Bulgarian Method for Olympic Lifts

Training Powerlifting
1

to quote from Poliquin, “Rather than percentages based on past or predetermined personal bests, Abadjievâ??s lifters would go as heavy as possible every workout for numerous sets in a wavelike loading fashion. How heavy? Well, if an athlete could snatch 100 kilos (220 pounds), here is how the work sets (i.e., after warm-up) might progress: 90 kilos x 1 x 3, 95 x 1 x 2, 100 x 1 x 1, 90-92 x 1 x 3, 100-103 x 1 x 1, 90-92 x 1 x 3, 102-105 x 1 x 1, 85-88 x 5 x 3. Whew! And just as Abadjiev did not use percentages as did most coaches from other countries, in my workouts I simply â??let the repetitions determine the loadâ?? so that the weights used are not too light or too heavy, but just right to achieve the optimal training stimulus.”

So it’s basically maxing out everyday and doing heavy sets? Im just trying to get this thing right. ps can you use this for other lifts as well.Thanks

2

[quote]JMike21 wrote:
to quote from Poliquin, “Rather than percentages based on past or predetermined personal bests, Abadjievâ??s lifters would go as heavy as possible every workout for numerous sets in a wavelike loading fashion. How heavy? Well, if an athlete could snatch 100 kilos (220 pounds), here is how the work sets (i.e., after warm-up) might progress: 90 kilos x 1 x 3, 95 x 1 x 2, 100 x 1 x 1, 90-92 x 1 x 3, 100-103 x 1 x 1, 90-92 x 1 x 3, 102-105 x 1 x 1, 85-88 x 5 x 3. Whew! And just as Abadjiev did not use percentages as did most coaches from other countries, in my workouts I simply â??let the repetitions determine the loadâ?? so that the weights used are not too light or too heavy, but just right to achieve the optimal training stimulus.”

So it’s basically maxing out everyday and doing heavy sets? Im just trying to get this thing right. ps can you use this for other lifts as well.Thanks[/quote]

I trained with Abadjiev for more than a year. He didnt have us lift like that. You work up to daily max which can be close to or above your current max (and some days its nowhere near your physical max so you have to deal with technical max). You might go back down if you hit a max and kept missing it due to a glaring technical/mental issue, but otherwise you attack the weight and try to keep your form up. Sometimes we would do doubles with 90% of whatever the max was that day, but that wasnt every session (we alternated between two sessions a day and three per day with Sundays having only 1 session).

The jumps you take are highly individual but if you train very frequently, you take bigger jumps since you are still warm from the last session (or you just want to get the session over with). If you feel good and your technique is solid, the jumps are bigger, otherwise you might take smaller jumps. Overall, it took about 5-9 singles to get to max.

Abadjiev wasnt explicit about percentages but he had an uncanny ability to know what you cold or would lift later in the day or week. If he were on a trip, he would write out the lifts he expected to be done. Some days youd think ‘wow thats light’ only to find out its heavy as hell, and other days where you think ‘NFW’ only to hit a new PR. Dude knows his system.

3

In my opinion, the “Bulgarian system” is the worst thing to ever happen to American Weightlifting. It’s not really a system outside of being coached by the Butcher himself. There is so much misinformation out there about how it’s to be done, not to mention an overwhelming amount of his lifters have been busted for juicing.

When you start lifting at a young age, you have completed perhaps hundreds of thousands of reps, completely ingraining the movement pattern into your nervous system. You probably spent hundreds of hours just training with a stick or empty bar. Americans usually don’t pick up Weightlifting until they are older (late teens at best, but usually early to mid 20s). And they want to go straight to doing what some of the best lifters in the world are doing. You need the reps to build your technique.

4

[quote]forcefedfreak wrote:
In my opinion, the “Bulgarian system” is the worst thing to ever happen to American Weightlifting. It’s not really a system outside of being coached by the Butcher himself. There is so much misinformation out there about how it’s to be done, not to mention an overwhelming amount of his lifters have been busted for juicing.

When you start lifting at a young age, you have completed perhaps hundreds of thousands of reps, completely ingraining the movement pattern into your nervous system. You probably spent hundreds of hours just training with a stick or empty bar. Americans usually don’t pick up Weightlifting until they are older (late teens at best, but usually early to mid 20s). And they want to go straight to doing what some of the best lifters in the world are doing. You need the reps to build your technique.[/quote]

I agree and disagree with certain things about your post. The Bulgarian System isn’t what has brought forth the current state dismal state US Weightlifting is in but rather for the following reasons. Please note these is solely my opinion.

