Westside for Olympic Lifting

Training Powerlifting
121

[quote]jimmyjames wrote:
That’s was your experience with Abadjiev?

When Caleb came back from training with
them he brought back a program, it was literally what I typed above (except squatting first and I simplified it for the sake of keeping the post condensed).

11 to 12 sessions a week (the 2nd session on saturday was “optional”) and control sessions 2-3x a week. Obviously you don’t hit a new PR 3x a week, but you work up with the intent of hitting one. If you miss a weight (say at 98%), you take several attempts at that until you get it. Then you either go for a PR or try to hit the same weight again.

Obviously, if in any other session you feel like you have it, you go for a PR.

The program also contained info on peaking and unload weeks, both of which basically consisted of dropping the volume of maximal attempts and allowing less missed attempts.[/quote]

Actually, I miscounted the training sessions…it was 9 sessions per week, however, I did hear that every training session could be a double at some point as the lifter adapted.

To be honest, I never got the same answer from anyone with regards to what the exact workout is. It appears that what they did and what it actually is may be two different things even though they’re probably more similar than dis-similar. Kraitchev would say one thing with regards to numbers and Donny and Martin would say something different.

I’ve heard the pre-contest prep can vary depending on the lifter and qualification, but it sounds like they start backing off reps, intensity, and sessions, about 3 weeks out. I heard that Boevski would start to back off about 5 weeks out. What’s interesting is that they’re supposed to be backed off to like 80% a week out or so, but I saw Donnie going heavier than that a week out IIRC.

122

[quote]Dominator wrote:

Abadjiev is writing or has written a book and it’s being translated by people here right now. It’s supposed to be released at some point, but I haven’t heard anything concrete as far as a date.

[/quote]

YES. That’s awesome. I have heard nothing of this so I hope you haven’t gotten my hopes up for nothing.

Thanks Jimmy, I love looking at detailed programs. What I really wish I had are the actual training logs of elite lifters from day 1 until retirement. I would become a hermit reading them.

123

[quote]I’ve heard the pre-contest prep can vary depending on the lifter and qualification, but it sounds like they start backing off reps, intensity, and sessions, about 3 weeks out. I heard that Boevski would start to back off about 5 weeks out. What’s interesting is that they’re supposed to be backed off to like 80% a week out or so, but I saw Donnie going heavier than that a week out IIRC.

[/quote]

Abadjiev says that the number of training sessions is decreased before a competition but not the weight at Americanweightlifting.org. “Competition level” weights are used even in the competition week. That actually makes sense to me; if you’re using those weights week in and week out and handling them fine, why lower the weight? Let the decrease in training sessions be your rest.

124

[quote]Yoda-x wrote:
Abadjiev says that the number of training sessions is decreased before a competition but not the weight at Americanweightlifting.org. “Competition level” weights are used even in the competition week. That actually makes sense to me; if you’re using those weights week in and week out and handling them fine, why lower the weight? Let the decrease in training sessions be your rest.[/quote]

That’s right. If you drop the intensity, you come out of the adapted state. But it’s not only a decrease in sessions, it’s also a decrease of number of maximal attempts and missed lifts.

125

[quote]Yoda-x wrote:
I’ve heard the pre-contest prep can vary depending on the lifter and qualification, but it sounds like they start backing off reps, intensity, and sessions, about 3 weeks out. I heard that Boevski would start to back off about 5 weeks out. What’s interesting is that they’re supposed to be backed off to like 80% a week out or so, but I saw Donnie going heavier than that a week out IIRC.

Abadjiev says that the number of training sessions is decreased before a competition but not the weight at Americanweightlifting.org. “Competition level” weights are used even in the competition week. That actually makes sense to me; if you’re using those weights week in and week out and handling them fine, why lower the weight? Let the decrease in training sessions be your rest.[/quote]

See, this is where I think lifter qualification varies…

Donny absolutely was lifting at a very high intensity a week out or so. That said, I know a guy that trained with Boevski during his brief visit here to the states, and he said he rarely lifted over 80%-85% 10 days or so out before a meet.

