Chad Waterbury and Ellington Darden

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Hi folks,

I’d like to know people’s opinion on something. Recently I noticed that most, if not all of Ellington Darden’s articles here on T-Nation are received with much sceptisism. I also noticed that Chad Waterbury’s articles are always getting rave reviews.

I personally don’t understand why Waterbury has so many fans and Dr. Darden so little. I do have a theory though. I think that people would rather train in Waterbury’s style than in Dr. Darden’s style. If you love going to the gym, you’d rather go there 8 times a week instead of two times. This in turn makes them wanna believe that what Waterbury says is the truth and what Dr. Darden says is not.

However, Dr. Darden has a lot more experience in training bodybuilders than Waterbury. Hit is used by many, especially natural bodybuilders in the world quite successfully. I don’t think there has ever been an elite level (natural or assisted) bodybuilder that worked out his whole body 8 times a week. I also don’t think there ever will be one.

A common argument against hit training often heard on this site is that hit-trainees are too dogmatic. Honestly, I think the Waterbury fans are as dogmatic, because they don’t even wanna consider trying hit, because Chad (according to them) says it doesn’t work. To me, that is quite dogmatic too, especially for members of bodybuilding’s think tank.

As a side note. I have tried lifting each muscle group several times a week and it didn’t really work for me. I don’t claim to be a great bodybuilder or anything, however, I would like to know why people are so biased against Darden, who has trained bodybuilders longer than any of your favorite writers have lived.

2

What do you win if you are biased against both?

I hope it’s one of those stuffed Snoopy dolls. I had one when I was little but he got shot in a drive by.

3

First of all, Waterbury’s book even includes the subtitle: the high performance system for building a bigger, stronger, leaner body. His system will do that for most people, myself included.

Also, Chad talks about how these programs are designed for people who don’t just want to be HUGE, but athletic, powerful, strong, and flexible as well. There’s a difference in bodybuilding for sheer symmetry, powerlifting for sheer strength, or incorporating multiple elements of different programs to make a more well-rounded athlete with a good base in many areas.

I would bet that if one were to follow Waterbury’s program, as an athlete, and someday that athlete decided that they wanted to be a MMA fighter, a football player, a powerlifter, or a bodybuilder; they’d be able to more easily move in any of those directions because of the foundation that Chad’s program provides.

4

What would anyone have a problem with someone personally for writing an article?

Anyways, yes some of the Dr. Darden’s stuff is different, “old school” if you may. But alot of people still train that way.

Alot of people also prefer stuff that is “new” and “cutting edge” such as Mr. Waterbury’s.

The beauty of this site is the choice and freedom of program selection.

5

Personally I think it’s because a lot people on here aren’t making progress with bodypart splits. CW seems to dog bodypart splits any chance he gets, instead advocating total body training, which wins over these people.

6

[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
Personally I think it’s because a lot people on here aren’t making progress with bodypart splits. CW seems to dog bodypart splits any chance he gets, instead advocating total body training, which wins over these people.

[/quote]

Notice that the really thick-looking guy from the “7 weeks out” thread usually trains total body. It makes sense to me, that you’d want to fatigue/hypertrophy larger muscle groups, more often.

Unless you can afford to specialize, splits seem to work the body too few times per week, even if it is one intense session with multiple exercises per 2 or 3 body parts.

7

[quote]dhuge67 wrote:

Notice that the really thick-looking guy from the “7 weeks out” thread usually trains total body. It makes sense to me, that you’d want to fatigue/hypertrophy larger muscle groups, more often.

Unless you can afford to specialize, splits seem to work the body too few times per week, even if it is one intense session with multiple exercises per 2 or 3 body parts.[/quote]

Good for that guy. He found what worked for him and he stuck to it, which is key with any training philosophy. I think a lot of people here want results yesterday, but if they aren’t working hard and smart enough in the weightroom and with the knife and fork, they won’t get results. I know that was a problem for me.

I’m currently on a program that’s different than what both Waterbury and Dr. Darden suggest, and I’m making the best gains I ever have. Is it because there is something magical and special about it? No. It’s because I’m sticking to it and working my ass off.

8

[quote]dhuge67 wrote:
Doug Adams wrote:
Personally I think it’s because a lot people on here aren’t making progress with bodypart splits. CW seems to dog bodypart splits any chance he gets, instead advocating total body training, which wins over these people.

Notice that the really thick-looking guy from the “7 weeks out” thread usually trains total body. It makes sense to me, that you’d want to fatigue/hypertrophy larger muscle groups, more often.

Unless you can afford to specialize, splits seem to work the body too few times per week, even if it is one intense session with multiple exercises per 2 or 3 body parts.[/quote]

Uhm, notice how MOST bodybuilders who win competitions train using body part splits.

Anyone who thinks any one program is what is needed by all to see optimal progress is a dumbass.

David Henry trains using Dogg Crap methods. Most of the other pro bodybuilders DON’T. What does that tell you? That you need to find WHAT WORKS FOR YOU. To look at any one bodybuilder and come to the conclusion that is what you need to be doing is the height of ignorance.

I don’t hate either author. I hate fan boys.

