The Bulgarian Method

Training Powerlifting
21

[quote]halcj wrote:
I still maintain that volume can be REDUCED as a lifter advances, as heavier weights and better neuromuscular co-ordination allow more stress to be inflicted with each rep. I think a Westside setup (in terms of frequency) or a basic once every 4-7 days routine is MORE likely to be effective for a very advanced lifter. They don’t need more volume on the lifts, they need problem-solving and weak-point elimination. They may also benefit from time away from the standard lifts for recovery, and then a daily-max phase as their final 8 weeks of meet prep.
[/quote]
I agree with you, but as far as I can see the only way to make that work is to use different blocks with significantly different levels of volume and intensity to prevent accommodation. Otherwise the solution is to keep raising volume. If you stall with daily max squatting you can’t just drop a day and expect gains to keep coming. The reason some elite lifters do less volume and frequency is because they can’t handle much more work with the weights they are lifting. Look at Eric Lilliebridge, how often can he squat 800+ pounds? It doesn’t matter what percentage of HIS max he is lifting, but rather the fact that he is able to push his body so much harder than other people his size. Could he do the Bulgarian method? He has squatted over 1000 lbs., trying to do that regularly sounds like suicide. Recovery ability and work capacity will increase the longer you train, but as you get to a certain level you will not be able to recover from the same relative volume. Very few people have been able to use the Bulgarian method with long term success, but for those who can make it work it is usually the best option.

Here’s a quote from Sheiko:
“It is impossible to increase volume constantly with no limit. It means we have to increase something else, and thatâ??s usually the intensity. Up to a point, you can get away with increasing both volume and intensity. For example, a beginner may perform 500 competitive lifts and special preparatory exercises in one month at 50-60% average intensity. Later on, that same athlete as a more advanced lifter could average 1,000 competitive lifts and special preparatory exercises at 67-69%. However, both volume and intensity cannot rise together indefinitely. At some point, you have to raise one and lower the other.”

What do you do if you are already maxing out every day?

22

[quote]lift206 wrote:

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:

[quote]lift206 wrote:
My hypothesis is that an athlete using the least volume in comparison to athletes of similar strength level is probably one of the most technically proficient.[/quote]

I have to say I disagree. How much volume you need or can handle is very individual. Look at arramzy (Adam Ramzy), he is an elite lifter and trains with moderately high volume per session, but 5-6 days a week. Is his technique flawed? According to Sheiko, necessary levels of volume and intensity are largely dependant on your nervous system. The more excitable your CNS is, the less volume you need. I guess I need some excitement![/quote]

Well my hypothesis wasn’t proven wrong since you didn’t find someone in the same weight class with the same total to use for comparing volume. He is one of the best lifters on this site and very accomplished. I’m certainly not taking anything away from him.

It’s not about exciting the CNS, it’s about firing as many muscle fibers as possible and having them work effectively together throughout the entire range of motion for that lift.

It would be nice if someone on this site around the 163 weight class (170 walking weight) with roughly a 1200 total can speak up. I’d like to compare the amount of volume we do. I have a feeling that I do more because up to this point, I have been very inefficient in the way I lift. My lifts sucked and I figured out one of the reasons why. Now it’s time to improve.

I didn’t intend to argue about this, just point out other reasons to consider and use myself as an example for being inefficient.[/quote]

I’m not looking for an argument, more like a debate if anything. My point with Adam Ramzy is that he is using relatively high total volume and frequency, if more advanced lifters needed less volume then his training wouldn’t make any sense. He benches 5-6 days a week, I don’t know what his max is but he posted a video where he was benching about 500 for a triple in his shirt.

Muscle fibre activation is part of it, CNS/neural adaptations is the other half. Doing reps to failure with 50% can activate all your muscle fibres as well, but has less effect on neural adaptations. The more excitable your CNS is the less you need to do to force adaptations, and the longer it will need to recover.

23

In all the programs I have ever seen, the programs optimize strength gains by modulating between volume and intensity - it doesn’t have to be extreme but just a noticeable change along the spectrum. With the bulgarian method, a lifter can always emphasize a bit more volume and less intensity or a bit more intensity and less volume. Any program can be customized to an individual’s needs. The importance of volume and intensity should be understood for all programs. The answer for arguments of this vs. that almost always lie along a spectrum and is different for all individuals.

24

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
I’m not looking for an argument, more like a debate if anything. My point with Adam Ramzy is that he is using relatively high total volume and frequency, if more advanced lifters needed less volume then his training wouldn’t make any sense. He benches 5-6 days a week, I don’t know what his max is but he posted a video where he was benching about 500 for a triple in his shirt.

Muscle fibre activation is part of it, CNS/neural adaptations is the other half. Doing reps to failure with 50% can activate all your muscle fibres as well, but has less effect on neural adaptations. The more excitable your CNS is the less you need to do to force adaptations, and the longer it will need to recover.[/quote]

The point I was making is that we can’t compare ourselves to him because he is at another level. Our technique is nowhere near as proficient so we can’t assume that all of our training is efficient and contributing as much to our 1RM.

