Waterbury vs Critics Article...

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1
  1. The original claim was that total body workouts are superior to any training split, without exception.

Now the claim has been qualified with exceptions and replaced with: total body workouts are superior for someone with average genetics who wants to add wants to add ten pounds of muscle across their entire body.

  1. Have you ever spent time around professional bodybuilders and took note of their fitness levels? Many can’t climb a single flight of stairs without gasping for breath, so it’s no surprise that they often have an aversion to total body workouts.

I’ve seen a pro bodybuilder have a grueling two hour leg workout then go out into 100 degree heat, put 225 lbs on his back and then do walking lunges up and down the parking lot.

  1. But as soon as steroids came into play, everything changed.

Various split routines have been proven to be highly effective training methods for AAS-free and AAS-users alike.

  1. How many of the top strongman competitors follow body part splits? I’ll tell you: none.

Strongman competitors have used various split routines with phenomenal success. Of course “total body workouts are superior to any training split” has been watered down to only attacking body part splits.

  1. Who have you trained? I despise questions like this for a myriad of reasons. First off, who I’m training, or have trained, really means nothing.

Really means nothing?

On the contrary, if you’re going to claim that your training methods are far superior to any thing else, be prepared to back it up with substantial proof. Citing scientific references is far less effective that showing actual real world results.

  1. What impresses me most is when I see a trainer do extraordinary things with an ordinary person. What doesn’t impress me is seeing a coach do ordinary things with an extraordinary person.

Again, if you’ve made extraordinary progress with someone that started out as your typical 130 lbs pencil neck goof, PROVE IT! Show the before and after pics, show these numerous people that you’ve trained that were weak as shit but are now strong as hell.

What doesn’t impress me is seeing a coach make extraordinary claims but doesn’t back it up with extraordinary proof.

  1. If you have at least two years of continuous weight training under your belt, high frequency training (training a muscle group four or more times per week) it the best.

This could be a misunderstanding on my part, but lets say some one who’s been training for ten years wants to improve their deadlift, you’re advocating that this person should train their deadlift four or more times per week? Am I correct in this assumption, because this seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

  1. 10 sets of 3 reps with 85% of your one rep max.

This needs to be qualified. The only people that could possibly do this are newbies. There’s no way in hell someone with a 500 lbs max bench is going to be able to do a total of thirty reps with 85% of their max.

2

Ok dude…

Go and get your PhD and become a respected strength and conditioning guru and maybe we’ll start listening to you. ; )

Seriously, you make some good points, but I’d have to say Waterbury probably knows what he’s talking about.

3

Plus, with this thread you have managed to “unearth” the dead horse that was beaten over and over again a few months back, and you started beating it again. Just let the poor little horse die. Thats all it wants to do.

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[quote]SkyNett wrote:
Seriously, you make some good points, but I’d have to say Waterbury probably knows what he’s talking about. [/quote]

Then why doesn’t the Chad answer the questions?

Why does he need Chris Shurgart to only toss him straw man questions?

5

I have to say, I would like to see some before and afters of athletes he has worked with. This isn’t to say I doubt the man, because I don’t, but I would like to see some of his work, especially a Waterbury-trained bodybuilder.

6

[quote]boss99er wrote:
Plus, with this thread you have managed to “unearth” the dead horse that was beaten over and over again a few months back, and you started beating it again. Just let the poor little horse die. Thats all it wants to do.[/quote]

Then why do we need a straw man bullshit critic vs Waterbury article.

The arguments being given to Chad are not the one’s he was called on in the forums.

7

it’s also very interesting that all the replies to chad’s ‘interview’ were all praising him…

it’s as if no single T-Nation member had any beefs with anything chad had said. imagine that… universal agreement.

