you’ll find that it’s what goes on in 90% of the top crossfit people.[/quote]
I have seen way too many built Crossfit guys, so I’m going to agree with you. I’ve talked to them and the vast majority didn’t have a powerlifting/bodybuilding/weightlifting background, they just made sure to do their strength/power stuff first in the workout, and leave the conditioning for after. Wendler actually has a section in his 2nd ed. 5/3/1 manual about combining the main lifts and Crossfit.[/quote]

While they may not have had the Powerlifting/Bodybuilding/Weightlifting specific background, the fact is most of them were former athletes in some form or fashion. So, in that essence they had been doing some form of structured lifting most likely up through college on top of their athletic endeavors which certainly helped create their physiques.

I think the good ones you see competing now are former athletes who still want to compete in something and CF scratches that itch. Especially true for the females who i think you see a lot of former gymnasts, track, etc athletes. And obviously they are all hard workers, never done CF but i have a ton of respect for the work ethic and what they put their bodies through.
[/quote]
I’m talking about people I’ve personally met and talked to, not people who are on ESPN Crossfit or whatever, lol.[/quote]

haha! Yeah i know, ESPN has clouded my brain yet again. Actually the people i know personally who are into it are former athletes, albeit of the small college variety! But yes, not all of them are, certainly.

44

CF just seems so haphazard with no real target goals in the end. Just bust your ass x 10=profit.

And to boot depending on the branch, it can be just dam right unsafe. Fem friend of mine told me when she did it that they had THIRTY people in the class basically throwing barbells around, she almost lost a toe multiple times.

IDK man. I’m not sold, but without a doubt FUNCTIONAL training for athletes/wannabe athletes >>>> bodybuilding.

45

Hi,

just wanted to make the point that ABBH, a routine that no bodybuilder would ever consider doing, was rated the most effective training program of the year…

I was apprehensive about trying it as well, but I gained 11lbs in 7 weeks of it (the 3 week program, light deload, then 3 weeks reversing the heavy/light workouts), and 8.5lbs of it was muscle.

I mean fair enough I added some curls, extensions and laterals to maximize total body growth but boy does the program work!

yeah Chad might not like the sport of BBing, but boy, imagine how powerful his methods would be if he was as passionate about bodybuilding as some of the other big names!

So many BBing guru’s out there know their stuff, and could easily transform any physique, but Chad knows his stuff too and deserves to sit at the same table. Nuff said.

L.

46

just want to add that the reason the muscle gain was so hi was that i did ABBH following a cut… so i probably would have gained 5lbs following a normal bulk/maintenance phase…

47

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

Well, it will certainly get you leaner. The “bigger” and “stronger” stuff, however, will get left by the wayside.[/quote]

Not 100% correct. I train several Crossfit people on the olympic lifts and some have more than decent strength and muscle mass. I have two girls who could step-up on a competitive figure stage and win without even dieting one day, and they both clean & jerk over 190 (one does 210), deadlift in the 330-350 range and push press 175 or more.

And I have quite a few guys cleaning 280 or more and who are a very lean 200-210lbs at 5’10’’ or so.

Now, these are the more serious folks. These guys do not limit themselves to Crossfit WODs, they do strength training too, but you’ll find that it’s what goes on in 90% of the top crossfit people.[/quote]

This. I like to hate on crossfit as much as anybody, But I have to admit that I was at my biggest and leanest the year I trained at crosscut NorCal with rob Wolfe as my coach. I did some heavy traditional weightlifting along with the WOD too though. I even had a thread here dedicated to my training there. " my crossfit experience"

48

I wouldn’t look to CW’s methods for serious bodybuilding or advanced strength training, however, when I was dropping weight some years ago, I was using some combination of CW’s stuff, CT’s stuff, and Cosgrove’s stuff, and it was MAGIC.

49

To the OP, please let us know your results if you are doing it.
If not, maybe 6 weekly sessions, ABABAB upper/lower would last more than 10 weeks. I had good results for many months on that.

50

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

Well, it will certainly get you leaner. The “bigger” and “stronger” stuff, however, will get left by the wayside.[/quote]

Not 100% correct. I train several Crossfit people on the olympic lifts and some have more than decent strength and muscle mass. I have two girls who could step-up on a competitive figure stage and win without even dieting one day, and they both clean & jerk over 190 (one does 210), deadlift in the 330-350 range and push press 175 or more.

