Questions About Training

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 4, 2009, 7:23pm

[quote]Thy. wrote:
Thib can you explain what you meant by Bulgarian “hip dominant” and Soviet “quad/calves dominant” olympic lifting style ? [/quote]

Not on a forum. It requires film footage, or at least pictures.

‘Bulgarian’ style (which could basically he called modern style) utilize a lot of hip action (whipping the hips forward and up when lifting) and more back pull (pulling up AND back). They keep the bar closer to the body.

‘Russian’ style (or traditional style) is only ‘up’ not up and back. Basically the bar is lifting almost in a straight line and the body is not whipped backwards on the pull, the body is pretty much in a straight vertical line at the end of a pull.

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 4, 2009, 7:28pm

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
Thib, concerning Olympic lifting…

What is the type of belt used in Olympic lifting? I have a thicker powerlifting type from Elitefts. And which lifts would the belt primarily be used for? [/quote]

A large majority of olympic lifters do not use a belt. Those that do mostly use in on the clean and jerk as it can actually hurt you in the snatch. Some will use one when training on the squat.

They NEVER use a thick belt, reduces torso free range of motion too much.

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
2. Do you have any comments/updates about the Olympic lifting routine in your Black Book? I consider myself an intermediate Olympic lifter (technique-wise, at least) and will probably start again by your book’s program, since it has been about 7 months since I last competed.[/quote]

It’s a program designed for a newbie to learn the lifts for a first time. It is not how I would train a competitive lifter. That would require a book in itself.

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

Do you know of any good online Olympic lifting resources, such as beginner/intermediate templates, how to design your own program, etc? I’ve pulled a couple things off Google but nothing substantial.

Thanks a lot. [/quote]

Look for Mike Burgener website. http://www.mikesgym.org/

NLS · September 4, 2009, 3:46pm

First off, thanks for opening this thread, I’ve learned alot. I have 2 questions for you.

People always talk about how benching and not doing enough back work is detrimental to your health and posture, would to much back and not enough bench have the same effect?
I really liked the latest WS4SB program, probrem is that its a 4 day template and I only have 2 days a week to train. Is this okay??

Monday ME Lower/De Lower/Re Upper:

Squat and or deadlift variations ramping up to 3-5set max (earlier sets are light and take place of dynamic work)
Unilateral Movement 3x6-12
Re Upper 3xmax (usually pulling exercise)
Posterior Chain/Grip Superset 3-4x6-12

Friday ME Upper

Pulling exercise ramping up to 3-5set max
Supplemental Exercise 2xmax
Bench supersetted with trap and random upperback exercise (usually 6 sets of bench and 3 sets of traps and 3 sets of said random upperback exercise
Posterior Chain/ Grip Superset

PB_Andy · September 4, 2009, 6:40pm

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
Thib, concerning Olympic lifting…

What is the type of belt used in Olympic lifting? I have a thicker powerlifting type from Elitefts. And which lifts would the belt primarily be used for?

A large majority of olympic lifters do not use a belt. Those that do mostly use in on the clean and jerk as it can actually hurt you in the snatch. Some will use one when training on the squat.

They NEVER use a thick belt, reduces torso free range of motion too much.

PB Andy wrote:
2. Do you have any comments/updates about the Olympic lifting routine in your Black Book? I consider myself an intermediate Olympic lifter (technique-wise, at least) and will probably start again by your book’s program, since it has been about 7 months since I last competed.

It’s a program designed for a newbie to learn the lifts for a first time. It is not how I would train a competitive lifter. That would require a book in itself.

PB Andy wrote:

Do you know of any good online Olympic lifting resources, such as beginner/intermediate templates, how to design your own program, etc? I’ve pulled a couple things off Google but nothing substantial.

Thanks a lot.

Look for Mike Burgener website. http://www.mikesgym.org/
[/quote]

So are the belts used just the generic and softer ones around, nothing too fancy?
You should make said book. I would buy it.

Thanks Thib.

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 4, 2009, 8:40pm

[quote]PB Andy wrote:

So are the belts used just the generic and softer ones around, nothing too fancy?
You should make said book. I would buy it.

