T Nation

Waterbury Method ?'s

Bodybuilding
#1

Hi All. Long time lurker, first time poster. I have learned much from reading up on this great site. Unfortunately living in South Africa I don’t have 24/7 broadband access so I don’t get too many chances to read through the hundreds of pages on these forums, so sorry if some questions have previously been answered.

I have just started the Waterbury Method workout program. I have a few quick questions:

  1. I believe that between A1/A2 and B1/B2 there should always be 60 seconds rest, correct? I got the spreadsheet which shows them as supersets so its A1, 0s rest, A2, 60s rest etc. but I read in the WM thread that it was not like that, right?
  2. How are you actually meant to feel after the 10x3? I have never done it before, first time this week, and I did not feel absolutely blasted like some people report. I did 10x3 squats with a weight roughly 80% of 1RM. The last 2 sets I just made the 3. My legs yesterday and today (I trained on Monday) felt a little fatigued and wobbly but nothing major.
  3. What are possible problems of doing A1/A2/B1/B2 as straight sets and not antagonistically, ie. A1 x 4, A2 x 4 etc? I find that in my busy gym it is very difficult to ‘book’ two pieces of equipment as required for antagonistic training.

Cheers,
X

#2

Re #1: I wait 60 seconds between each set. If I was doing all those as super sets it would wreck me. I think you are supose to wait 60 seconds and not superset, but I could be wrong.

Re #2: I feel about the same. Don’t worry about that. I think the people that can’t move after the 10*3 are using too much weight or in really bad cardiovascular shape.

Re #3: If you can do them the way they are in the program, great. If not, its still probably better than what 98% of the people in the gym are doing, so don’t worry about it.

#3

Although you don’t feel extremelly beat after a 10X3 session, I believe that it is superior in strengthening your CNS as well as making you MUCH stronger physically in the individual lift. I too, often leave the gym after a 10X3 feeling like I could do more but the progress I have made using CW’s protocal has done wonders for me. Just my opinion

Good luck

Dezz

#4

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the responses so far! Interestingly enough, a few days after the workout, the 10x3 muscles are not sore per se, but feel almost ‘wobbly’. I believe this is due to the cumulative fatigue and the fact that 3 reps don’t produce much lactic acid (hence no soreness).

Regarding X1/X2 sets, I find that some are very easy to implement, others not. For example, skullcrushers and BB curls are easy to do A1 then A2: same barbell, same area of gym etc. But, something like SLDL and shoulders are hard as they are far apart, use totally different equipment etc.

I had two more questions if you don’t mind:

  1. what happens when it is near impossible to add increments of 2.5%? For example, I am doing BB curls at 35kg for 4x6. The weights don’t allow increments of 800g :stuck_out_tongue: so what should I do in these cases? The lowest we have is 1kg plates, meaning a jump of 2kg total in this case.
  2. I read in some places that after 6-8 weeks you can deload for a week and start over, possibly changing the exercises a bit. What would you suggest for a deload?

Thanks and Cheers,
X

#5

[quote]xenithon wrote:

  1. what happens when it is near impossible to add increments of 2.5%? For example, I am doing BB curls at 35kg for 4x6. The weights don’t allow increments of 800g :stuck_out_tongue: so what should I do in these cases? The lowest we have is 1kg plates, meaning a jump of 2kg total in this case.

[/quote]

You could use the same weight with shorter rest intervalls, or take more weight and pause a little longer, like 90 sec instead of 60 sec.

#6

Another wobbler! Yes, i’m not alone!

First time i did 10x3 squats i thought “uhm, that was not that bad and i don’t feel shafted!”. I only realised that they did actually do something when i got home and tried running up the stairs, it didn’t happen, my legs were like butter!

10x3 is great. No excessive CNS fatigue but your muscles still get cained.

#7

[quote]orion wrote:

You could use the same weight with shorter rest intervalls, or take more weight and pause a little longer, like 90 sec instead of 60 sec.
[/quote]

Thanks for the info, will give that a go.

Any ideas on the deloading phase? Also, for those who have done more than one cycle of the program, what exercises did you change during subsequent cycles?

X

#8

I’ve always used this loading scheme with Waterbury’s programs…especially since one of the main goals is to get stronger…

use the weight that you almost come to failure on…it shoudl be taxing enough for you, and keep increasing any chance you get…this also accounts for off days where you happen to be super tired or couldn’t eat properly beforehand.

Use variety, just try to beat your highest number from last week…also keep in mind you want to increasingly do more work each week…not necessarily worrying about 82.5%…etc.

Cheers,

T

#9

Thanks again for the info guys! This week has been my first of the WM, and also the first of any Waterbury routine. It has been brilliant! I will use this week almost as a ‘feeler’ week to get used to the routine, exercise structure and finding the ideal weights to use.

One thing I wanted to ask: does anyone have a routine typed out somewhere which has alternative exercises (such as if you finished 4-6 weeks and wanted to change things up a bit)? What I actually want to try and see is what exact muscles each exercise in the WM is attempting to target, so that in future cycles of the program in which I may vary the exercises, I can pick the right ones for the specific muscles.

Cheers,
X

#10

BUMP…anyone have the routine with slighltly different exercises? Or anyone have it typed out showing exactly which muscles the exercises are meant to target?

X