The Round-Up Interviews: Chad Waterbury
by Nate Green
It's time to play catch-up with the Testosterone authors. Nate Green does the asking, Chad Waterbury does the talking. Chad
Waterbury is somewhat of a legend here. Kind of like the long-haired
rock-star of the strength and conditioning community. You'd be
hard-pressed to find someone on Testosterone who
hasn'tperformed one of his revolutionary training programs, and if
cutting-edge training theories get you all excited, the odds are good
that it was one of Chad's theories that sparked your curiosity. So what does a rock-star do when he's not busy writing books, training clients, and revolutionizing the industry?
Testosterone: You've got a lot going on in your business. Fill us in on the latest. Chad Waterbury: Well,
first off, I'm writing a new book for Rodale that should be available
in the fall of 2008. It's a book on training for size and strength that
has a great carryover to the real world. The new training philosophy
that I've been hinting at for the last 6 months is the focus.
Second,
I was recently awarded the position as the director of strength and
conditioning for Rickson Gracie's International Jiu-Jitsu facility in
Los Angeles. I've always been a huge fan of Rickson, and his school in
Los Angeles is definitely one of the most revered jiu-jitsu facilities
in the world. They've never had a true strength and conditioning
program, so I feel honored they asked me to design it.
Rickson Gracie
And
I just finished an e-book. Over the years I've been inundated with
requests to design a complete program with various end-results. The
most requested result is to lose 10 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of
muscle. So I decided to write a program that will do it. The program is
called
The 10/10 Transformation.
The
e-book consists of a complete training and nutritional program. It's
not the same old stuff you read in every other book. The training
program alternates between intense fat loss training and high frequency
training. The nutritional portion is also easy to follow since you
don't need to count calories.
Follow the plan as
laid-out and you will get the results. Losing 10 pounds of fat and
adding 10 pounds of muscle doesn't sound like much, but if you do it,
you'll dramatically transform your physique. Take, for example, a
typical 175-pound male with 16% body fat. At the end of the program
he'll have single-digit body fat at the same weight.
I
decided to write an e-book for a few reasons. First, I wanted to give
the readers something to hold them over until my Rodale book comes out.
Second, I know many people live in areas that make delivery very
expensive. So I took the delivery cost out of the equation. Third, I
wanted to make a very affordable product that anyone can benefit from.
That's why the book is only $19.95. You can pick up a copy here. T: What training method do you feel is being most neglected? CW: Definitely
circuits. For whatever reason, most people equate circuits with crappy
versions of fat loss training. You know, high reps, low loads, and
short rest periods. But a total body circuit can be easily manipulated
for strength, size, or metabolic training.
I'll use the chin, dip, and deadlift circuit as an example.
1A) Chin-up
1B) Dip
1C) Deadlift
In
terms of maximum muscle recruitment, you're always at odds with time
because you need as much time of it as possible before repeating a
movement in order to offset fatigue. However, you don't need to rest
passively. You can work on other areas of your body before you return
to an exercise. This will make the training sessions more time
efficient.
No, not this type of circuit training...
Three
minutes of rest is a good starting point before repeating a movement.
If you rest one minute between each movement you've got your three
minutes of rest between each exercise. But if you performed the chin,
dip, and deadlift workout with three minutes rest between straight
sets, the workout would take longer than it needs to take and you
wouldn't boost your work capacity.
Many people
think you can't do a total body workout if you perform eight or 10 sets
per movement. You certainly can. If you perform eight circuits of the
chin, dip, and deadlift with one-minute rest between each movement, the
entire session will take you 30 minutes.
For
strength, you could do three circuits with 90 seconds rest between each
movement. This allows you to keep the load very high since the rest
periods are sufficient and the volume is low. Each movement is three
reps.
For size, you need more volume. Eight to
ten circuits with 3-5 reps is a great method. The rest periods should
be 60-70 seconds between each movement.
And, of
course, circuits are excellent for metabolic conditioning. I think most
people perform too many reps, though. I typically keep the reps less
than 8 per movement with 5-6 circuits. The rest periods start at 45
seconds and decrease by 5 seconds with each new workout.
I
know that many people can't perform circuits because they can't take up
three areas of the gym at once. But if it's not a problem, circuits are
the way to go.
Chad mentally pummeling a heavy bag. T: You've been doing a lot of talking about maximum muscle fiber recruitment. Tell us why it's so important. CW: If
your goal is to get bigger and stronger, the key to getting results is
to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible with each repetition. If
you do that you'll get bigger and stronger faster so you won't need to
perform as many total reps in a workout.
The
size principle tells us that there's a fixed, orderly recruitment of
muscle fibers. The smallest are recruited first, the largest, most
powerful muscle fibers that have the most potential for growth are
recruited last. What most people don't understand is this: when you're
recruiting the largest muscle fibers you're also recruiting all of the
other muscle fibers. So the key is to recruit those largest muscle
fibers as quickly as possible.
The
first, and simplest, way to do this is to lift all loads as fast as
possible. This will augment the electrical signal from your brain to
your muscles. The faster you try to lift a load, the stronger the
signal. The stronger the signal, the more muscle fibers your body will
recruit. But lifting with maximum speed only holds true for the
concentric phase.
If you drop the load as fast
as possible during the eccentric phase, you'll lose muscle tension.
Obviously, that's not good. You must control the eccentric phase but
you shouldn't try to slow it down. Of course, controlling the eccentric
phase means there will be some slowing, but it shouldn't be noticeable.
A one second eccentric is a good starting point. I think the eccentric
phase has been grossly overrated.
I've
experimented extensively with eccentric-focused training over the
years. One technique I used was with a 10-second eccentric. A woman
came to me and wanted to improve here pull-ups but she couldn't even do
one. So I had her perform five eccentric contractions for a count of
Accueil 
T: I've got to pick up some of that green tea and that new Surge. Thanks for the interview, Chad!