8

here’s my original reply to the article that was denied:

why was the critic positioned to be the typical internet forum muscle-fitness fanboy?

i expected to see an article with some well thought out criticms to some of Chad Waterbury’s training philosophies/principles.

instead, we get this ‘critic’ persona which implies that criticms to his training philosophies/principles originate from obnoxious and illogical internet trolls.

let me also say that i agree with a lot of ideas that chad advocates. i.e. higher frequency training and total-body workouts.

you’ll pretty much never catch me doing a ‘chest’ day.

but i have some serious problems with some things chad said in this interview:

Any workout comprised of heavy squats, deads, presses, and pulls poses a formidable challenge. Have you ever spent time around professional bodybuilders and took note of their fitness levels? Many can’t climb a single flight of stairs without gasping for breath, so it’s no surprise that they often have an aversion to total body workouts.

i’m not sure where this came from. the question asked by ‘the critic’ was why chad recommended total-body workouts as opposed to body-part splits. and it was clearly implied by the critic’s question that the critic was looking for the best method to achieve maximum hypertrophy. so why is chad going on about cardiovascular fitness? i mean, this WEBSITE is labelled as ‘bodybuilding’s think-tank’, not ‘cardiovascular performance think-tank’. i don’t think people coming onto this site are largely concerned about being in peak cardiovascular shape… and if they are, maybe they should find another website. and if this website is interested in becoming more than a bodybuilding website, then it’s probably time to change it’s slogan to something else.

and lastly, i’m not sure how it’s surprising that elite bodybuilders are cardiovascularly out-of-shape. they do walk around at insane bodybweights carrying insane muscle mass… and it’s no like the heart grows in proportion to the body mass, so ya, it’s hard for these guys and gals to run far. but who cares? their goals do no include running marathons.

Elite bodybuilders typically don’t follow total body programs because they don’t need to. They don’t need to add significant amounts of muscle across their entire body;

i’m not sure what to reply to this. did chad really just say that elite bodybuilders don’t need to add significant amounts of muscle? what do they need to do, then? even the olympia competitors still gain lots of muscle mass year after year in competitions following a 10-20 years of lifting. and what about the countless competitive bodybuilders who aren’t yet elite? the thousands of bodybuilders who aren’t yet in the top 50? they do body-part splits and you can be sure that they NEED to add significant amounts of muscle all across their bodies.

they typically only need to build up specific areas. That’s why body part splits work for them. And they don’t need the fitness levels of someone like a MMA fighter, rugby player, or strongman competitor. How many of the top strongman competitors follow body part splits? I’ll tell you: none.

what is this information baed on? again, this website’s slogan is ‘bodybuilding’s think-tank’. i don’t think people come here to find out how to train for MMA or rugby. and many strongman competitors incorporate aspects of body-part training into their program design. there is a middle-ground between full-body training and body-part splits.

again, i’ve long-followed a lot of ideas that are also endorsed by Chad Waterbury and some other T-Nation coaches <frequency training, managing failure and not striving for it, etc>, but this ‘critic’ didn’t really argue anything except parrot typical forum flamer bullshit questions.

9

unearth, thanks for making this thread. but i feel like you’ve missed out on some of the most basic problems with that entire ‘interview’ and some major issues with chad’s statements.

let’s start with chad saying that he was impressed with cirque-de-soleil acrobats. then he wanted to find out their training style. they trained often. they trained similar exercises often. wow.

but let’s not forget that this site is a BODYBUILDING site <at least the slogan is: ‘bodybuilding’s think-tank’. so if a coach is looking for inspiration and new ideas regarding training protocols for strength and bodybuilding purposes in standard gyms with weights, why not go check out olympic weightlifters and bodybuilders and powerlifters? seems to make a lot more sense to me.

his logic seems to be… strange. there is no dount that frequency of training is KEY in learning the coordination for movements. i.e. you’ll never see basketball players doing a split based on ‘moves’, like monday being lay-up day, tuesday being sam dunk day, etc…

and the statement regarding bodybuilders NOT trying to create large new amounts of muscle mass was… well, i mean, all bodybuilder DO is try to create lots of muscle mass. it was like saying that sprinters are not trying to increase theur speed, but simply their technique. it made no sense.