It’s possible that’s just what worked for Boevski and wasn’t part of the “system” so to speak.

126

Chakarov didn’t seem to train that heavy close to competition either. Again, he was a freak, so he may have been another special case.

I did think it was pretty interesting that sometimes they’d spend 2 hours on the lifts. That seems like the complete opposite of how he had them lifting when he was in Bulgaria, when they’d get 3 or 4 95-100% lifts done in 15 minutes including warmups. More rest now? Smaller jumps? Americans not as badass?

127

[quote]Dominator wrote:

See, this is where I think lifter qualification varies…

Donny absolutely was lifting at a very high intensity a week out or so. That said, I know a guy that trained with Boevski during his brief visit here to the states, and he said he rarely lifted over 80%-85% 10 days or so out before a meet.

It’s possible that’s just what worked for Boevski and wasn’t part of the “system” so to speak.
[/quote]

Yeah, I think this is where people start to get too bogged down in the details. The truth is - just because the exercise selection is limited and there’s a constant focus on “competition level weights” doesn’t mean there’s no individualization. Every lifter who’s trained under Abadjiev has had an individualized program based on their needs.

When I taper for a meet, I usually don’t go over my opener within 10 days. That being said, more than once I’ve hit PR’s 7 days out and then beat those PR’s on the platform.

In my experience, the reason why keeping the intensity high is effective for peaking is because the decrease in volume/frequency is the closest thing your body gets to rest on this system.

I go into meets feeling refreshed and strong with confidence in my capabilities. In 9 competitions, I’ve PR’d on the platform almost every time and I’ve never bombed out, so something’s working.

I should say, though, that I wouldn’t start training this way if you have a competition within 2 months. Your body will take time to adjust and, until you adapt, you won’t be seeing the benefits of the system. The first 2-4 weeks in particular are really rough.

Once you get through that, though, it’s like you’re a more optimal version of yourself. Before doing an actual competition, it’s a very good idea to stage a mock competition for yourself (tapering and all) to get a feel for how your body has adapted.

128

I’ve got to say that all this information seems pretty dubious to me. I flat out do not believe that anyone could, with less than 2 years experience, lift 90%+ on the snatch, c&j and front squat 12 times a week with much, if any, success. “Overtraining” shouldn’t be put in quotes - I’ve seen more experienced athletes in the sport overtrain easily with far less work. Its not just an issue of ‘sleeping enough/eating right’, either.

Moreover, someone new to the sport still needs time to work on their form. You just don’t work on your form at 90%+. All your bad habits come out at those types of weight. Top level lifters from other countries (like Bulgaria) could do this because their form was already impeccable when they got to that level.

I think making the recommendation of working at maximal weights all the time to anyone outside of the most experienced athletes is irresponsible. It takes a highly skilled coach to write a program at that intensity that won’t just rip an athlete to shreds. It takes years to prepare to handle something like that. Moreover, newer athletes do need things like push presses, snatch balances, pulls, block work, etc. Its time they need to focus on their form, to fix flaws in their strength, and in general, to learn to lift.

As for “America is weaker”… Shane Hammon had just as big of a back squat as anyone around the world, yet he wasn’t that competitive in the supers. Its more of a technique issue - Kendrick is c&j’ing 200+, yet snatching 160 when the top guys in his class are snatching 180, cleaning 210. Its not his strength or else his clean would be further down.

There are a lot of reasons why America is not overly competitive these days. There’s no money in the sport. Simple. Why be a weightlifter when, if you are that talented, you could make money elsewhere? There’s no interest in/publicity for the sport. Very little of our talent learns about it in time to be good. The sport is heavily tested in the country. No brainer.

In China, the government backs the sports, recruits for it, etc. There are huge incentives to do well. Here… if you win the Olympic gold in weightlifting, you are lucky to get a wheaties box out of it. People actually look down on the sport here because they associate it with bodybuilding in this country.

