Waterbury PT 8/2

Let’s get the questions rollin’!

AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Me first!

Ok, let me get back to you…

Amir

You mentioned that the more often you train a muscle the better hypertrophy you will notice.

What is the highest recommended frequency for MS gain in a movement that you recommend? And what is your recommendation based on? And is thier a limiting factor involved and what is it?

Thankyou very much Mr.Waterbury sir.

Amir

Mr. Waterbury,

Thanks for your time in advance. I was wondering what your opinion on the Art De Vany article was specifically the reccomendations or opinion he has on bodybuliders and athletes eating multiple small meals. Apparantly he thinks it is a bad and or terrible thing to do linking it to metabolic disease.

Jeep

Hi Chad,

Do you think rest pause sets have a good strength gaining potential. Something like using 3RM and doing singles with 10-15 second pauses. If so any recommendations of how to incorporate them?

Thanks

I just wanted to say thanks for putting together a great series of intense workouts. I convinced a few of my buddies to come aboard the “Waterbury Express” and go for a nice ride to hugeness. Thanks

Chad,

Just wanted to give an update. Finished my first week of The Art of Waterbury - AWESOME!

The workouts were great from the get-go but I made 2 adjustments: 1. Trying to get 8-10 hours of sleep EVERY night (throwing in a hour nap when I can get one); instead of the 7 hours average I used to get a night. 2. I noticed I was “leaning out” and feeling some joint pain after the 2nd workout - so, I’ve upped my calories 300-500 a day and it seems to have done the trick. My metabolism as been through the roof.

So far, so good. I’m going blast away for another 3 weeks; I’m very confident this is the best program I’ve ever tried in terms of muscle gain and conditioning, definately taking my game up a notch.

JamminJS

[quote]AMIRisSQUAT wrote:
You mentioned that the more often you train a muscle the better hypertrophy you will notice.

What is the highest recommended frequency for MS gain in a movement that you recommend? And what is your recommendation based on? And is thier a limiting factor involved and what is it?

Thankyou very much Mr.Waterbury sir.

Amir[/quote]

For MS, training a muscle group every 48-72 hours works well. My evidence? Decades of research on O-lifters in Russia, China, Eastern Bloc European countries, etc.

Limiting factor? Sure, there are many. But generally speaking, a trainee’s work capacity is very important. Work capacity is built up through years of higher frequency training sessions.
In addition, the volume/intensity of the session is of utmost importance. These variables must be tightly regulated and altered. Each trainee is very individualized when it comes to ideal volume/intensity ranges.

[quote]jeep7588 wrote:
Mr. Waterbury,

Thanks for your time in advance. I was wondering what your opinion on the Art De Vany article was specifically the reccomendations or opinion he has on bodybuliders and athletes eating multiple small meals. Apparantly he thinks it is a bad and or terrible thing to do linking it to metabolic disease.

Jeep
[/quote]

Well, he makes some valid points and I agree with the notion that our ancestors (genes) must be considered. But a few of the statements were a little too bold for my liking.

There isn’t a perfect correlation between our ancestors and us. Therefore, we cannot necessarily assume that the lifestyle they lived was ideal and should be mirrored.

Frequent small meals have worked for my clients ever since I started training. The few times I’ve experimented with infrequent feedings, I’ve found that strength, cognition, and blood sugar levels were negatively affected. All three factors work in concert, therefore, it’s no surprise that they all plummeted.

[quote]Doug Schurman wrote:
Hi Chad,

Do you think rest pause sets have a good strength gaining potential. Something like using 3RM and doing singles with 10-15 second pauses. If so any recommendations of how to incorporate them?

Thanks[/quote]

Yes, pause training does possess some appreciable advantages. But, there’s no reason to rest 10-15s. The elastic potential will be dissipated within 3-4s, so 10-15s is excessive.

I suggest you read my Lift Fast, Get Big article for further explanations on how to incorporate pauses into your training.