Thanks Thib.[/quote]

Yes, but even those aren’t used that often. Personally when I tried using one, the buckle would be in the bar’s way.
I gotta pick my battles. There is only so much time in day.

ThetfordMiner · September 4, 2009, 8:43pm

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:

All of this is great but how do you autoregulate when you use the higher reps range and don’t ramp.

Honestly I rarely use that method (straight sets with high reps) I really believe that it is a vastly inferior method.

In theory you can add sets as long as you can complete the number of reps you are supposed to do. If you are supposed to do 8 reps, but can only get 6 or 7 on one set, the exercise is over.[/quote]

Thib,

You have mentioned a number of times in many places on here that things like auto-regulating training, ramping, and (on the nutrition front) specific Biotest supplements timed properly around training are vastly superior for results in terms of strength and size.

But my question is the following…if you have a guy who is consistently eating nothing but wholesome whole foods in amounts appropriate for his body composition at any given time; who is training using optimal exercise selection for his individual structure, textbook form and full ROM on all of his exercises (save for any special instances where partial ROM is intentionally used for a specific purpose); and who is at least somewhat cognizant of both progressive overload in some form and managing training stress in some way, then how “inferior” would his overall results end up being (as a rough estimation) compared to someone doing all of the things you have been and will be talking about on here?

I do not doubt you one bit that the methods you espouse are as effective as can be found today, but I am just curious how much of a difference it all can make, since plenty of guys who don’t have your level of knowledge and understanding of all of these things manage to find a lot of success through consistency, checking their ego at the door, effort, and basically “turning off the stupid” when they walk in the gym.

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 4, 2009, 9:18pm

[quote]ThetfordMiner wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:

All of this is great but how do you autoregulate when you use the higher reps range and don’t ramp.

Honestly I rarely use that method (straight sets with high reps) I really believe that it is a vastly inferior method.

In theory you can add sets as long as you can complete the number of reps you are supposed to do. If you are supposed to do 8 reps, but can only get 6 or 7 on one set, the exercise is over.

Thib,

You have mentioned a number of times in many places on here that things like auto-regulating training, ramping, and (on the nutrition front) specific Biotest supplements timed properly around training are vastly superior for results in terms of strength and size.

But my question is the following…if you have a guy who is consistently eating nothing but wholesome whole foods in amounts appropriate for his body composition at any given time; who is training using optimal exercise selection for his individual structure, textbook form and full ROM on all of his exercises (save for any special instances where partial ROM is intentionally used for a specific purpose); and who is at least somewhat cognizant of both progressive overload in some form and managing training stress in some way, then how “inferior” would his overall results end up being (as a rough estimation) compared to someone doing all of the things you have been and will be talking about on here?

I do not doubt you one bit that the methods you espouse are as effective as can be found today, but I am just curious how much of a difference it all can make, since plenty of guys who don’t have your level of knowledge and understanding of all of these things manage to find a lot of success through consistency, checking their ego at the door, effort, and basically “turning off the stupid” when they walk in the gym. [/quote]

They will only be able to get 72.34% of the gains.

C’MON how could I possibly know how much they’ll progress? It will vary from one individual to the next.

Here are some random thoughts somewhat related to your post though:

To me, the three core concepts of effective training are:

a) HOW to lift a weight (always try to produce as much force as you can, regardless of the amount of weight lifted)

b) How you autoregulate. When it comes to the training portion of this, if you now how to adjust weight progression, the number of set done and the length of rest intervals, you can make any non-idiotic program work.

c) How to reach a neural activation state at every workout. This is commonly called ‘the zone’, it contrary to what many people believe, it’s not psychological but rather physiological… specifically it refers to a state where the nervous system is working at optimal capacity. This is intimately linked to autoregulation because on some days you might need a lot more activation work than on others to reach ‘the zone’.

