Waterbury 10X3 Method Question

Training Bodybuilding
1

Did my first workout with the hypertrophy program recommended by Chad Waterbury and have a few questions.

The main one is, what happens if failur ocurrs? I didn’t get my 1 rep max on all excercises, just went by the guidline he gives for the first week, I believe it was, a weight you can lift with perfect form six times.

However, one set of six perfect is far diferrent that 4X6 as is required for most of the excercises. Say one fails on the third set, next week, should the weight still be raised by 2.5%, or should the same weight be used until all desired reps are complete? Thanks for the advice.

2

NO it means you started to high in weight. You shouldnt fail on Chad Program. No sweat try again. Any guidline 1 RM measured or not is an educated guess, every trainee will be different.

Hope that helps,
Phill

3

You should not raise the weight until you can do all 10 sets. If you’re failing on the last couple of sets I would leave the weight the same and try againg next week. If you’re failing on the third set though, I’d drop the weight back a bit.

4

[quote]super saiyan wrote:
You should not raise the weight until you can do all 10 sets. If you’re failing on the last couple of sets I would leave the weight the same and try againg next week. If you’re failing on the third set though, I’d drop the weight back a bit.[/quote]

Yeah-this is what I did on Chad’s program. I misjudged the first week and failed on my last couple sets. So, I left the weight the same. The next week I got all the sets. So, I moved the weight up for the 3rd week.

5

Actually the 10X3 went perfect, knocked all 10 sets without a prob. When I said 3rd set I was referring to an excercise on the 4X6. My conflict with doing this the first day is this. I do quite a few dumbell excercises, this is just a personal preference, I feel that it helps fight some strength imbalance issues. For example today I did dumbell rows. I was able to complete the 4X6 with 60’s.

However, with dumbells, the 2.5% increase is a little hard to come by, I’m not sure what the 65’s translate to % wise but I’m sure it’s more, the following week 70’s, the next week 75’s. I normally do periodization type training and have the notiong that although the rows today came ok, somewhere along this line I’m not gonna make the complete set. I don’t want to sound like I"m super concerned about the row example, it’s just an example of the conflict I’m running into with excercises such as the bench, rows, dumbell curls etc. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.

6

[quote]speedy5323 wrote:
Actually the 10X3 went perfect, knocked all 10 sets without a prob. When I said 3rd set I was referring to an excercise on the 4X6. My conflict with doing this the first day is this. I do quite a few dumbell excercises, this is just a personal preference, I feel that it helps fight some strength imbalance issues. For example today I did dumbell rows. I was able to complete the 4X6 with 60’s.

However, with dumbells, the 2.5% increase is a little hard to come by, I’m not sure what the 65’s translate to % wise but I’m sure it’s more, the following week 70’s, the next week 75’s. I normally do periodization type training and have the notiong that although the rows today came ok, somewhere along this line I’m not gonna make the complete set. I don’t want to sound like I"m super concerned about the row example, it’s just an example of the conflict I’m running into with excercises such as the bench, rows, dumbell curls etc. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks. [/quote]

Like others have said (including CW himself, I do believe), just work with what you have. Go to the next available weight, and stay with it until you get all your sets in. Then move on to the next available weight. It might not be ideal, but it’s how it’ll have to go, unless you can find a way to use smaller increments.

7

[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
Like others have said (including CW himself, I do believe), just work with what you have. Go to the next available weight, and stay with it until you get all your sets in. Then move on to the next available weight. It might not be ideal, but it’s how it’ll have to go, unless you can find a way to use smaller increments.[/quote]

I had the same problem with my bench on my 10X4 day and with my deadlifts on my 10X5 day. I also asked about this after my bench problem since I was able to get through all 10 sets of 3 the first week, with a possible 4th rep after my 10th set, so I figgured I picked a good weight.

Disc Hoss gave me some good advice when he said that progress is rarely a linear event…

Here’s the link to my post:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=669893

His advice made me look back at the whole picture and realize even though I didn’t improve the whole 2.5% (which could have been due to many reasons), I still gained a lot of strength and noticeable size.

Everyone will adapt differently to any given program, and Chad’s giving this free advice to thousands of people, so there’s a good chance that it’s not optimal for everyone, but probably better than most other routines that are writen out for multiple people.

It might also have something to do with your muscle make up or what you’re used to doing. Higher reps might just be more difficult for you than the average guy (that’s how I am anyway).

I noticed that my 12RM is weaker than some friends of mine, but my 4,3,2 or 1RM is stronger than theirs. I’m more used to working out in that rep range and they’re more used to working out with a higher range.

Now that I’m going to switch the sets and reps for the same excersizes as the ABBH program, I’m going to under shoot a little as far as the weights I choose, but I’ll stick with those weights as long as they’re not way off.

8

I have the same question, which I don’t see an actual answer yet, Phil came close.

It’s about the 4X6 not the 10X3 (even the title said 10X3). Like the original poster said, CW’s program say pick a weight u can do 6 perfect reps is not the same as 4 sets at the same weight and CW’s hypertrohy programs do not encourage failure.

So, should we pick a weight that we can do for 6 perfect reps and fail on the last set with 4 reps? And use the same weight next week until we finish the 4 sets?

Thanks!
GB

9

[quote]getbig wrote:
CW’s hypertrohy programs do not encourage failure.

So, should we pick a weight that we can do for 6 perfect reps and fail on the last set with 4 reps? [/quote]

think about these two statements… pick a weight you can get all 4 sets but will be difficult and move up the next week. I think it is rather important not to hit failure the first week or two, its better to start conservative and build up. Its probably unavoidable to hit failure as the weeks go by, when that happens just use the same weight the following week.