i just got home from my first day of the B.B.B. and i loved it. i made one change to the program for day 1, i subbed dips for the shoulder presses. the heavy 8 sets of 3 gave me a rock hard boner that still hasnt gone away some two hours later!!! nice program CW.
Fun stuff, huh? I did two cycles of ABBHP and not only loved the workouts, but the gains I noticed were awesome.
CW, i know how much you love iso movements, and so do i. so i was wondering what you thought of dropping the upper arm iso movements from day 3 and subbing a vertical pushing and pulling exercise, such as pulldowns and upright rows?
btw i am doing pullups on day 1.
Good idea about dropping the iso exercises, but the pulldowns and upright rows are both pulling back exercises. You need a pressing exercise as an antagonist.
Use pulldowns and dips (or decline SS db bench presses).
thanks C-DUB.
update time. i absolutley love the program but i quickly overtrained on it. 3 weeks in i totally burned out, i havent done that in months. 8x3 is very demanding. i recommend starting with 5x3 then working your way up as you become accustomed to the load.
P-Dog,
Are you doing BBB while juicing or are you doing it natural? Just curious since I noticed you post a lot of stuff on the Steroid forum and was wondering what your results might be like from BBB if you were “on.”
all natural baby!!!
Perhaps dropping the iso excercise contributed to the overtraining P-dog?
good point kiernan. however, the program i was following prior to this one was almost the exact same thing exercise selection wise. imo the overtraining was caused by the 8x3. it is very, very demanding. i usually started feeling exhausted after about 4 sets. i would find my self saying “holy shit, i still have 4 more to go!”
P-Dog,
Thanks for the comments. I’m always interested to hear how different trainees respond to my programs.
As for your overtraining issue, here’s what you should do. Take a full five days off from any weight-training. Once that is finished, resume the program (if you want) and decrease the load you are using for the 8 x 3 by 10%. It’s almost always better to drop the load instead of the volume on my programs, even if it makes the load less than the recommended 5RM. Remember, the 5RM is just a recommendation, some trainees would be better off using a 6 or 7RM.
Keep me posted.
thanks for the response chad. thats pretty much what i did, i trained on monday and wednesday last week and then just took the rest of the week off. i will resume training on monday. ill give your recommendation a try.
CW, what do you recommend as far as warm-ups and/or warm-up sets for the Big Boy Basics program?
Also, what do you recommend as far as ab work (frequency, sets/reps).
To save time, is it okay to superset exercises?
CW- In Big Boy Basics, you have the squats and deads at 3 sets and 8 reps, and the hack squats and leg curls at 8 sets and 3 reps. Any reason behind this? I’d rather squat and dead at the 3 rep range. Can I switch them? Thanks.
nate do you mean to literally superset or to simply alternate exercises? imo there is no way you can superset with such heavy weight. you wouldnt be able to lift shit for the second exercise and you might even die. alternating on the other hand is a must in my book. i always alternate pushing and pulling exercises.
vcreed, after three weeks you simply transfer the reps/sets from the 8x3 group to the 3x8 group.
Hey Nate, CW loves supersets. However, one thing he’ll note, as I’ve questioned him on it, it that by “superset”, he means performing one exercise, waiting sixty seconds, and then performing another exercise for the opposing muscle group (e.g. dumbbell bench presses/sixty second wait/seated cable rows with hands spaced the same distance as the presses/sixty second wait, and then start again).
The big guy himself oughta be chiming in any time now…
P-Dog, I was searching through the forums (searching under “Big Boy Basics” - imagine that? The Search Function works?!) and found another similar topic where the supersetting issue was addressed.
So all I need to know now is CW’s warm-up and ab recommendations.
Man, a “Renegade” checking CeeDub’s stuff!
Don’t worry, we won’t tell! 
Nate, be sure to check out chadwaterbury.com for links to a lot of his writings here at T-Mag, as well as some others that haven’t been featured here. Lot’s of information there.
Oops. One more thing.
If you click on “Members” up above and type in Chad’s name, you’ll find all his past posts from his Q & A Forums, etc.
I just read the BBB article and think I’ll take up the workout in a couple weeks when I’m done with the last stage of Ian King’s 12 weeks.
The thing that caught my eye though is what looks like a much shorter range of motion with the hack squat. My squat has finally been improving steadily just recently and I feel like I have a lot of momentum going with it. I’ve never done a hack squat before but the pictures make it look like the range of motion is much shorter. I like to go lower than anyone else at my college gym on the squat and I feel like going low has been hugely beneficial, but it looks like the dude’s upper legs in the picture aren’t even close to parallel to the ground even though he’s at the bottom of the movement. Is this an issue with the hack squat? Should I stick with normal squats until I stop improving so steadily and only then start trying other things like the hack squat?