If you do not understand how to autoregulate training you will not be able to reach maximum progression. Well you might have bursts of progression when you do things right almost by mistake, but you’ll never know WHY you improved that fast and thus will not be able to reproduce this over and over again.
Teaching people how to autoregulate is one thing we are working on… what signs to look for when it comes to selecting the next weight, how many sets to do, add or remove exercises, adjusting rest intervals, etc. We will actually have a series of video explaining and showing what autoregulation is.
The supplements protocol is a big key to maximum progress. Sadly, whole food cannot replace it because specific types of protein and carbs are needed to get the proper effect. Not to mention the various substrates that will help push back the anaerobic threshold and speed up recovery.

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 4, 2009, 9:21pm

[quote]ThetfordMiner wrote:
I do not doubt you one bit that the methods you espouse are as effective as can be found today, but I am just curious how much of a difference it all can make, since plenty of guys who don’t have your level of knowledge and understanding of all of these things manage to find a lot of success through consistency, checking their ego at the door, effort, and basically “turning off the stupid” when they walk in the gym. [/quote]

Yes, this is entirely correct. And if you look at these guys they all have one thing in common: they instinctively know how to autoregulate their training.

I’ve been in tons of gyms, and none of the biggest guys ever walk in the gym with a sheet of paper with their workout plan. All of them are in-tune with their body… they know when to push, when to back off, when to stop the session, when to add an exercise.

I’d say that most of these people have actually ‘discovered’ autoregulation, one of the most important keys to progress, instinctively and it is the main reason behind their success.

Thy1 · September 4, 2009, 9:32pm

Thib, I’m doing pull-ups with ramping method, but my gym has a stupid “hook” for weighted pull-ups which allows only one plate to be hanged. So I make 5 kg jumps and reach a max set like this in the best case : 0,5,10,15,20 kg, and even less sets with a harder grip.

Would you recommend to add some more pyramid sets : 0,5,10,15,10,5,0 to get more volume and focus on max speed on those last sets after the potentiation effect with heavier weight ? Or you’d recommend to terminate the exercise once the max ramped set is reached in any case ?

MAF14 · September 4, 2009, 9:34pm

so would ramping be the ideal way to autoregulate or are there better methods?

joebassin · September 4, 2009, 10:50pm

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
ThetfordMiner wrote:
I do not doubt you one bit that the methods you espouse are as effective as can be found today, but I am just curious how much of a difference it all can make, since plenty of guys who don’t have your level of knowledge and understanding of all of these things manage to find a lot of success through consistency, checking their ego at the door, effort, and basically “turning off the stupid” when they walk in the gym.

Yes, this is entirely correct. And if you look at these guys they all have one thing in common: they instinctively know how to autoregulate their training.

I’ve been in tons of gyms, and none of the biggest guys ever walk in the gym with a sheet of paper with their workout plan. All of them are in-tune with their body… they know when to push, when to back off, when to stop the session, when to add an exercise.

I’d say that most of these people have actually ‘discovered’ autoregulation, one of the most important keys to progress, instinctively and it is the main reason behind their success. [/quote]

I can understand autoregulation as far as ramping goes but I don’t get it when you say “they know when to push, when to back off, when to stop the session, when to add an exercise”. Suppose I train chest every monday with 2 exercises .

Now on my next workout if I’m progressing (doing more reps, using more weigh, etc…) Then I guess everything is fine. If not, I may add or remove sets or exercise. But if I come to the gym one day and because I feel great today I decide to do one more chest exercise. Well on my next workout I may end up not progressing because it was too much to recover, so I don’t know how they can do that.

Goodfellow · September 4, 2009, 11:01pm

[quote]joebassin wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
ThetfordMiner wrote:
I do not doubt you one bit that the methods you espouse are as effective as can be found today, but I am just curious how much of a difference it all can make, since plenty of guys who don’t have your level of knowledge and understanding of all of these things manage to find a lot of success through consistency, checking their ego at the door, effort, and basically “turning off the stupid” when they walk in the gym.

Yes, this is entirely correct. And if you look at these guys they all have one thing in common: they instinctively know how to autoregulate their training.