And I have quite a few guys cleaning 280 or more and who are a very lean 200-210lbs at 5’10’’ or so.

Now, these are the more serious folks. These guys do not limit themselves to Crossfit WODs, they do strength training too, but you’ll find that it’s what goes on in 90% of the top crossfit people.[/quote]

This. I like to hate on crossfit as much as anybody, But I have to admit that I was at my biggest and leanest the year I trained at crosscut NorCal with rob Wolfe as my coach. I did some heavy traditional weightlifting along with the WOD too though. I even had a thread here dedicated to my training there. " my crossfit experience"[/quote]

Funny thing… one of my good friend’s girlfriend is a former Canadian national champion in bodybuilding (middleweight). She is now doing crossfit (she stopped bodybuilding almost 8 years ago, and didn’t train much for 3-4 of those years) and she is more muscular and just as lean as she was 2-3 weeks out from the show, without really dieting.

51

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

Well, it will certainly get you leaner. The “bigger” and “stronger” stuff, however, will get left by the wayside.[/quote]

Not 100% correct. I train several Crossfit people on the olympic lifts and some have more than decent strength and muscle mass. I have two girls who could step-up on a competitive figure stage and win without even dieting one day, and they both clean & jerk over 190 (one does 210), deadlift in the 330-350 range and push press 175 or more.

And I have quite a few guys cleaning 280 or more and who are a very lean 200-210lbs at 5’10’’ or so.

Now, these are the more serious folks. These guys do not limit themselves to Crossfit WODs, they do strength training too, but you’ll find that it’s what goes on in 90% of the top crossfit people.[/quote]

This. I like to hate on crossfit as much as anybody, But I have to admit that I was at my biggest and leanest the year I trained at crosscut NorCal with rob Wolfe as my coach. I did some heavy traditional weightlifting along with the WOD too though. I even had a thread here dedicated to my training there. " my crossfit experience"[/quote]

Funny thing… one of my good friend’s girlfriend is a former Canadian national champion in bodybuilding (middleweight). She is now doing crossfit (she stopped bodybuilding almost 8 years ago, and didn’t train much for 3-4 of those years) and she is more muscular and just as lean as she was 2-3 weeks out from the show, without really dieting.[/quote]

that’s quite interesting,

could you comment on why that may be?

52

[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

Well, it will certainly get you leaner. The “bigger” and “stronger” stuff, however, will get left by the wayside.[/quote]

Not 100% correct. I train several Crossfit people on the olympic lifts and some have more than decent strength and muscle mass. I have two girls who could step-up on a competitive figure stage and win without even dieting one day, and they both clean & jerk over 190 (one does 210), deadlift in the 330-350 range and push press 175 or more.

And I have quite a few guys cleaning 280 or more and who are a very lean 200-210lbs at 5’10’’ or so.

Now, these are the more serious folks. These guys do not limit themselves to Crossfit WODs, they do strength training too, but you’ll find that it’s what goes on in 90% of the top crossfit people.[/quote]

This. I like to hate on crossfit as much as anybody, But I have to admit that I was at my biggest and leanest the year I trained at crosscut NorCal with rob Wolfe as my coach. I did some heavy traditional weightlifting along with the WOD too though. I even had a thread here dedicated to my training there. " my crossfit experience"[/quote]

Funny thing… one of my good friend’s girlfriend is a former Canadian national champion in bodybuilding (middleweight). She is now doing crossfit (she stopped bodybuilding almost 8 years ago, and didn’t train much for 3-4 of those years) and she is more muscular and just as lean as she was 2-3 weeks out from the show, without really dieting.[/quote]

that’s quite interesting,

could you comment on why that may be?[/quote]

Well she did build muscle during her bodybuilding days… she did lose a lot of it when she stopped training, gained some of it back when just training “for health”, but I’m sure that some of her crossfit gains were due to muscle memory (plasticity of muscle adaptations).

But also to consider that she doesn’t do a strict fat loss diet, so she doesn’t spend half her year in catabolic mode.

BTW, their crossfit style is actually pretty cool… 1 max effort movement (basically a ramp to max or 3RM) then a WOD.