I have lifted seriously for several years now. I have always trained using a body part split…because it works for me. that has led to me being pretty well developed. Stop trying to degrade entire methods of training, especially when those methods work for so many people.

9

[quote]Doug Adams wrote:
It’s because I’m sticking to it and working my ass off.
[/quote]

That is the key to any program working. I find it funny that there are actually guys walking into gyms turning their noses up at people using body part splits all because they are fans of a favorite author. That is pretty dumb. How do you ignore what so many people who are extremely developed are doing?

10

[quote]Professor X wrote:
What do you win if you are biased against both?

I hope it’s one of those stuffed Snoopy dolls. I had one when I was little but he got shot in a drive by.[/quote]

Actually you can choose which stuffed animal you want if you win. I chose Chewbacca, he growls when you press his belly.

11

Find what works for you and stick with it… well said Professor Xavier. No need to hate or overly praise any author for voicing his opinion.

Most all coaches have good track records helping their athletes. That tells me one critical thing. Hard work is what works, and having an experienced guide will help you make smart decisions about when to back off and when to go to the limit.

12

Personally, the only problem I have with Darden’s stuff are the outrageous “quick fix” claims that he makes. Hey, if I wanna hear that kind of stuff, I can just turn my TV to any infomercial and viola.

I don’t have any problem with doing any kind of program, if it works for the individual. I do however tend to give Waterbury’s articles more respect simply because of the fact that he tends to base his conclusions on a combination of scientific data, observations of a large percentage of the population, and experiential evidence.

Darden on the other hand seems to base all his conclusions on the fact that “one of two Huge guys did it this way”.

Now, I’m not discounting experiential evidence, nor am I suggesting that one shouldn’t study what others who have been successful in building muscle have done before. But, to draw your conclusions about what is optimal in regards to building muscle mass for the whole population soley from observations of what a few genetic anomalies have done is in my opinion foolish (unless of course you happen to be one of those anomalies, which some people are).

That’s my two cents anyways.

Good training,

Sentoguy

13

One thing the Darden/HIT crowd need are more modern faces promoting the concept. If I see one more g*damn pic or article about Casey Viator, I am going to explode. It’s been something like forty years. Time to find some new advocates!!

For the record, I did HIT for awhile and loved it. Minimal gym time, huge gains. It’s a combo you can’t beat. However, I love working out and have the time to go 3-4 times a week. I am not looking for huge mass gains right now, so I like my split program with a little more volume.

14

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
he tends to base his conclusions on a combination of scientific data, observations of a large percentage of the population, and experiential evidence.
[/quote]

Horseshit.

Alot of Darden’s stuff = hyperbole.
Alot of Waterbury’s stuff = hyperbole.

That’s just the way it is with gurus, it’s been explained to me that’s how they gain their foothold in the highly competitive ‘fitness’ market place.

However, both the low frequency (Darden) and the high frequency (Waterbury) methodologies have their pros and cons.

Personally I think both systems have their place in a well thought out training program.

15

Also a lot of people just don’t like the fact of going into the gym and only doing one to two sets per body part and leaving in thirty minutes. They just won’t feel like they did enough. We live in a time period where more is better.

Just look at the huge SUV’S, triple-cheese burgers, and the way people spend so much money on clothes and games and other worthless crap. It is the American way I guess…

16

[quote]That One Guy wrote:
Also a lot of people just don’t like the fact of going into the gym and only doing one to two sets per body part and leaving in thirty minutes. They just won’t feel like they did enough. We live in a time period where more is better.

Just look at the huge SUV’S, triple-cheese burgers, and the way people spend so much money on clothes and games and other worthless crap. It is the American way I guess…[/quote]

More is better if you’re trying to lose weight though, no?

17

I think most of us fell in love with the iron for the “pure” reasons of getting stronger, being healthier, or looking better, but along the way…some of us got lost.
We as weightlifters, have embarked upon a LIFELONG process of attempting to make progress towards our individual goals. The problems start, I believe, when one loses sight of it being a LIFELONG process.

There are different examples of people who have gotten lost for different reasons, including and not limited to: THESE GUYS (a tongue in cheek list so don’t get your panties all in a wad)

The “I’ll Follow This ONE Author to the End’s of The Earth Guy” who’ll go about quoting word for word lines from a particular author’s book(s). God forbid you say one cross word against said author or you will have someone jumping down your throat for displaying such outright blasphemy. Then again, said guy still can figure out why he doesn’t look like he lifts weights.

The “I Only Train the Muscles I Like Guy” aka “I Only Train the Beach Muscles Guy” aka “The Guy Who Only Trains Lifts He’s Good At” aka “Mr Martini Glass Physique”. We all know him as the guy with the world class upper body and no legs, or the guy with pecs, bi’s and tri’s, but no back and even less legs.

The “I Only Do Compound Movement’s Guy” or “Mr. No Arms, No Calves, No Lats, and a Beer Keg for abs Guy”. We all see him, the guy that lifts like a “powerlifter” but thinks he’s got a bodybuilder’s physique and walks around with his ILS winged out to the fullest.