129

^^actually that’s the only way to work on your form imo. 80% feels WAY different than 90% which is why Louie’s recommendation of form work with 50-70% weight imo is kinda bunk imo.

If you clean 225lbs you can pull 112lbs (50%) almost with one damn hand. If I tried pulling 50% of my max with the same force it requires to pull my max I’d throw that shit through the ceiling.

just a small point, im sure someone else can debate with you a lot more eloquently… but that point just stuck out at me. I do agree though, someone new needs to prep a lot differently.

130

Dr. Manhattan,

You bring up a lot of good points. It’s true that there are many reasons for America’s inferiority, but I do believe that lack of strength is one of them. I’m in no way diminishing the importance of technique, but I’ve seen plenty of American lifters with great technique. As far as strength goes, Hammon and Farris are exceptions, but neither one of them are great technicians.

Regarding new lifters, I’m not suggesting that beginners should train 12x a week at maximal intensities - they definately need to build a solid base and develop sufficient technique before taking this approach. That being said, I think focusing on the lifts and squatting should be there main focus. If they have a glaring weakness in a portion of a lift, yeah they need to address it with specific assistant lifts, but I think if I would have spent less time in my first year doing pulls, presses, etc. and more time on the proper execution of the full lifts, I’d be further along than I am now.

As far as “overtraining” goes - it hit me hard once. Ironically, it was in my first year when I was utilizing a more “Russian” approach with a wider exercise selection and training only 4x a week. I should also note that I experienced DOMS frequently while training this way. Since adopting the Bulgarian system, I have not experienced either of these phenomena.

Concerning not believing that this system works, I was right there with you. It went against everything I had learned and been taught. Then one day it hit me that the majority of the world champions had used this approach, so I decided to give it a shot. After trying it first hand, I can tell you I (and others around me) have made, and continue to make, great progress.

As far as technique breaking down at 90%, that’s the exact point where my technique would break down when I trained in the more traditional manner. Now it breaks down at around 97%. The fact that I do the lifts all the time has allowed me to improve my technique vastly. Also, because I’m constantly touching heavier weights, I’m simply more comfortable with them.

I have to say that I disagree that it takes years to prepare for training this way. Assuming you’ve already built a solid base and have good technique and no major weaknesses, I would say it takes months at the most. By the way, if you have not tried this approach, you should give it a shot. Add two sessions a week every two weeks keeping the added sessions at 80-85%. Once you’ve been doing 10-12 sessions for a few weeks, up the added sessions to 90% and go from there.

Now, I won’t glamorize the system - it’s not pleasant. It challenges you in a big way, especially pschologically. But if you’re willing to stick it out, you’ll see results. Hell, you may even get your picture on the Wheaties box. Or more likely, a McDonalds wrapper.

131

My only question, at least for beginners when training with this system, is why does the Russian data (for beginners and low class athletes) say that 90% lifts are less effective than 80% lifts? The Russians did experiments where their lifters trained at 50-60%, 70-80%, 80-90% primarily in 3 different groups, and the 80% lifts beat the other two groups every time.

This was true even for Candidates for Master of Sport and Masters of Sport. They do mention that at the highest levels, when results stop, volume is lowered and intensity increased to improve results. But ONLY after like year 8 of training or later. That is the main reason I believe Abadjiev’s system is really only for the elite.

Also, the Russians do NOT use that many exercises (23) for beginners and low class althetes (through class 2). The vast majority are the lifts, lifts off blocks, jerks, pulls, and squats. The first 3-4 years of training are to perfect technique. Interstingly, Medvedyev does say that class 2 and class 1 lifters (where both Jimmy and I are at) have the highest tolerance for 90% lifts of any class, probably because the weight is light enough not to be extremely stressful but technique is good enough not to break down too much. He uses a lot of them in order for these athletes to perfect form at 90% where it is most applicable. After that the number of 90% lifts decreases over time and classification as the athlete focuses on strengthening the entire body through many assistance lifts.