53

[quote]valkairon wrote:
It’s two work outs a day, three days a week. One in the morning and one at night. In the book he outlines 5 workouts - Get strong, get even stronger, get big, get even bigger, and get lean. This is the get even bigger workout, but he talks it up the most intese overall and apparently it’s great for fat shredding too.

Has anyone tried it? I’ve never lifter twice in one day, and it sounds like overkill, but I wanted to hear from you guys. [/quote]

Well, it is HFT.

It has been while since I’ve read the book, but I remember it being smartly programmed. For the Get Even Bigger program, the AM sessions are heavy compound training, and the PM sessions are uni-lateral training using a lighter load and a slight increase in total repetitions. This would seem like overkill if you were using the balls-to-the-wall to failure in every set method of training, but Waterbury’s take on when to end a set in his routines - when speed slow down, 2 reps in the hole, etc. - makes me think of that phrase by Lee Haney “stimulate not annihilate”. Get Even Bigger is only three or four weeks long, and if you’ve followed the preceding programs in the book you should have handle on recovery systems so working out twice a day, every other day, will be no problem.

I’ve never used the programs in Huge in a Hurry, but I have used a few of Waterbury’s programs and most had supplemental HFT sessions that were performed in the evening. Aside from offering extra stimulation, another benefit to the PM sessions was they kind of helped with recovery. I was less sore during the following rest day, which I found interesting.

54

Here’s an interesting combo I’ve been trying. I’ve loved 5/3/1 and Waterbury’s 25 rep method so I somewhat combined them. Like this:

Squat 5/3/1 reps
Incline press 25 rep method
Power Clean 25 rep method

Bench 5/3/1 reps
Rows 25 rep method
Front squat 25 rep method

Deadlift 5/3/1 reps
Press 25 rep method
Pull ups 25 rep method

Seems effective and time efficient so far.

55

I’ve done Chad’s “Next Frontiers” HFT and several of the programs in “Huge in a Hurry.” I’ve never gotten better strength gains than when I did “Next Frontiers.” I did struggle with the exercise choices and rep schemes in Get Strong/Get Stronger from “Huge in a Hurry.” They burned me out and were boring in the ways early posters surmised.

I didn’t really gain size on Chad’s programs but i did get strong and lean.

56

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]GrindOverMatter wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]rds63799 wrote:

I feel like I can say now with the development of this new forum that I actually think CF is pretty cool[/quote]

Well, it will certainly get you leaner. The “bigger” and “stronger” stuff, however, will get left by the wayside.[/quote]

Not 100% correct. I train several Crossfit people on the olympic lifts and some have more than decent strength and muscle mass. I have two girls who could step-up on a competitive figure stage and win without even dieting one day, and they both clean & jerk over 190 (one does 210), deadlift in the 330-350 range and push press 175 or more.

And I have quite a few guys cleaning 280 or more and who are a very lean 200-210lbs at 5’10’’ or so.

Now, these are the more serious folks. These guys do not limit themselves to Crossfit WODs, they do strength training too, but you’ll find that it’s what goes on in 90% of the top crossfit people.[/quote]

This. I like to hate on crossfit as much as anybody, But I have to admit that I was at my biggest and leanest the year I trained at crosscut NorCal with rob Wolfe as my coach. I did some heavy traditional weightlifting along with the WOD too though. I even had a thread here dedicated to my training there. " my crossfit experience"[/quote]

Funny thing… one of my good friend’s girlfriend is a former Canadian national champion in bodybuilding (middleweight). She is now doing crossfit (she stopped bodybuilding almost 8 years ago, and didn’t train much for 3-4 of those years) and she is more muscular and just as lean as she was 2-3 weeks out from the show, without really dieting.[/quote]

that’s quite interesting,

could you comment on why that may be?[/quote]

Well she did build muscle during her bodybuilding days… she did lose a lot of it when she stopped training, gained some of it back when just training “for health”, but I’m sure that some of her crossfit gains were due to muscle memory (plasticity of muscle adaptations).

But also to consider that she doesn’t do a strict fat loss diet, so she doesn’t spend half her year in catabolic mode.