[quote]shortworkoutguy wrote:
I just wanted to say thanks for putting together a great series of intense workouts. I convinced a few of my buddies to come aboard the “Waterbury Express” and go for a nice ride to hugeness. Thanks[/quote]

Thanks! I appreciate you spreading the word.

[quote]JamminJS wrote:
Chad,

Just wanted to give an update. Finished my first week of The Art of Waterbury - AWESOME!

The workouts were great from the get-go but I made 2 adjustments: 1. Trying to get 8-10 hours of sleep EVERY night (throwing in a hour nap when I can get one); instead of the 7 hours average I used to get a night. 2. I noticed I was “leaning out” and feeling some joint pain after the 2nd workout - so, I’ve upped my calories 300-500 a day and it seems to have done the trick. My metabolism as been through the roof.

So far, so good. I’m going blast away for another 3 weeks; I’m very confident this is the best program I’ve ever tried in terms of muscle gain and conditioning, definately taking my game up a notch.

JamminJS
[/quote]

Great! Keep us updated.

[quote]Chad Waterbury wrote:
Doug Schurman wrote:
Hi Chad,

Do you think rest pause sets have a good strength gaining potential. Something like using 3RM and doing singles with 10-15 second pauses. If so any recommendations of how to incorporate them?

Thanks

Yes, pause training does possess some appreciable advantages. But, there’s no reason to rest 10-15s. The elastic potential will be dissipated within 3-4s, so 10-15s is excessive.

I suggest you read my Lift Fast, Get Big article for further explanations on how to incorporate pauses into your training. [/quote]

My mistake in not clarifying what I was talking about. I’m talking about racking a weight in between singles. For example, you select a 3RM squat weight, squat once, rack it, wait 10-15 seconds, squat a second time, wait 10-15 and continue. For a 3RM weight a person can often get about 5 singles using this method. That is set one. Rest a few minutes and repeat for a total of 3-5 sets.

Chad,

I posted some questions last night, do I need to repost them tonight?

[quote]Doug Schurman wrote:
Chad Waterbury wrote:
Doug Schurman wrote:
Hi Chad,

Do you think rest pause sets have a good strength gaining potential. Something like using 3RM and doing singles with 10-15 second pauses. If so any recommendations of how to incorporate them?

Thanks

Yes, pause training does possess some appreciable advantages. But, there’s no reason to rest 10-15s. The elastic potential will be dissipated within 3-4s, so 10-15s is excessive.

I suggest you read my Lift Fast, Get Big article for further explanations on how to incorporate pauses into your training.

My mistake in not clarifying what I was talking about. I’m talking about racking a weight in between singles. For example, you select a 3RM squat weight, squat once, rack it, wait 10-15 seconds, squat a second time, wait 10-15 and continue. For a 3RM weight a person can often get about 5 singles using this method. That is set one. Rest a few minutes and repeat for a total of 3-5 sets.[/quote]

Yes, that is an effective technique. I suggest you use it for the big lifts, once per week. The other sessions should consist of vastly different parameters.

Hey Chad,

I emailed you a while back concerning one of your programs. My situation is somewhat unique, since my 5th and 6th cervical vertebrae are fused together. For me that means no high reps, usually above 6 causes me problems. You recommended following your “Waterbury Method,” which I plan to do, but I decided to work through Cressey and Robertson’s NNM workout to correct some imbalances.

My question for you is, in what order should I perform your routines? My goal is to get bigger and stronger, preferably bigger first. This way I’ll know what order to follow your routines. I really like all of your articles/programs, but I noticed that I can’t perform some of the set/rep schemes that you have outlined. Could you suggest an alternative set/rep scheme for me that will still yield maximum gains?

After coming up with an order of routines and adjusting some of the schemes, I’ll be set for a while.

Thanks for your help! I really appreciate it.

Craig

Perform the Waterbury Method followed by Strength Focused Mesocycle. Once you’ve finished those programs, contact me and I’ll give you my subsequent advice.