1.Lack Of Funds/Structured Fed: Its almost criminal that the national basketball, track & field, cycling, wrestling and other sports get all the funds they need to make sure their athletes prioritize their training yet a good portion of weightlifters have to hold down a job and squeeze in their training as much as possible.

2.CrossFit: I know I opened up a can of worms with this one but Oly lifters have no business associating themselves with a training fad that only seems to spread misinformation in regards to proper, sensible training and has made a mockery of weightlifting. Last time I checked Akkaev, Klokov, Ilyin, etc didn’t do C&J’s for time and their coaches didn’t waste ther time or monetary resources with seminars and whatnot. I understand they want to boost Oly lifting’s popularity but there are better ways to do it than endorsing a fitness trend nobody will care about ten years from now.

3.Banking Everything On One Person: Remember how not too long ago Pat Mendes was hyped to be the next big thing in Oly lifting? These days Pat is serving a two year ban for doping and joined a long line of lifters who either failed to walk the walk or tested positive for banned substances. The success of Russia, Bulgaria, and the former Eastern Bloc nations as well as China and North Korea isn’t so much their training regimens but that they worked together as a team. I know it may sound strange but when a group of lifters support and train just as hard as the other then the chance of success is much higher than one person doing all the work and everyone else playing second fiddle to him or her. That’s why the aforementioned nations were able to capture gold in multiple weight categories and some were esoteric individuals nobody had seen or heard up until that moment.

As far as training goes, the Bulgarian training system isn’t the alpha and omega. There are better ways to train that don’t involve you being in the weight room 7 days a week.

5

I don’t think anybody here is more qualified to speak on this than GqArtguy, that time spent training with and learning from the man himself is invaluable and nothing almost any of us has experienced can really compare. It’s just unfortunate that the term “Bulgarian system” has become a buzzword for lifting crazy heavy and going to absolute max all the time, and you wind up with people who think they can just start maxing out all the time and they’ll make crazy gains because they’re training “Bulgarian.” It’s all too easy to ignore the years of preparation that happens before a lifter embarks on this kind of system, and the part that a knowledgeable coach plays.

As far as why USA Weightlifting is in less than stellar shape, if you have the time, google “why the us sucks at weightlifting.” Lyle Macdonald wrote an interesting (albeit monstrously lengthy) article series on the reasons he believes the US hasn’t had a lot of success in weightlifting. It’s not for everybody and it’s not something you can just sit down one night and power through, but if you have the patience to read it all I think it could be worth your while even if you disagree with his conclusions. I’d post a direct link but I believe that’s frowned upon.

6

[quote]GqArtguy wrote:

[quote]JMike21 wrote:
to quote from Poliquin, “Rather than percentages based on past or predetermined personal bests, AbadjievÃ??Ã?¢??s lifters would go as heavy as possible every workout for numerous sets in a wavelike loading fashion. How heavy? Well, if an athlete could snatch 100 kilos (220 pounds), here is how the work sets (i.e., after warm-up) might progress: 90 kilos x 1 x 3, 95 x 1 x 2, 100 x 1 x 1, 90-92 x 1 x 3, 100-103 x 1 x 1, 90-92 x 1 x 3, 102-105 x 1 x 1, 85-88 x 5 x 3. Whew! And just as Abadjiev did not use percentages as did most coaches from other countries, in my workouts I simply Ã??Ã?¢??let the repetitions determine the loadÃ??Ã?¢?? so that the weights used are not too light or too heavy, but just right to achieve the optimal training stimulus.”

So it’s basically maxing out everyday and doing heavy sets? Im just trying to get this thing right. ps can you use this for other lifts as well.Thanks[/quote]

I trained with Abadjiev for more than a year. He didnt have us lift like that. You work up to daily max which can be close to or above your current max (and some days its nowhere near your physical max so you have to deal with technical max). You might go back down if you hit a max and kept missing it due to a glaring technical/mental issue, but otherwise you attack the weight and try to keep your form up. Sometimes we would do doubles with 90% of whatever the max was that day, but that wasnt every session (we alternated between two sessions a day and three per day with Sundays having only 1 session).

The jumps you take are highly individual but if you train very frequently, you take bigger jumps since you are still warm from the last session (or you just want to get the session over with). If you feel good and your technique is solid, the jumps are bigger, otherwise you might take smaller jumps. Overall, it took about 5-9 singles to get to max.

Abadjiev wasnt explicit about percentages but he had an uncanny ability to know what you cold or would lift later in the day or week. If he were on a trip, he would write out the lifts he expected to be done. Some days youd think ‘wow thats light’ only to find out its heavy as hell, and other days where you think ‘NFW’ only to hit a new PR. Dude knows his system.[/quote]

Abadjiev is one of the greatest coaches in the last 50 years. Dude is amazing and at 82+ can still get decent looking power snatch form. I agree with you as well. I do not have personal experience with him but my brother is a coach and lifter himself and has correspondence with him.