BTW, their crossfit style is actually pretty cool… 1 max effort movement (basically a ramp to max or 3RM) then a WOD.[/quote]

yep this was pretty much what Robb had me doing when I was at his facility. i would go heavy on a power lift or olympic lift or olympic lift variation, then do the WOD

i was a solid 250lbs, and vascular. Robb one day commented that he could see my abds and the veins in my shoulders through my t-shirt one day when i was doing some heavy push presses.

i am probably just as lean and vascular now as i was then, but i am a good 30lbs lighter.

57

and perhaps CT can chime in and add his 2 cents in on this as well,

but I think those of us who come from a heavy weightlifting (olympic) background like myself, and CT, find the transition to total body training routines like Chads stuff, or crossfit, or whatever, easier and perhaps even more natural.

when training for olympic weightlifting you are pretty much already training Total Body anyway every workout.

no?

58

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
and perhaps CT can chime in and add his 2 cents in on this as well,

but I think those of us who come from a heavy weightlifting (olympic) background like myself, and CT, find the transition to total body training routines like Chads stuff, or crossfit, or whatever, easier and perhaps even more natural.

when training for olympic weightlifting you are pretty much already training Total Body anyway every workout.

no?
[/quote]

Totally, but we should mention that there is a difference (IMHO at least) between full body lifts and full body routines. A full body lift (clean & jerk variations, snatch variations, push press to some extent) doesn’t pose the same problem as constructing a daily routine around many exercises that eventually hit the whole body.

With the former every muscle is hit BUT you are still performing only one lift. Even if it is a more intense lift, it is still less draining (physically and mentally) then doing 3-4 exercises to hit the same muscles.

So I think that using olympic lifters as a proof that “whole body routines work” is not fair or correct.

That having been said, those who grew up on fairly high volumes of olympic lifting training can tolerate a higher overall daily workload and metabolic demands which make them tolerate “multi-exercises whole body training” better.

59

i guess i agree with most of what you just posted, but as a competitive thrower, i was in pretty good shape, despite being nearly 270lbs.

and after doing light conditioning and mobility drill, THEN getting in 20-30 throws, THEN lifting weights, then more light conditioning as warm down,

5-7 days a week,

i felt my work capacity was pretty high.

and STILL, a heavy jerk / overhead day with some moderate squats as a finisher kicked my ass.

60

300×536 19.8 KB

I use to studied his style of training by doing it myself. First I used the geat lean as his cookie cutter template was laid out I found it boring but got results I seen my abbs pop out I felt stronger and more energetic.
I then used the get bigger program to the T and got little stronger and was gaining symmetry over my body.

I belive the most affective aspect of what is going on here is that for someone to build muscle naturaly is 1. increasing growth hormone and 2. Recovery from training. Now I did not like most exercises that was in the book so the next program I set up was by understanding this prosess.

I kept the full body routine 3 days per week at first just a pull, push, squat/deadlift, and one core exercise. I did one day super heavy 2-3 reps
one day heavy 4-6 reps and the last day super heavy again 2-3 reps. I also started doing low intense cardio 5 days per week 1 hour a day slow incline walk 100-120 beats per minute. I chose wide grip pull downs decline bench press, squats, and weighted crunches for day one.

Day two with lighter work I chose to do wide grip rows, standing military press, deadlifts, and weighted decline leg raise. Day three bent over dumb bell rows, parallel weighted dips, dumbbell lunges, and roll outs for abs.

I liked the recovery total of 4 days of recovery a week Tuesday Thursday and then the weekend sat and sunday. Mondays I felt totally recovered and ready to hit it again did this for over a month started seeing my strength increase as well as my overall muscle mass. I still did not feel like it was enough so I wanted to add more and see if I was still going to recover.

I started doing two pulls, two push, two squat/deadlift/or calve extension, and two core exercises. I kept the same two super heavy workouts and one heavy workout with Tuesday off Thursday off and sat/sun off. I was now getting bigger and stronger than ever before. my one rep max over the corse of one year for my decline bench went from 135 lbs to 315 lbs.

I kept the same amount of cardio when I wanted to gain I ate in a surpluss and when I wanted to get lean I cut my carbs almost completely. surpluss calories were still carb restricted. Only ate carbs in the form of fruits and vegiies. I just took in more DHA fats. The photo is when I started cutting back down my symmetry was now looking better than ever. (Even during my cut my strength continued at the same rate)