Doing a rep at 50% doesn’t ensure you’re firing some specific amount of muscle fibers. I can do a rep at 50% and engage mainly my erectors, quads and hams or I can do it while creating tension in my entire torso, hip flexors, glutes, quads and hams. These are measurements we can’t take. When I say efficiency, I’m referring to the total amount of muscles being contracted and also the degree in which it is being contracted throughout the entire body. Of course these muscles should be working in sync as well. Quantity and quality of muscle contraction are both important.

25

[quote]lift206 wrote:
In all the programs I have ever seen, the programs optimize strength gains by modulating between volume and intensity - it doesn’t have to be extreme but just a noticeable change along the spectrum. With the bulgarian method, a lifter can always emphasize a bit more volume and less intensity or a bit more intensity and less volume. Any program can be customized to an individual’s needs. The importance of volume and intensity should be understood for all programs. The answer for arguments of this vs. that almost always lie along a spectrum and is different for all individuals.[/quote]
I mostly agree with you, but the Bulgarian method is all about max singles. You can add volume, but there is no way to add intensity. My point here is that for the majority of lifters the Bulgarian method is not a standalone program for the rest of their lifting career, or even for the next 6-12 months. When you look at other successful training systems like RTS or Sheiko the volume only decreases when peaking for a meet, there are low stress days or weeks but the overall trend is upwards. According to Mike Israetel, you can avoid that to some degree by doing drastically different blocks of training. Training at 60-75% for a month or two won’t make you weaker, and neither will training at 75-85% make you lose muscle mass. I have yet to test this myself, but it looks like this is the way around plateaus and prevents you from wasting months or years getting nowhere.

26

[quote]lift206 wrote:

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
I’m not looking for an argument, more like a debate if anything. My point with Adam Ramzy is that he is using relatively high total volume and frequency, if more advanced lifters needed less volume then his training wouldn’t make any sense. He benches 5-6 days a week, I don’t know what his max is but he posted a video where he was benching about 500 for a triple in his shirt.

Muscle fibre activation is part of it, CNS/neural adaptations is the other half. Doing reps to failure with 50% can activate all your muscle fibres as well, but has less effect on neural adaptations. The more excitable your CNS is the less you need to do to force adaptations, and the longer it will need to recover.[/quote]

The point I was making is that we can’t compare ourselves to him because he is at another level. Our technique is nowhere near as proficient so we can’t assume that all of our training is efficient and contributing as much to our 1RM.

Doing a rep at 50% doesn’t ensure you’re firing some specific amount of muscle fibers. I can do a rep at 50% and engage mainly my erectors, quads and hams or I can do it while creating tension in my entire torso, hip flexors, glutes, quads and hams. These are measurements we can’t take. When I say efficiency, I’m referring to the total amount of muscles being contracted and also the degree in which it is being contracted throughout the entire body. Of course these muscles should be working in sync as well. Quantity and quality of muscle contraction are both important.[/quote]

Well, when you go to failure all or nearly all fibres should be activated. But the movement pattern won’t be the same either, that’s what you call intermuscular coordination. That’s why Abadjiev was all about going to a max, otherwise you don’t use the same movement pattern and in weightlifting you also have to accelerate the bar through a larger ROM when you put more weight on it. I see this as being more applicable to weightlifting because they rarely do more than 3 reps for snatch or c&j, we can get away with more reps.

27

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
I mostly agree with you, but the Bulgarian method is all about max singles. You can add volume, but there is no way to add intensity. My point here is that for the majority of lifters the Bulgarian method is not a standalone program for the rest of their lifting career, or even for the next 6-12 months. When you look at other successful training systems like RTS or Sheiko the volume only decreases when peaking for a meet, there are low stress days or weeks but the overall trend is upwards. According to Mike Israetel, you can avoid that to some degree by doing drastically different blocks of training. Training at 60-75% for a month or two won’t make you weaker, and neither will training at 75-85% make you lose muscle mass. I have yet to test this myself, but it looks like this is the way around plateaus and prevents you from wasting months or years getting nowhere.[/quote]

Yeah, I see what you mean that hitting a true daily max would be difficult to sustain over the long term. Sometimes it can take awhile to learn when and when not to push. IMO, people only need to stick to a program exactly as outlined for around 3-4 months before making modifications to suit their needs if the gains stop. It’s good that you still learned about how to make it work for yourself in case you were to do it again.

I think that’s the important thing about programs and trying out new things. Sometimes things don’t work but instead of focusing on the fact that it didn’t work, it seems better to focus on understanding what part did and didn’t work and why.

I honestly still don’t know how effective Sheiko is after running two full 3 month cycles on it last year. I didn’t make gains but my technique was so shitty that I can’t give an honest assessment of it. I did make gains two years ago when I still wore flat shoes and relied more on my hips before switching to Oly shoes. But when using flat shoes I didn’t use my abs and lats correctly. In the past there have been so many other factors on top of the programming. Technique itself is a variable and I think of it as a knockdown factor applied to the volume.