132

[quote]Dr. Manhattan wrote:
I’ve got to say that all this information seems pretty dubious to me. I flat out do not believe that anyone could, with less than 2 years experience, lift 90%+ on the snatch, c&j and front squat 12 times a week with much, if any, success. “Overtraining” shouldn’t be put in quotes - I’ve seen more experienced athletes in the sport overtrain easily with far less work. Its not just an issue of ‘sleeping enough/eating right’, either.

Moreover, someone new to the sport still needs time to work on their form. You just don’t work on your form at 90%+. All your bad habits come out at those types of weight. Top level lifters from other countries (like Bulgaria) could do this because their form was already impeccable when they got to that level.

I think making the recommendation of working at maximal weights all the time to anyone outside of the most experienced athletes is irresponsible. It takes a highly skilled coach to write a program at that intensity that won’t just rip an athlete to shreds. It takes years to prepare to handle something like that. Moreover, newer athletes do need things like push presses, snatch balances, pulls, block work, etc. Its time they need to focus on their form, to fix flaws in their strength, and in general, to learn to lift.

As for “America is weaker”… Shane Hammon had just as big of a back squat as anyone around the world, yet he wasn’t that competitive in the supers. Its more of a technique issue - Kendrick is c&j’ing 200+, yet snatching 160 when the top guys in his class are snatching 180, cleaning 210. Its not his strength or else his clean would be further down.

There are a lot of reasons why America is not overly competitive these days. There’s no money in the sport. Simple. Why be a weightlifter when, if you are that talented, you could make money elsewhere? There’s no interest in/publicity for the sport. Very little of our talent learns about it in time to be good. The sport is heavily tested in the country. No brainer.

In China, the government backs the sports, recruits for it, etc. There are huge incentives to do well. Here… if you win the Olympic gold in weightlifting, you are lucky to get a wheaties box out of it. People actually look down on the sport here because they associate it with bodybuilding in this country.
[/quote]

With regards to lifters training this style with less than 2 years experience, I can tell you that I saw a 14 year old Bulgarian kid start out under this system. I’m pretty sure he only trained once per day during the week because of school and possibly trained twice a day on the weekends. I hadn’t seen him for roughly 6-8 months, saw him a few weeks back and I want to say that he added about 30-40Kg to his total.

It can be done. If I recall he trained a little differently too. After working up, I’m pretty sure he’d work back down and do some doubles to work on his technique. I also remember seeing him doing presses and good mornings as well.

As far as Americans being weak, as a whole they’re weak. Shane was an anomaly, and had he had more years in Weightlifting, he may have been a few places higher. However, if you talk with the coaches at the OTC, they were frustrated with how weak lazy Shane had become, and one of the coaches told me that his squat max at that time was in the 275Kg range…that’s a far cry from squatting a grand years earlier! Granted, he doesn’t need to have the ability to squat that much, but I think it sort of puts it in perspective.

That said, as you pointed out, we don’t have our best athletes lifting weights like other countries, however, the sport of Powerlifting isn’t struggling as far as US dominance goes. I know it’s not an apples to apples comparison, but it’s worth mentioning.

A very big problem with why the US doesn’t have betters lifters competing is that they do a terrible job encourage younger lifters into the sport. I saw a video of a HS Powerlifting competition between schools in Texas…there was probably 500 kids (boys and girls) competing, all raw! I’d bet that they get 10% retention from that and maybe more.

You’d be hard pressed to find kids of that age at a USAW sanctioned meet to outnumber the amount of fingers on two hands. We can argue that kids want to play sports where there’s more of a chance to get paid, but clearly the sport of Powerlifting and other like Wrestling don’t have nearly the same troubles encouraging athletes into participation, and they clearly aren’t money sports.