I’ve been in tons of gyms, and none of the biggest guys ever walk in the gym with a sheet of paper with their workout plan. All of them are in-tune with their body… they know when to push, when to back off, when to stop the session, when to add an exercise.

I’d say that most of these people have actually ‘discovered’ autoregulation, one of the most important keys to progress, instinctively and it is the main reason behind their success.

I can understand autoregulation as far as ramping goes but I don’t get it when you say “they know when to push, when to back off, when to stop the session, when to add an exercise”. Suppose I train chest every monday with 2 exercises . Now on my next workout if I’m progressing (doing more reps, using more weigh, etc…) Then I guess everything is fine. If not, I may add or remove sets or exercise. But if I come to the gym one day and because I feel great today I decide to do one more chest exercise. Well on my next workout I may end up not progressing because it was too much to recover, so I don’t know how they can do that.[/quote]

You can’t really write down on how to ‘autoregulate’, it’s probably why the guys who over-analyse stuff all the time don’t make any progress. They think everything should be able to be worked out beforehand.

I’m just starting to figure out how to do it after 8 solid months of training. I can’t even explain it myself.

It’s like, when I stop making progress, I take my sets to a point where I feel clear headed afterwards, not exhausted. Then after a week or I feel more energetic, so I lift with everything I have and go beserk!

Theres no way I can write that down in a program, make notes about it or plan when to do it. Thats also why I don’t understand periodization.

It would be awesome though if someone could show me or explain it further though.

joebassin · September 4, 2009, 11:06pm

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Also how do you perform super set (in HSS for example) or may be you don’t use that much either .

I perform contrasts one explosive exercise + one regular lifting movement for a muscle group.

E.g.

Jump squat
6 x 3 @ 20%

Front squat
6 x 3 @ 70-90% (ramping)

With no rest between the first and second exercise.

I will also do antagonist pairings. For example one back exercise, very little rest, one chest exercise.

But I rarely use true ‘bodybuilding’ supersets anymore.

All I can say is that your methods seem to have evolve a lot since you start writing on T-Nation. Well thank you for all these great info.

Actually it really hasn’t. In the past I actually wrote some articles to please people Now I have the confidence and support to only write about what i really believe in, even if most of the time it goes against the grain.[/quote]

Conventional wisdom tell us that for maximum size we should train most of the time in the 6-12 reps zone. But what zone, reps scheme do you consider best for size?

joebassin · September 4, 2009, 11:14pm

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
ThetfordMiner wrote:
I do not doubt you one bit that the methods you espouse are as effective as can be found today, but I am just curious how much of a difference it all can make, since plenty of guys who don’t have your level of knowledge and understanding of all of these things manage to find a lot of success through consistency, checking their ego at the door, effort, and basically “turning off the stupid” when they walk in the gym.

Yes, this is entirely correct. And if you look at these guys they all have one thing in common: they instinctively know how to autoregulate their training.

I’ve been in tons of gyms, and none of the biggest guys ever walk in the gym with a sheet of paper with their workout plan. All of them are in-tune with their body… they know when to push, when to back off, when to stop the session, when to add an exercise.

I’d say that most of these people have actually ‘discovered’ autoregulation, one of the most important keys to progress, instinctively and it is the main reason behind their success.

I can understand autoregulation as far as ramping goes but I don’t get it when you say “they know when to push, when to back off, when to stop the session, when to add an exercise”. Suppose I train chest every monday with 2 exercises . Now on my next workout if I’m progressing (doing more reps, using more weigh, etc…) Then I guess everything is fine. If not, I may add or remove sets or exercise. But if I come to the gym one day and because I feel great today I decide to do one more chest exercise. Well on my next workout I may end up not progressing because it was too much to recover, so I don’t know how they can do that.

You can’t really write down on how to ‘autoregulate’, it’s probably why the guys who over-analyse stuff all the time don’t make any progress. They think everything should be able to be worked out beforehand.

I’m just starting to figure out how to do it after 8 solid months of training. I can’t even explain it myself.

It’s like, when I stop making progress, I take my sets to a point where I feel clear headed afterwards, not exhausted. Then after a week or I feel more energetic, so I lift with everything I have and go beserk!

