Stoit,
Good point, I know a few guys who never touched a weight in their life but their arms are huge. When you are born with large bones and a big frame (like Coach Waterbury) it sure as hell helps out.
stoit,
Deadlifts are to hams as chins are to biceps.
NeilG is my hero in this thread.
No, seriously.
Dan
Mr.Reality,
I am aware that Waterbury was a 165lb High School Basketball player with 14" arms. That does not negate my point one iota!
How many of us are fully matured in High School? The fact that he was 6’ 3" in High School says quite a lot about what was to come. I would be willing to bet that Waterbury’s father (or mother) was also a tall large boned individual.
NeilG,
I am not disputing the fact that a muscle can be trained indirectly.This has been proven conclusively.
The discusion is regarding the best way to develop arms. Will they develop better through direct or indirect training?
Moreover, just because a naturally large person such as Chad Waterbury feels he does not have to directly train arms, how does that impact his advice to those people (which is 90% I bet) who would benefit from such training.
anyone who says “suto” while meaning “psuedo” gets my respect.
you fuckin clown
Well, we agree to disagree then.
I just find it odd that when someone posts their picture in the Photos forum and shows how they added a lot of muscle despite the fact they were ectos - tall and thin - that everyone says how great they are for overcoming bad genetics. And they did do a great job!
But when Waterbury shows he’s done the same thing, it’s “all good genetics”. Sounds like you’re making excuses to make yourself feel better. And by the way, I agree that genes play a role. It just looks like Waterbury has overcome his and you’re disregarding it as “good genetics”.
STOIT,
Isolation is retarted. Hypertrophy training affects the body in two ways 1) locally, as a cut does and 2) systemically, like the flu.
When you train heavy, compound movements like deadlifts, squats, benches, military presses, dips, chins, rows, etc. you are overloading more muscles, and ergo having a greater systemic training effect. This leads to hormonal cascades of GH and Test that make you grow more muscle, all over your body.
If you keep the reps low, 4-6, this test boost is further enhanced.
Eventually, too, my arm gains will start to short circuit if my back and grip don’t get enough work. Neurologically, the body will just shut the arms down, saying “okay, you’re big enough.”
For these reasons, especially for beginners, it makes sense to train everything together. Build some freaking mass first before even bothering with curls, I say. (Though this is an impossible sale for most newbies. Just have them do the curls LAST.) Once you have the mass, feel free to “refine” it by doing cable crossovers, biceps curls, and hamstring curls to your heart’s content. I’ll be sweating it out on the squat rack.
Dan
white flash,
Forgive me for not speaking the Kings English. I forgot where I was for a second. I will make sure that going forward I spell and type appropriately, did’nt mean to offend you.
Now to scour your post, what you really meant was “fucking” not “fuckin”, right? And I did not “say” the word suto as it was typed.What you really should have typed was "Anyone who “states”…
TheReality,
Neither you nor I know for sure what sort of genetics that Waterbury has. Agreed?
When I look at his photo I see a tall large boned person. You do not increase the size of your bones, to that degree at least, by lifting weights. And I do not think there is one strength Coach out there who will say that you can increase your height by lifting weights.
Waterburys comments about being a 165lb 6’ 3" basketball player in High School does not necessarily prove that he was not blessed genetically. As I have already stated, Who among us was fully developed in High School?
It would be interesting to see photos of Waterburys parents. At that point we could each make a true determination as to his genetic potential.
Dan,
You do not have to sell me on the merits of total body training, especially for young trainees. That is not the argument.
The debate centers around whether it is appropriate to add direct arm training at some point in order to increase arm size. Furhtermore, can direct arm training be beneficial to those who are not naturally blessed with large arms as I believe Chad Waterbury to be.
Any comments that you may have regarding this argument are welcomed!
At a certain point, yes, it’s neccessary to add direct work. But I’m definitely not at that point yet.
For true, dyed-in-the-wool bodybuilders, I think there will always be isolation work. It’s just that most of them don’t need it until they’ve already built the foundation. For most people, this doesn’t even start to happen until they’ve spent 2-3 years of training.
Dan
Dan,
I agree!
All this debate about direct arm work or not is ridiculous. What about training however you want to train? I myself happen to avoid direct arm work, 1) i don’t care about how big my arms are 2) i don’t care about how big my arms are. Consider this though, direct arm work can be important for more than just beach muscles. Think those strong men who carry atlas stones don’t do any heavy biceps curls? Think again. They don’t train bi’s for the beach, they train them to help prevent tearing a biceps or popping a biceps tendon. As far as Waterbury, Poliquin who cares. They both have made tremendous contributions to the iron game. I happen to like a lot of Waterbury’s ideas. The only thing that I hate seeing is how a lot of these coaches present the same material over and over. My only problem with these coaches is how they present an idea then act like they are the first to come up with it. Poliquin was not the first person to present the 10x10 method, or what he refers to as German Volume Training. AT LEAST HE ADMITS IT! In Waterbury’s Anti-Bodybuilding Hypertrophy article (WHICH by the way was in a 2003 issue of T-mag) Chad states the following:
"A Reluctant Addendum
I know what you’re thinking:
“Chad, you forgot to include direct arm work in that program!”