10

I’m using Chad’s HFT program for my BB comp in April. I will post progress pics and a log so you guys can decide for yourself on whether it works or doesn’t.

11

[quote]unearth wrote:

  1. The original claim was that total body workouts are superior to any training split, without exception.

Now the claim has been qualified with exceptions and replaced with: total body workouts are superior for someone with average genetics who wants to add wants to add ten pounds of muscle across their entire body.

  1. Who have you trained? I despise questions like this for a myriad of reasons. First off, who I’m training, or have trained, really means nothing.

Really means nothing?

On the contrary, if you’re going to claim that your training methods are far superior to any thing else, be prepared to back it up with substantial proof. Citing scientific references is far less effective that showing actual real world results.

  1. If you have at least two years of continuous weight training under your belt, high frequency training (training a muscle group four or more times per week) it the best.

This could be a misunderstanding on my part, but lets say some one who’s been training for ten years wants to improve their deadlift, you’re advocating that this person should train their deadlift four or more times per week? Am I correct in this assumption, because this seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

  1. 10 sets of 3 reps with 85% of your one rep max.

This needs to be qualified. The only people that could possibly do this are newbies. There’s no way in hell someone with a 500 lbs max bench is going to be able to do a total of thirty reps with 85% of their max.
[/quote]

unearth,
1.) I think he may have made the “exception” about total body training due to the fact that people are continuously arguing over tbt vs body-part split. If people had just accepted tbt from the start and tried it, then he’d have no need to be more specific. Since people go crazy over tbt vs bpsplit, then someone may be more willing to try it (provided that it is conducive to their goal/s).

As for the addition of 10lbs of muscle across the entire body, I think (I may be wrong) that Chad has posted elsewhere that tbt will add muscle at a faster rate than bdsplit training. So that’s not to say that body part splits won’t add 10lbs of muscle, but that tbt will add those 10lbs of muscle much more quickly than the body part split.

5.) I think it means that who he’s trained “really means nothing” relative to the time spent training and the goal for the client. Therefore, he can’t just say that he trained “X-pro bodybuilder.” He would have to say he trained “X-pro bodybuilder with Y-stats, Z-years of training experience, for M-period of months/years, with an N-body comp change over this period of time, with an O-average monthly body comp change, on an alpha-routine (i.e. tbt or bodypart split) with a focus on beta, sigma, phi, etc.” From then, one could assess how effectively Chad trained “X-pro bodybuilder.”

7.) If you read Chad’s work, you’ll notice that he advocates rotating movements and parameters. Training the Deadlift itself 4 times per week is not Chad’s version of TBT. To train for the Deadlift specifically, I think an example would be something like: monday, main movement low reps high sets…wednesday, assistance for weak point 1, moderate reps moderate sets…friday, assistance for other weakness, low reps, moderate sets…saturday, assistance for some other weakpoint, high reps, low sets. Or something like that. He also has another program Volumes of Strength, that has you training the lift more frequently, but alternating the parameters.

8.) I think that is someone trained to be able to perform 10 sets of 3 reps with 85% of their 1RM, then they would increase their work capacity, increase mass, increase strength, and maintain focus. Chad has stated before that 85% is not written in stone. Given that the dominance in fiber type varies from person to person, someone might find 10x3 with 60% difficult, while someone else might find 10x3 with 90% as a good load. Both cases are RELATIVE to the individual. However, if both individuals end up using a greater load in 4 weeks, then there has been improvement (towards a goal of mass and/or strength).

I’m sure Chad can answer for himself, but I just thought this might help clear it up somewhat.

-ton

12

[quote]hueyOT wrote:
it’s also very interesting that all the replies to chad’s ‘interview’ were all praising him…

it’s as if no single T-Nation member had any beefs with anything chad had said. imagine that… universal agreement.[/quote]

unearth obviously doesn’t agree with Chad. So there is no universal agreement.