133

[quote]Yoda-x wrote:
My only question, at least for beginners when training with this system, is why does the Russian data (for beginners and low class athletes) say that 90% lifts are less effective than 80% lifts? The Russians did experiments where their lifters trained at 50-60%, 70-80%, 80-90% primarily in 3 different groups, and the 80% lifts beat the other two groups every time.[/quote]

Training at 80% is great for beginners developing technique or for general athletecism. The problem is this: 80% feels totally different than 90% or 95% or 102%. Personally, I want to be as proficient at handling these weights as possible.

The Bulgarians (and many of the countries that have adopted the system) start their athletes training this way after only a few years and it seems to work pretty well for them

[quote]
Also, the Russians do NOT use that many exercises (23) for beginners and low class althetes (through class 2). The vast majority are the lifts, lifts off blocks, jerks, pulls, and squats. The first 3-4 years of training are to perfect technique. Interstingly, Medvedyev does say that class 2 and class 1 lifters (where both Jimmy and I are at) have the highest tolerance for 90% lifts of any class, probably because the weight is light enough not to be extremely stressful but technique is good enough not to break down too much. He uses a lot of them in order for these athletes to perfect form at 90% where it is most applicable. [/quote]

Considering I use 5-6 exercises, 23 exercises seems like a lot to me. I do agree that 90% is less stressful on lifters who are just starting out, however I would not put myself in that class. I by no means consider myself an advanced lifter nor do I believe my lifts are impressive, but I sn over 1.25x bw and cj more than 1.5x bw. I think at that point, 90% is stressful. I believe the weight is “light enough not to be extremely stressful” when you’re snatching around bw or lower.

[quote]
After that the number of 90% lifts decreases over time and classification as the athlete focuses on strengthening the entire body through many assistance lifts.[/quote]

This I don’t understand, I would think if anything you would need less assistance lifts and more 90%+ training as you become more advanced. Assuming you didn’t have any major weakness, why would you use more assistance exercises? You’ve already built a solid base.

I forget who came up with this formula, but I’m a firm believer in it as it applies to anything:

specificity + frequency = success

You get better at doing the lifts by doing the lifts. Beyond that, squats (and maybe pulls and rack jerks if needed) are more than enough to “strengthen the entire body”.

134

goddamn this thread is fucking fascinating lol.

135

[quote]Xen Nova wrote:
goddamn this thread is fucking fascinating lol.

[/quote]

Yeah, sort of parallels the actual battle between Russia and Bulgaria.

I should say that the important thing is that we’re all weightlifters and we’re all supporting this great sport.

136

I’m just quoting Russian data and Medvedyev’s interpretation of it. The “23 lifts” count things like “power clean above knees” and “power clean bel. knees” as separate lifts so it’s not like their doing cable crossovers and tricep kickbacks. Basically, every possible variation of the lifts is classified as a “different” exercise, so it’s really not THAT far from doing primarily the lifts and squats (although there are a lot of pulls in the Russian programs).

In the end both work so it’s kind of a moot point. Russia holds the all time greatest clean and jerk, Bulgaria the all time snatch.

Jerked 130 yesterday, finally.

137

I would just like to point out that no lifter from the Bulgarian system (no matter the country) won a gold medal at the olympics this year and only one won gold a medal at Worlds in 2007 (Stoitsov). I understand Bulgaria and Greece were not present, but realistically they were not threats even if they were present. Bulgaria’s results are inversely correlated with drug testing. The higher the drug testing frequency, the lower the results of Bulgaria while other countries are still lifting very big weights (Belarus, Kazakhstan, China, Russia among others).

I tried what you do for 3 weeks except I only trained 4 days a week 2x a day and the depression was too much so I went back to a different method. I still train twice a day unless tapering for a meet but just different methods.

How do you expect your total to continue increasing without the use of banned substances for 5 years by doing the same thing every single day? I’m not against the system if you are using drugs or you are an elite athlete trying to get better at consistently lifting your maximum while adding ~5-10kg to each lift, but for developmental purposes without the use of drugs it is an unproven system.