To the OP–In round terms the system is based on a daily max, which is to be done without serious technical breakdown. Sometimes fatigue is such you don’t come anywhere close to a real max, other times you’re just rocking. This does not amount to a daily “true” max for any but the absolute elite with perfectly resilient technique, and then not even all the time for them based on their fatigue. Further this is not recommended for lifts with a long eccentric phase or lifts that permit much grinding–so no, it is not something you can do for DL or bench or curls in the same sense as for the olympic lifts

I will say I do not think it is the worst thing to happen to American Weightlifting at all, rather I think that the USAW is not doing many favors to the lifters. The Bulgarian system has certain prerequisites that must be met for it to function optimally and if they are not there the system is not appropriate to use (and juicing is not one of the prereqs either)

7

Did they taper the volume or change anything coming into competitions and or did they compete in regular comps alot or just for big meets?

After a major comp like the olympics, would they have taken a holiday completely from lifting?

8

I’m probably the 2nd most experienced lifter here with GQguy being the first :stuck_out_tongue:

I spent about 10 days and 15 days being abused by manny LOL and the rest of the crew LOL. Really glad I learnt what I learnt :slight_smile:

Koing

9

[quote]DmitryKlokovFan wrote:

I agree and disagree with certain things about your post. The Bulgarian System isn’t what has brought forth the current state dismal state US Weightlifting is in but rather for the following reasons. Please note these is solely my opinion.

1.Lack Of Funds/Structured Fed: Its almost criminal that the national basketball, track & field, cycling, wrestling and other sports get all the funds they need to make sure their athletes prioritize their training yet a good portion of weightlifters have to hold down a job and squeeze in their training as much as possible.

2.CrossFit: I know I opened up a can of worms with this one but Oly lifters have no business associating themselves with a training fad that only seems to spread misinformation in regards to proper, sensible training and has made a mockery of weightlifting. Last time I checked Akkaev, Klokov, Ilyin, etc didn’t do C&J’s for time and their coaches didn’t waste ther time or monetary resources with seminars and whatnot. I understand they want to boost Oly lifting’s popularity but there are better ways to do it than endorsing a fitness trend nobody will care about ten years from now.

3.Banking Everything On One Person: Remember how not too long ago Pat Mendes was hyped to be the next big thing in Oly lifting? These days Pat is serving a two year ban for doping and joined a long line of lifters who either failed to walk the walk or tested positive for banned substances. The success of Russia, Bulgaria, and the former Eastern Bloc nations as well as China and North Korea isn’t so much their training regimens but that they worked together as a team. I know it may sound strange but when a group of lifters support and train just as hard as the other then the chance of success is much higher than one person doing all the work and everyone else playing second fiddle to him or her. That’s why the aforementioned nations were able to capture gold in multiple weight categories and some were esoteric individuals nobody had seen or heard up until that moment.

As far as training goes, the Bulgarian training system isn’t the alpha and omega. There are better ways to train that don’t involve you being in the weight room 7 days a week.[/quote]

CrossFit is probably the single best thing to ever happen to American Weightlifting. And this is coming from a guy who HATES CrossFit.

Because of CF more and more people are being exposed to the sport, becoming registered USAW members, filling out local meets, and providing more resources, more publicity, and providing more funding to those who are actually on national and international teams. To say CrossFit is responsible for USAW sucking is just absolutely laughable. We sucked at WL BEFORE CrossFit, there training had NOTHING to do with it. Sure their training won’t improve our performances but they help out in a lot of other ways.

10

[quote]forcefedfreak wrote:
We sucked at WL BEFORE CrossFit, there training had NOTHING to do with it.
[/quote]

By the same token, US weightlifting was well on the decline before Abadjiev came on the scene.

11

[quote]GqArtguy wrote:

[quote]forcefedfreak wrote:
We sucked at WL BEFORE CrossFit, there training had NOTHING to do with it.
[/quote]

By the same token, US weightlifting was well on the decline before Abadjiev came on the scene. [/quote]

I agree, however I think since he has it has actually slowed the progress of WL in this country compared to CF which has certainly accelerated it. Nothing against Abadjiev, I just think that type of program is appropriate for very few people.

12

[quote]Koing wrote:
I’m probably the 2nd most experienced lifter here with GQguy being the first :stuck_out_tongue:
Koing[/quote]

My my, don’t we think rather highly of ourself…