-ton

13

[quote]hueyOT wrote:

Elite bodybuilders typically don’t follow total body programs because they don’t need to. They don’t need to add significant amounts of muscle across their entire body;

i’m not sure what to reply to this. did chad really just say that elite bodybuilders don’t need to add significant amounts of muscle? what do they need to do, then? even the olympia competitors still gain lots of muscle mass year after year in competitions following a 10-20 years of lifting. and what about the countless competitive bodybuilders who aren’t yet elite? the thousands of bodybuilders who aren’t yet in the top 50? they do body-part splits and you can be sure that they NEED to add significant amounts of muscle all across their bodies.

they typically only need to build up specific areas. That’s why body part splits work for them. And they don’t need the fitness levels of someone like a MMA fighter, rugby player, or strongman competitor. How many of the top strongman competitors follow body part splits? I’ll tell you: none.

what is this information baed on? again, this website’s slogan is ‘bodybuilding’s think-tank’. i don’t think people come here to find out how to train for MMA or rugby. and many strongman competitors incorporate aspects of body-part training into their program design. there is a middle-ground between full-body training and body-part splits.
[/quote]

Elite level bodybuilders focus on bringing up weak points in order to acheive greater symmetry, proportion, fullness, striation, vascularity. They already have a solid base of mass. They are essentially trying to carve this base of mass and shape it.

As for the non-elite bodybuilders. I think they still try to “shape” whatever muscle they have gained during the off-season. However, as they approach a competition I would assume that they would need to bring out their lagging groups faster (hence the body part splits).

Also, there is a good amount of information on this website related to conditioning and strength training for sport. So, although MMArtists and Rugby players may not use the information on this website to improve their fighting or playing skills, they can use alot of the information in regards to strength and conditioning to help them become better athletes.

-ton

14

[quote]unearth wrote:
SkyNett wrote:
Seriously, you make some good points, but I’d have to say Waterbury probably knows what he’s talking about.

Then why doesn’t the Chad answer the questions?

Why does he need Chris Shurgart to only toss him straw man questions?[/quote]

Well, that’s just the thing - he doesn’t “need” Shugart to do that - it’s just an interesting and moderately humorous device used to create an article that’s a departure from the same old format.

As a magazine editor myself, I’m always trying to come up with different approaches in order to have a more unique voice and get away from the repetition of the “usual” format.

That’s all they’re doing here, and I for one found it pretty entertaining - it’s not the greatest piece I’ve ever read, but it was good.

And I’d say that Chad certainly is answering the questions - you just don’t seem to agree with the answers he’s giving…

15

[quote]TestosterTon wrote:
hueyOT wrote:
it’s also very interesting that all the replies to chad’s ‘interview’ were all praising him…

it’s as if no single T-Nation member had any beefs with anything chad had said. imagine that… universal agreement.

unearth obviously doesn’t agree with Chad. So there is no universal agreement.

-ton[/quote]

it was a sarcastic statement referring to how replies expressing disagreement with chad are prohibited from being posted in the ‘article/interview’ with the ‘critic’.

16

[quote]TestosterTon wrote:

Elite level bodybuilders focus on bringing up weak points in order to acheive greater symmetry, proportion, fullness, striation, vascularity. They already have a solid base of mass. They are essentially trying to carve this base of mass and shape it.[/quote]

oh god, are we gonna have to get into the whole ‘tone vs. shape vs. build. vs cut. vs rip’ thing? bodybuilders are always training to build muscle. whether you wanna call it mass-building, or toning, or carving, or whatever. it’s the same thing.

lean muscle is lean muscle.

and if there’s any group of people out there trying to lay down as much muscle as possible, it’s elite bodybuilders. that’s why olympia competitors come in heavier every year.

wasn’t ronnie like 265-ish when he first competed at the olympia? years keep going by and he keeps getting bigger. i think his heaviest competition weight was in the 290s. that’s called building muscle. or you can call it shaping, if you want. and i can guarantee you that many competitive bodybuilders use split routines to ‘build’ as much as they do to ‘carve’ or whatever you wanna call it.

are you trying to imply that body-part splits are for bringing up lagging body-parts and not for overall mass-building?

