I shared my diet and routine in my last post yesterday and I got some good feedback and someone suggested I use the Total Body Training workout. I checked it out and I liked what I saw, so I wrote up my workout for it and everything, BUT…then I saw the ABBH article which mentions a bunch of stuff about building muscle and building fast!
Now I have no idea if I should be looking into using the ABBH method or sticking with the TBT!
Please someone enlighten me here on why I should or should’nt choose the one over the other. Ever article I read seems to contradict the other in a way.
Im new to all of this so naturally Im confused about the methods, so help a brother out will ya…
Im not in this to become like some bodybuilder in the future, or be able to lift a car with one hand. I just wunna get some frigin muscles and look good you know
I know Im gonna get dogged for that but cummon… who doesnt wunna look good, and look good as fast as possible right?
BUT Im willing ti be patient with this and ait hoping to get there in just a few months, I know it will take some time.
So will go goal, which is better?
TBT or ABBH? or any other?
BUT you can never really answer those questions, because everyone reacts different to a given stimulus, and even for the same person you have to change the routine quite frequently to continue making gains
But whatever you want to achieve, with lifting you are not talking about months, you are talking about years. It takes a looooong time
So pick a program (say TBT) stick with it for at least 8 weeks while maintaining a proper diet, and then change things and see what works best for yourself
[quote]partywithpastry wrote:
K cool sounds like a plan, I change to ABBH after 8 weeks and change my routine for a while and then see how it goes! Thanks for the advice Petrichor![/quote]
Brilliant! Now your getting on to something with this. Try out a program for several weeks, chart your results (ie. workout log) and then go to another program. You can always come back to the one you like the most. I believe, you will like both and keep them in your plans for years to come. I just did TBT and will probably go to ABBH once again in a few months.
I admit it, I’m too lazy to look up your current workout and food intake, but I’ll give you my take on TBT (I’m assuming you mean Waterbury’s version of it).
I’ve been lifting for a while and started TBT to work on my imbalances (posterior chain, hams, blah blah). Basically I wanted a program that was pre-set, allowed for some variation to work on certain things but without straying too much from the original plan. I liked Waterbury’s writings and agreed with him on many things, so I tried TBT for 8 weeks despite my reservations.
As a hard-gainer (or bad eater depending on what you want to call it) I was worried about all the pitfalls that I’ve been programmed to watch out for…overtraining, cumulative fatigue, etc. I figured that I would try it and be burned out after 3 weeks and have to move on.
But it never happened. I got stronger, gained about 5 lbs or so, and felt better than ever. No burn out, no feeling wiped out on my days off, and although I left the gym tired, I felt good overall. Now, I’m not saying that TBT and Chad are the second coming of God or anything…maybe I paid more attention to my diet…maybe it was because I had a set program and reps and sets that forced me to work on things I had been neglecting. But for whatever reason it worked really well for me.
I think two key things helped me out. One was the rep rotation. I was stuck in a linear periodization of rep management, while TBT has different reps for each workout (for example, 8 reps day one, 12 day two, etc). Also he emphasizes changing the moves every two weeks, and although I would change things, I invariably would end up back at my favorite moves before so it made me do things I hadn’t tried in some time.
In my opinion, a very good program. I’m taking off from it for the next 3 weeks but I am counting the days until I am going to start it again.