The “I Can’t Get Jacked Because I WON’T sacrifice my 6-pack Guy” or the “I’m a Hardgainer HELP!!! Guy” or “Mr. Get’s his Skeleton even MORE Ripped For the Summer Guy” We’ve all seen him and given him advice on how he needs to eat a little more if he wants to get bigger/stronger. You know, the guy who talks about people over 10% bf, but less than 20% as being obese pigs and he won’t let himself stoop to such a level of sloth or gluttony.

There are many more of “These Guys” out there and feel free to add your own.

My point is this… If we do not treat weightlifting as a trial and error, effort based, unique unto our own individual genetics and goals, endeavor…we become THESE GUYS.

No one method, idealogy, cookie cutter program is suited to every person. Find out what works for you and go for it, just don’t get pissed when someone doesn’t like to train what you train or how you train it.

18

[quote]TheSicilian wrote:
I think most of us fell in love with the iron for the “pure” reasons of getting stronger, being healthier, or looking better, but along the way…some of us got lost.
We as weightlifters, have embarked upon a LIFELONG process of attempting to make progress towards our individual goals. The problems start, I believe, when one loses sight of it being a LIFELONG process.

There are different examples of people who have gotten lost for different reasons, including and not limited to: THESE GUYS (a tongue in cheek list so don’t get your panties all in a wad)

The “I’ll Follow This ONE Author to the End’s of The Earth Guy” who’ll go about quoting word for word lines from a particular author’s book(s). God forbid you say one cross word against said author or you will have someone jumping down your throat for displaying such outright blasphemy. Then again, said guy still can figure out why he doesn’t look like he lifts weights.

The “I Only Train the Muscles I Like Guy” aka “I Only Train the Beach Muscles Guy” aka “The Guy Who Only Trains Lifts He’s Good At” aka “Mr Martini Glass Physique”. We all know him as the guy with the world class upper body and no legs, or the guy with pecs, bi’s and tri’s, but no back and even less legs.

The “I Only Do Compound Movement’s Guy” or “Mr. No Arms, No Calves, No Lats, and a Beer Keg for abs Guy”. We all see him, the guy that lifts like a “powerlifter” but thinks he’s got a bodybuilder’s physique and walks around with his ILS winged out to the fullest.

The “I Can’t Get Jacked Because I WON’T sacrifice my 6-pack Guy” or the “I’m a Hardgainer HELP!!! Guy” or “Mr. Get’s his Skeleton even MORE Ripped For the Summer Guy” We’ve all seen him and given him advice on how he needs to eat a little more if he wants to get bigger/stronger. You know, the guy who talks about people over 10% bf, but less than 20% as being obese pigs and he won’t let himself stoop to such a level of sloth or gluttony.

There are many more of “These Guys” out there and feel free to add your own.

My point is this… If we do not treat weightlifting as a trial and error, effort based, unique unto our own individual genetics and goals, endeavor…we become THESE GUYS.

No one method, idealogy, cookie cutter program is suited to every person. Find out what works for you and go for it, just don’t get pissed when someone doesn’t like to train what you train or how you train it.

[/quote]

Good post.

19

Just tossing this into the mix–basically a reiteration of the “both have benefits” or what I like to call the “Girls, girls, you’re both pretty!” angle:

HIT and higher volume training (ie, Darden and Waterbury) can both have a place in a periodized program. I’ll let others hash out the respective benefits of the two systems (ie, is one more effective for strength, another for mass, one for power, another for cutting up, etc), but it seems to me that the notion of periodization remains lost on a lot of otherwise intelligent trainees: rather than thinking about this or that four-week cycle within a larger one-year cycle, as they should, they fall into a pattern that they then repeat to infinity, gains or no.

The general, non-fitness-geek public is particularly guilty of this blind spot: for some reason everyone loves to have their “program” printed on a little dog-eared card that they carry around with them in the gym and never alter come hell or high water.

Kudos to these folks for going to the gym at all, but how much more progress they’d be making if, for instance, they threw in a 6 week cycle of HIT and another 6 weeks of Waterbury, followed by a week spent kayaking or cross training or, hell, taking walks and sleeping in before they go back to the gym.

Dogmatism in any camp comes in part, let’s face it, from the profit motive–all trainers like to say, “I’m right and everyone else is WRONG, so read MY books/attend my seminars/watch my DVDs/subscribe to my podcasts/smoke signals”–and we tend to follow them like a bunch of lemmings in an “Amen” choir (mixing metaphors like mad), leaping to the defense of whoever’s programs we’re currently enamoured of on whatever websites we happen to frequent.

As a personal trainer, I tell my clients that my job is ultimately to render myself obselete.

If I didn’t tell them that–and train them with the intention of giving them sufficient information to ultimately strike out on their own–maybe I’d be one of the well-heeled gurus people argue about on sites like this instead of the working-schlub personal trainer that I am…

Stay open-minded, guys, find your own way, keep experimenting, and keep the gurus at bay!

DF

20

Darden backs his articles by giving a long drawn out story about how so and so made such amazing gains doing this program.

Waterbury backs his articles by providing science and logic.

Regardless of what they were writing, I’d be more prone to listen to someone that could back their logic up with more than “well this guy did this 200 years ago, and old school is the only way to train”