Question for Chad Waterbury

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Alright, I figured I would post up here and let all the T-disciples rip into my question before Chad (hopefully) weighs in with his ruling. I’m on a Westside split and while I’m sure I have plenty of weak areas, I’d like to concentrate on bringing up my abs. I’d like to train them everyday I do westside, and possibly more frequently. I have a couple of questions:

  1. which protocol should I start off with? TTT, QD or a “newbie’s” beginner 4-day/week protocol htat Chad unveiled in the Branding Iron 302? I’m guessing my recovery abilities are decent since Chad’s suggested Westside as a good lead-in to QD, but still, even when I was a stupid teenager I never trained a muscle group more than thrice weekly. I’d like to start with QD, but would I be smarter starting with TTT?

  2. Exercise selection: I think I’m gonna have some problems with this one. I already do ab pulldowns, so that’ll be easy to just throw on a shitload of weight and get my 5RM, but for 27RM, 10RM and 18RM those see a little random. Should I just try different loads on swiss ball crunch? That MIGHT work for one, but any suggestions on the other two? Finding a slow enough eccentric tempo to make 10 reps on the hanging leg raise my max? If I wanted to include an isometric like a plank how should I handle that?

Those are my two main questions, I know Chad somewhat frowns upon direct ab work, but I already stimulate it with squats, deads etc, and if direct ab work is good enough for Louie, its good enough for me. Also, most of the multiple tiems per week protocols involve supersetting. I feel like my low back is pretty strong, should I throw in stuff for that too? suggestions? thanks guys.

2

For your hanging leg raise question, put a dumbell in between your feet and hold them together and go at a very controlled pace, or else the dumbell may fly across the room and smack some hottie off her elliptical machine.

3

KBC,

Sorry for the delayed response, but I somehow missed this post. Here are my answers:

  1. Perform the TTT program, followed by the QD program for your goals.

  2. “Should I just try different loads on swiss ball crunch? That MIGHT work for one, but any suggestions on the other two?”
    I don’t understand what this means, please clarify.

Finally, I absolutely do not frown upon direct ab work. I only frown upon it if trainees are performing machine-only, seated exercises that don’t challenge the low back and ab musculature. My reasoning for making such a statement about compound, multi-joint exercises was to get trainees to start performing more of them, then they should add in direct ab work. I have direct ab work in virtually every program I design.