No, I didn’t. The best increases in upper arm hypertrophy are achieved through compound exercises such as dips, chin-ups, bench presses and rows. Therefore, no direct arm work is prescribed in this program.
It’s a strange phenomenon. Every trainee who’s been around the iron game for more than a year knows that big arms are built from compound exercises, but people are still convinced they need direct arm work! So I’ll give you the choice. I don’t recommend the direct upper-arm work option, but I know some people will add direct arm work anyway, so I might as well make sure they do it right. "
Ok, so this obviously shows Chad is not a fan of arm training, yet reluctantly puts it into his Anti-Bodybuilding Hypertrophy program, without a credit given to Pavel Tsatsouline. Any of you familiar with Pavel Tsatsouline? Ever read his book “Power to the People”? Here is a direct quote from Pavels book, which by the way was published in 1999 FOUR YEARS BEFORE CHAD’S ARTICLE!
“Too tired. To argue. With American males’ fatal attraction to curls. i know young Commies will do them anyway, so I might as well teach them the right way.”
Hmmmmm. Pavel’s quote sounds a whole lot like Chad’s yet Pavel’s quote was in print four years before Chad’s.
And this whole thing about not doing direct arm work as the “cool” way to work out kills me. There have been people who have been against doing direct arm work for a long time now. It is nothing new. Most strength coaches who train athletes for sport can’t afford to waste time pumping up the arms. It is ridiculous with no real carryover to sport (with a few exceptions). For bodybuilders however, I feel it is critical. Functional training for bodybuilders is getting as big and lean as possible. Direct arm work is important, Direct calf work is important. Bodybuilders can benefit from isolation work. I am not trying to descredit Poliquin or Waterbury. both seem to be intelligent individuals. I just think we need to take a step back and think before we throw someone up on the pedestal and act like all his ideas are here to revolutionize the conditioning industry. I encourage all of you to dig deep into strength and conditionings past and research literature put out by Eugene Sandow, George Hackenschmidt, Earle Liederman and Arthur Saxon (to name a few). You will find that most of the literature being put out by coaches today is pretty similar to what these guys were saying almost a century ago, albeit with a little new modern twist thrown in here and there. AND for crying out loud, don’t take anyone’s methods as gosphel. Experiment for yourself, find out what works for you and keep an open mind.
In Strength,
Budoka
Everyone is diffrent, thats what this comes down too.
These coaches are preaching what has worked for them, and as i’ve said everyone is diffrent.
I did Poloquins workouts from “Winning the arms Race” to the T for 6 monthes and didn’t see much results.
Others could have seen excellent results.
Genetics is also a huge factor.
You think Pavel was the first guy to recommend not curling so much and focusing instead on other lifts? You much be very young.
OR maybe I’m just old!
That whole argument is ridiculous anyway. So everytime a guy says to deadlift he has to credit some guy who did it in the 1800’s? Waterbury himself said once on his Guest Forum that there are no new foods, only new recipes. Okay, I think I totally screwed up that analogy but it’s Friday and you get the idea!
There are lots of people that have come to the same conclusions. Some get their opinions in print first but that doesn’t mean they invented it. Poliquin got a ton of stuff from Ian King for example, but Ian didn’t get in the public eye until years later.
Mr. Reality,
I NEVER SAID PAVEL WAS THE FIRST GUY TO RECOMMEND IT. All I was pointing out was how similar Chad’s and Pavel’s quotes were, Chad’s is almost a word for word rip off of Pavel. Actually, most of what I study is early physical culture (You may consider me young but those guys were around way before you;-) I really wasn’t trying to say Pavel was the first guy to come up with the idea, I was just pointing out what a blatant rip off of Pavel’s quote Chad made. It is one thing to regurgitate info, but to use the same verbage?!?!? gimme a break! I know what you mean about it being friday! I am crapped out too. Sorry you misread my post, wasn’t saying Pavel was the be all end all, just making a point at something that appears to be almost plagery. Later bro’!
In Strength,
Budoka
Man, you are really reaching. And I’m too pooped to argue any more.
And yes, I’m sure many people here are familiar with Pavel. T-mag interviewed him a long time ago before he was with Muscle Mediocre.
And if Waterbury is copying Pavel, why didn’t he recomemnd the same biceps exercise?
Dude,
Do you interpret what you read or do you just skim through a post? Let me break this down and I will try to do it monosyllabically for you:
all-i-said-was-chad’s-verbage-is-almost-exactly-that-of-pavel’s…
i never said he was copying the exercise. if chad wants to present the idea of not doing direct arm work, great. and i back him almost 99% as i agree almost wholeheartedly with his methodologies. i was simply referring to how he presented the material. let me try this again, from a literary standpoint it sounded almost as though he re-wrote the paragraph out of power to the people verbatim, and this was in an article that he stated specifically you will not see many citations in his work as his ideas are his own. sorry for the info overload, hope i didn’t fry you out even more than you are now.
Okay you win. There’s no way a guy like Waterbury, who’s about to get his doctorate, could ever think of using words like “I might as well show them how to do it right” all by himself. He MUST have ripped off Pavel!
You know, Waterbury wrote once that he “went to the gym”. I’ll bet he stole that from Poliquin. Bastard! Will the thievery never stop!
Like I said, you’re really reaching…