[quote]Also, there is a good amount of information on this website related to conditioning and strength training for sport. So, although MMArtists and Rugby players may not use the information on this website to improve their fighting or playing skills, they can use alot of the information in regards to strength and conditioning to help them become better athletes.

-ton[/quote]

i like this website. but if someone’s looking for information regarding MMA conditioning and skill-improvement, they’re not coming here. nor should they.

17

[quote]SkyNett wrote:
unearth wrote:
SkyNett wrote:
Seriously, you make some good points, but I’d have to say Waterbury probably knows what he’s talking about.

Then why doesn’t the Chad answer the questions?

Why does he need Chris Shurgart to only toss him straw man questions?

Well, that’s just the thing - he doesn’t “need” Shugart to do that - it’s just an interesting and moderately humorous device used to create an article that’s a departure from the same old format.

As a magazine editor myself, I’m always trying to come up with different approaches in order to have a more unique voice and get away from the repetition of the “usual” format.

That’s all they’re doing here, and I for one found it pretty entertaining - it’s not the greatest piece I’ve ever read, but it was good.

And I’d say that Chad certainly is answering the questions - you just don’t seem to agree with the answers he’s giving…

[/quote]

along with taking issue with some of chad’s statements, unearth also takes issue with how the questions are asked. it is very clear that the ‘critic’ was not intended to be asking intelligent questions or to ask well-thought out question and taking legitimate beefs with any of chad’s statements regarding training.

18

[quote]hueyOT wrote:
it was a sarcastic statement referring to how replies expressing disagreement with chad are prohibited from being posted in the ‘article/interview’ with the ‘critic’.
[/quote]

Well, I can’t say I blame them for that. It’s rude and disrespectful to the author, and I know if it was my piece I’d want the nasty comments kept to a minimum.

Constructive criticism and respectful disagreement are one thing, taking a verbal shit all over the guy for his views isn’t - so in this case it looks like they would rather have a separate thread where people can disagree rather than risk putting up with asshole attacks that are sure to be mixed-in with the decent criticisms.

Seems understandable to me.

19

[quote]SkyNett wrote:
hueyOT wrote:
it was a sarcastic statement referring to how replies expressing disagreement with chad are prohibited from being posted in the ‘article/interview’ with the ‘critic’.

Well, I can’t say I blame them for that. It’s rude and disrespectful to the author, and I know if it was my piece I’d want the nasty comments kept to a minimum.

Constructive criticism and respectful disagreement are one thing, taking a verbal shit all over the guy for his views isn’t - so in this case it looks like they would rather have a separate thread where people can disagree rather than risk putting up with asshole attacks that are sure to be mixed-in with the decent criticisms.

Seems understandable to me.

[/quote]

wow. so ‘replies expressing disagreement’ has now been turned into ‘nasty comments’ which are ‘rude and disrespectful’.

do you hold the same opinion when the white house will censor questions posed towards the adminidtration which might be seen as critical?

i’m not talking about name calling, i’m talking about legitimate disagreement. i guess you like ‘interviews’ where the questions that are asked an intentionally posed in a way to be favorable to the individual being interviewed, lest he/she be asked a real question.

there is a HUGE difference between legitimate beefs with the author <and i think chad’s a very knowledgeable guy in many ways> and personal attacks.

you sound like the kinda person who immediately labels crititsm of american foreign policy as ‘anti-american’.

20

in this thread i have still not seen on asshole statement made in reference to chad.

unearth isn’t being a dick, in the least. neither am i. we’re asking legitimate questions and sharing valid comments.