Hey Chad! Im a big fan of your work, and have made serious gains off them. Thanks!

Hey Chad, I had a thread up about cluster training, and was wondering if you could answer a few questions about it here.

1)What is cluster training more geared for? Strength of Size?
2) Which would you find more effective for strength? Cluster Training or the Rest Pause Method, similar to Titan principles (4 reps, rest 10-15, 4 reps and so on)
3) For the rest pause Method, how many times would you suggest I perform the number of reps?(4 reps, rest, 4 reps, rest, 4 reps, rest) Should I do it 4 times in 1 set, or otherwise? Goal: Size and strength
4) Would ajusting the rest pause method to say 3 reps, be suitable for size or strength? depending on how many “intervals” do you suggest in 1 set?
5)Finally, Would it be suitable to mix Cluster or Rest Pause into 10x3? If so How would you go about doing this? Cluster for core? 10x3 for auxiliary in a Total body approach?

Also, Would speed training in the 50-60% areas produce any hypertrophy, as done in a high volume scheme? (8x3) And what would it do in terms of strength?

Thanks for taking your time to help out!

CW, I’m curious how long you think someone should be lifting before one of your programs is appropriate. My sister has been lifting in the 8-15 rep range for a number of weeks now and would like to begin heavier work. CT felt that she was still too green and that any of his programs would be too taxing. If none of your programs would work which I suspect might be the case, what do you suggest as the next step to ‘becoming a T-vixen’? Thanks!

What are your thoughts about this study?


J Strength Cond Res. 2005 May;19(2):382-8.

Training leading to repetition failure enhances bench press strength gains in elite junior athletes.

Drinkwater EJ, Lawton TW, Lindsell RP, Pyne DB, Hunt PH, McKenna MJ.

Department of Physiology, Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, ACT, Australia. drinkwater@csu.edu.au

The purpose of this study was to investigate the importance of training leading to repetition failure in the performance of 2 different tests: 6 repetition maximum (6RM) bench press strength and 40-kg bench throw power in elite junior athletes. Subjects were 26 elite junior male basketball players (n = 12; age = 18.6 +/- 0.3 years; height = 202.0 +/- 11.6 cm; mass = 97.0 +/- 12.9 kg; mean +/- SD) and soccer players (n = 14; age = 17.4 +/- 0.5 years; height = 179.0 +/- 7.0 cm; mass = 75.0 +/- 7.1 kg) with a history of greater than 6 months’ strength training. Subjects were initially tested twice for 6RM bench press mass and 40-kg Smith machine bench throw power output (in watts) to establish retest reliability. Subjects then undertook bench press training with 3 sessions per week for 6 weeks, using equal volume programs (24 repetitions x 80-105% 6RM in 13 minutes 20 seconds). Subjects were assigned to one of two experimental groups designed either to elicit repetition failure with 4 sets of 6 repetitions every 260 seconds (RF(4 x 6)) or allow all repetitions to be completed with 8 sets of 3 repetitions every 113 seconds (NF(8 x 3)). The RF(4 x 6) treatment elicited substantial increases in strength (7.3 +/- 2.4 kg, +9.5%, p < 0.001) and power (40.8 +/- 24.1 W, +10.6%, p < 0.001), while the NF(8 x 3) group elicited 3.6 +/- 3.0 kg (+5.0%, p < 0.005) and 25 +/- 19.0 W increases (+6.8%, p < 0.001). The improvements in the RF(4 x 6) group were greater than those in the repetition rest group for both strength (p < 0.005) and power (p < 0.05). Bench press training that leads to repetition failure induces greater strength gains than nonfailure training in the bench press exercise for elite junior team sport athletes.

Chad, are you familiar with the CrossFit website and their methods of training? If so, is it possible for an experienced lifter (12 years of lifting)to gain mass using their set/rep/workout scheme. What is your opinion on CrossFit?