Theres no way I can write that down in a program, make notes about it or plan when to do it. Thats also why I don’t understand periodization.

It would be awesome though if someone could show me or explain it further though. [/quote]

When you stop making progress you push a bit less so your body can catch up. That’s what I think happens. But my interogation is about why they would decide to do more today and may end up doing less later because of that instead keeping things more even. Unless they want to some kind of overreaching.

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 5, 2009, 12:13am

[quote]joebassin wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Also how do you perform super set (in HSS for example) or may be you don’t use that much either .

I perform contrasts one explosive exercise + one regular lifting movement for a muscle group.

E.g.

Jump squat
6 x 3 @ 20%

Front squat
6 x 3 @ 70-90% (ramping)

With no rest between the first and second exercise.

I will also do antagonist pairings. For example one back exercise, very little rest, one chest exercise.

But I rarely use true ‘bodybuilding’ supersets anymore.

All I can say is that your methods seem to have evolve a lot since you start writing on T-Nation. Well thank you for all these great info.

Actually it really hasn’t. In the past I actually wrote some articles to please people Now I have the confidence and support to only write about what i really believe in, even if most of the time it goes against the grain.

Conventional wisdom tell us that for maximum size we should train most of the time in the 6-12 reps zone. But what zone, reps scheme do you consider best for size?[/quote]

What does conventional wisdom have to do with anything? Just because a lot of people are parroting the same concepts over and over doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Back in the day, Olympic lifters, bodybuilders and powerlifters used to be the same guys. Actually, bodybuilding’s first contests were held at the end of Olympic lifting competitions.

I don’t care if I am the one ‘inventing’ the truth. I don’t have a big ego and if I learn something super effective from somebody, even if it goes against my beliefs, I will accept it.

My goal is to find the best way(s) to stimulate muscle growth.

The actual number of reps per set it not the most important thing:

Learn how to make every single rep effective… you do so by always trying to push the weight as hard/fast as you can. This way of doing a rep makes every repetition cause a powerful training effect. So you need less reps per set simply because every single rep has a strong effect.
Learn how to autoregulate your training. When to stop an exercise, when can you add one or several sets, when to stop a set, etc.
Activate the nervous system, then stimulate the muscles.

If you do these 3 things, any program will work.

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 5, 2009, 12:16am

[quote]MAF14 wrote:
so would ramping be the ideal way to autoregulate or are there better methods?[/quote]

It’s ONE way of autoregulating. But not the only way. And HOW you are ramping (all jumps are the same, early jumps are small then get bigger, early jumps are large but get smaller at the end, etc.) will also play a big role.

Learn how to ramp properly, and how to make every rep a max force rep and it will work.

Christian_Thibaudeau · September 5, 2009, 12:18am

[quote]Thy. wrote:
Thib, I’m doing pull-ups with ramping method, but my gym has a stupid “hook” for weighted pull-ups which allows only one plate to be hanged. So I make 5 kg jumps and reach a max set like this in the best case : 0,5,10,15,20 kg, and even less sets with a harder grip.

Would you recommend to add some more pyramid sets : 0,5,10,15,10,5,0 to get more volume and focus on max speed on those last sets after the potentiation effect with heavier weight ? Or you’d recommend to terminate the exercise once the max ramped set is reached in any case ?[/quote]

NO! Stop after you ramped up for the max weight you can do for the number of reps planned. If you want to add more work, add ONE set to the last exercise for a muscle group… use 85% of the maximum weight YOU USED THAT DAY and do as many reps as you can.

SpinFast · September 5, 2009, 12:37am

Coach Thib,

What are your thoughts on using pin bench presses as an activity to turn on the CNS during exercise. I have always started with something like 5x5 full bench presses with a medium weight before moving on to something like 5x3 pin presses, however, would I benefit more from activating the CNS first with some pin presses before heading over to the full rep bench?

Thanks for your help.

joebassin · September 5, 2009, 12:50am

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
joebassin wrote:
Also how do you perform super set (in HSS for example) or may be you don’t use that much either .