I have read Naim’s biography a number of times and even though he trained this way from a young age, he was also on drugs since the age of 13 as you can note by the instant exponential increase in his total chart over the course of two years beginning from what I believe the age of 13 and concluding at the age of 15 ( age is off the top of my head, i believe it is the last page in the book)… I’m sure someone would argue puberty in his defense but lets be real here, no successful bulgarian lifter has been clean.

Also, Caleb is a piss poor example of it being a successful system. He was already a world record holder in powerlifting in the squat so it would make sense that only training the lifts would improve them in relation to his already high general strength. However, the system is not proven for lifters who need to develop that strength and fill out their weight class.

I like the principles and ideas behind the Bulgarian system as I have spent ample time researching it. I even bought into it for a long time. Then I started to read R.A. Roman’s book where in 1970-something he basically accurately predicted the future course of elite weightlifting (how only Snatch, CJ and FS could be used to train the elite lifters). However, weightlifting should be viewed as an education, as the Chinese also believe. You need to develop the organism over the course of many years to reach that elite level. The training should be designed to address the needs of the athlete. For example: If you are light for your weight class and a relative beginner why would you do only CNS work and not be able to add any support muscle to your frame? However, if you are 5’7" 87kg and lean, it would make more sense to spend your time on CNS heavy training in order to maximize the muscle and CNS you have. It is not easy to put on 5-10kg of quality muscle doing bodybuilding rep ranges (i am not advocating bodybuilding rep ranges for weightlifting, just an example), yet you want to try to develop muscle by only doing singles and occasional doubles in the quick lifts and without drugs? I don’t see logic there.

Another example- Ilya Ilin was trained on the Russian system as a kid. However, in the past couple of years the Kazakh team has been influenced by Enver Turkileri (the coach of Naim and good friend of Ivan Abadjiev) and adopted some bulgarian/turkish influence. He was already an elite international lifter by the time this change took place. His performance has still increased slightly but the percentage of his total the came from this training is small.

I have a feeling that without the aid of about 500mgs of test a week you will soon come to that realization that weightlifting is an education that progresses over the course of years.

138

Bomber,
I do appreciate the notion that weightlifting is an education. I learn something new every day. One thing I have learned is that this system works for me - I continue to get stronger and my technique continues to improve after almost a year of training this way. Until the day that progress halts, I will continue to train this way. As far as reaching my goals in 5 years without drugs, I guess will see. On average I add 1 to 2.5kg to each lift, every month. I believe I can continue to make this kind of progress without the assistance of drugs.

139

1-2kg per month on a lift is precisely the amount you should be adding at your level of training. Roman’s book outlines the progress of an elite lifter from day 1, and for the first 5-7 years or so that is the progress expected. This will cut in half several times over the last few years of training (8-10) until you reach your true peak, at which point high level performance is maintained as long as possible.

Thanks for mentioning that because it shows me the most important thing about that type of training (at your level, which based on your weight class is the same as mine - I’ve done 105/127 at 85kg). The thing is, based on the fact that you’re progressing precisely as Roman suggests you should be, there is no reason to undergo a Bulgarian style approach to training as this stage in your career (because Roman trained his athletes 3-5x/week, very rarely using maximal loads).

So this leads me to my hypothesis: your training is optimal for you, although unnecessarily frequent (I believe you could make the same progress by training every other day). Therefore, in my opinion, the Russian system is probably BETTER than the Bulgarian for lower class athletes (just for your info, I plugged your numbers and weight into the Siff Score Excel spreadsheet about found you were class 2, same as me) because the Russian system requires less training time to make the same progress.

It should be an interesting experiment to see how our numbers compare each time I test at max weight (which is less frequently than you, obviously). I train every other day.

140

Lots of good info, Yoda. In a few weeks I’ll start posting my training log.

Lift strong