The misunderstanding I’ve seen is when someone that isn’t very technically efficient think they are (me in the past) or when technically efficient lifters assume that it’s easy for people to become technically efficient. I do believe the majority of people can increase their efficiency but they have to understand what’s going on and learn to train for it. People are too fixated on the programming when what’s going on inside their body is likely more important.

28

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
Well, when you go to failure all or nearly all fibres should be activated. But the movement pattern won’t be the same either, that’s what you call intermuscular coordination. That’s why Abadjiev was all about going to a max, otherwise you don’t use the same movement pattern and in weightlifting you also have to accelerate the bar through a larger ROM when you put more weight on it. I see this as being more applicable to weightlifting because they rarely do more than 3 reps for snatch or c&j, we can get away with more reps. [/quote]

This is where we’ll have to agree to disagree with our assumptions. When going to failure, you’re assuming all muscles in the body go to failure. IMO, the only muscles that have a possibility of failing are the ones being used and not ones that are inactive.

From my point of view, it could be the strongest or weakest muscle depending on what you define as technical breakdown. If I depend only on my erectors, hams and quads when squatting and my chest caves because my erectors can no longer take the load, the strongest muscle in my torso has failed. Take note that my glutes, hip flexors, lats and abs are inactive (there is some activity but small compared to its potential) so these muscles are neither strong nor weak since they aren’t really being utilized. If I depend on my erectors, lats, abs, hip flexors, glutes, hams and quads and I just started learning to use my glutes but it gave out, my weakest muscle has failed.

IMO a lifter’s stabilization muscles should never be the limiting factor if it’s trained adequately through time-under-tension throughout the entire training cycle. Many of the top lifters have left us this clue by telling us to “maintain full body tension” or “treat light weight like it’s heavy and heavy weight like it’s light”. They just never explained the details of it and how to go about training for months to achieve that point. The primary movers will always do work but you have to make the stabilizers do work.

29

[quote]lift206 wrote:

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
Well, when you go to failure all or nearly all fibres should be activated. But the movement pattern won’t be the same either, that’s what you call intermuscular coordination. That’s why Abadjiev was all about going to a max, otherwise you don’t use the same movement pattern and in weightlifting you also have to accelerate the bar through a larger ROM when you put more weight on it. I see this as being more applicable to weightlifting because they rarely do more than 3 reps for snatch or c&j, we can get away with more reps. [/quote]

This is where we’ll have to agree to disagree with our assumptions. When going to failure, you’re assuming all muscles in the body go to failure. IMO, the only muscles that have a possibility of failing are the ones being used and not ones that are inactive.

From my point of view, it could be the strongest or weakest muscle depending on what you define as technical breakdown. If I depend only on my erectors, hams and quads when squatting and my chest caves because my erectors can no longer take the load, the strongest muscle in my torso has failed. Take note that my glutes, hip flexors, lats and abs are inactive (there is some activity but small compared to its potential) so these muscles are neither strong nor weak since they aren’t really being utilized. If I depend on my erectors, lats, abs, hip flexors, glutes, hams and quads and I just started learning to use my glutes but it gave out, my weakest muscle has failed.

IMO a lifter’s stabilization muscles should never be the limiting factor if it’s trained adequately through time-under-tension throughout the entire training cycle. Many of the top lifters have left us this clue by telling us to “maintain full body tension” or “treat light weight like it’s heavy and heavy weight like it’s light”. They just never explained the details of it and how to go about training for months to achieve that point. The primary movers will always do work but you have to make the stabilizers do work.[/quote]

There is no question that only the muscles actually being use can fail, otherwise you would be laying on the ground anytime you failed a rep.

30

[quote]chris_ottawa wrote:
There is no question that only the muscles actually being use can fail, otherwise you would be laying on the ground anytime you failed a rep.
[/quote]

I guess I can use an analogy to provide a better understanding. When analyzing column beams, the failure mode is typically column buckling (instability) instead of compressive stress, which means the material has not actually failed. There are three ways to increase the failure load: 1) Increase moment of inertia by adding more material, 2) Increase moment of inertia by rearranging material further away from the centroid (while keeping in mind crippling or local buckling failure mode), 3) Increase the stiffness of the material.

When looking at the human body while lifting weights, the bones are under compression and muscles are under tension so it is more complex. All the muscles do are either provide movement through leverages about the joints or provide stability (dynamic and static). For the human body, the instability can cause loss of positioning which then overloads some group of muscles to failure. The muscle failure is thought to be the weakness when sometimes it’s the instability that lead to that point. Increasing the total amount of muscle recruitment is like adding more material to increase moment of inertia to increase stability. Strengthening our muscles is similar to increasing the stiffness of the material.

I am not saying that stability is the most important aspect of strength because you still need strong primary movers to do the actual moving. I am saying that stability is very important and should not be overlooked to become as strong as possible. I’ll leave it at that since we’ve gone pretty far off topic.