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Performance Area => Article & Video Discussion => Topic started by: kbm12345 on November 24, 2010, 10:24:01 am
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Just some stuff i have saved over the year ppl might be interested in, il try post a new article every day or so:
This first one is by average joes gym, he trains the strongest teenager in the world, he came on bb.com for a bit and answered everyones questions in ridic detail.
I am familiar with his program. I have a LOT of issues with it.
1) Lunges suck and I think are very dangerous. When you go heavy,fast or simply aren't perfectly strict you have a tendency to push hard and because of the deep split you push off to one side and lean to the opposite as a reflex to get up. I have witnessed many people injure a knee doing this (including my wife - who refused to listen, snuck off to the "ladies only" section. She split her meniscus and I had to carry her to the hospital from the gym. She was out of commission for 4 months and 5 yrs later her knee is still jacked) Lunging down is NOT a natural way for the human body to lift. Do you ever see kids lunging down to grab something? It's an unnecessary risk with little benefit. That is the classic definition of dumb. You wanna stretch the quads? kneel down and lean back. This is a much better stretch. It stretches the quad more from the hip and not as much from the knee.
2) Jumping and plyos should be left to jumpers and track athletes who needs to jump. As a lifter we don't need that additional stress put on any joints. save the stress and energy for training.
3) %'s don't work. Plain and simple. How many times have you had to go in and hit a max but you didn't sleep well, feel under the weather etc. but have to lift a designated amount of weight? Conversely, how many times do you feel great but are only allowed to go to 65-75% when you really feel like you could hit a PR that day? It's hard enough to peak at a meet a few times a year and feel like you are prepared to hit weights that are pre-determined. How can you possibly do it every workout, every lift? simple - you can't.
4) The more often you attempt max, the more opportunities you are giving yourself to feel what max feels like, make max attempts, hit PR's, and it builds confidence. Eventually max is usual and as routine as walking down the street. Every morning I would squat at least 220 (usually more, but that was my "minimum" I HAD to do regardless of how I felt) like clockwork. I could do it just as easy as walking to my car to drive home. Pat is currently doing 250 every morning. It is so routine that at any given time, night or day 7 days/wk he would be able to do it without even blinking.
*****5) NOT training everyday leads to more injuries! IF you train everyday then your entire body is fatigued. Muscles, tendons, cartilage, ligaments, etc. When you train every other day, then the muscles and avascular tissues don't recover at the same pace. What happens is the muscles become fresh and recover but all the connective tissue is NOT. When the additional stress put on these weakened tissues (that never really got a chance to recover) by fresh muscles = injury. Lifting everyday keeps everything in a state that is equal and consistent within the system. A balance or harmony within. The fatigued muscles can't contract enough to harm the other tissues. The weak link moves from body part to body part, and in a sense is not letting the other parts max so that's when they are resting!
6) The progress from this program is because of the volume. Most people don't even come close to the amount of volume that it demands in regular workouts. The progress is wrongly attributed to the %'s and reps scheme. It's not. IT's the workload.
7) The human body cycles up and down at unpredictable waves. The program can't take that into account. What if you started 5 days earlier? Would you be more successful? It is not possible to predict how you will feel and start the program at an optimum time within your own cycle to have more success. You can't succeed every workout unless the #'s were skewed from the beginning.
****8) How many opportunities for PR's did you miss out on by spending an entire year only squatting 3x/wk when you could be doing 7-14? In a entire year, just squatting once a day = 2x the volume of this program. 2x/day for 12-14 sessions a week is 400% more. That's the only % that is important!
If and When I Return, I Will Be 10x Better Than I Ever Was!
y 1,2,3,4,5,6: squat to max (best weight at perfect competiotion technique) + back off sets of minimum 3x2, upto max of 50 reps. going back upto max or beyond if the weights start to feel light enough
day 1,3,5 bench press to max (2 wide,1 close grip)+ back off sets (quantity will need some experiment because I have not tried with bench in over 10 yrs)
day 2,4,6 deadlift 2-3 x 10 sets all from floor. vary % based on positions and back health
If you are gonna train 4x/wk then day 5&6 will be in the next week.
any assistance rehab/bodybuilding such as pullups, dumbell flyes etc should follow at the end as well as grip work based on how you feel. These are optional and should be done at discresion
Most importantly- speed is ALWAYS the priority! When squatting and pulling getting up fast is soooo important, as well as the bench. Doing the press quickly to generate power is key too. going slow with light weights is a big NO NO!!
Monday - Max squats, Max bench
Tuesday - Max squats, Max Deadlift
Wed - Max squats, Max CG bench
Thurs - Max squats, Deadlift (70-85%, as long as there's gas left in the tank)
Friday - Max squats, Max bench
Sat - Max squats, Deadlift (70-85%)
iginally Posted by Neuro_Doc View Post
@crackyflipside - In the "dark times"? it's just as I said, a lot like "withdrawl"? from substance abuse. If you want the specifics, I?ll try to lay them out for you as best I can. Maybe this will clear up some of the misconceptions people like IA and his nuthuggers have over what actually happens when you lift weights. Then again, maybe monkeys will fly out of my behind...
Most people think the only part of the body to adapt to lifting are the muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc. In fact, the brain also adapts to whatever stress you put on the body. It physically changes its structure and ability to deal with chemicals which directly relate to your physical activity. If you are a runner, youll get better at making and using chemicals which deal with running. Youll also develop and affinity for extremely short shorts, politics, FOX news, granola, etc.
One thing that pissed me off about IA is his insistence that the CNS fatigues? in some way. Bulls**t. People are still taught that the nervous system runs off of electrical impulses like a power cable. It doesnt. The nerve impulses (synapses) run off of chemicals (neurotransmitters). If these chemicals are not present, there is no signal between brain and muscle. The reason you can measure electrical impulses in the nervous system is because the electrical impulse is a BYPRODUCT of this chemical reaction. Its called an electrochemical reaction.
A large part of how strong we are is the ability to create and deal with a higher concentration of these neurotransmitters. The nerves develop more receptor sites to connect with them, and the glands learn to make more of the neurotransmitters themselves. Only then do you get a stronger impulse.
When you start placing demands on the brain to lift maximum weights every day, it says "oh crap I need to learn how to make and use these chemicals or hes going to kill us". So it goes through an adaptive period where it shuts down some functions and tries to upgrade?. These are the "dark times"?.
The main chemical in muscle contraction is SEROTONIN. It actually regulates how HARD the muscle contracts, which is why only the heaviest weights seem to effect our mood, the reason why people shy away from maximal lifting and cower from the imaginary symptoms of overtraining.
Serotonin just happens to be the main feel good hormone in the body. It directly effects your mood and mental outlook, your â??happinessâ? and willingness to train. Your sleep, appetite, and also effects the cardiovascular system (your heart rate increases when you are supposedly overtrained - this is why). The serotonin cycle in the brain gets screwed up when drug addicts go into withdrawl (most recreational drugs artificially influence the serotonin pathways, which is why they are so much fun). There are other neurotransmitters which get effected by this (acetylcholine for example), but serotonin is the big one.
So, when the body receives a demand to lift heavy things on a daily basis, the brain shuts down the serotonin receptors to upgrade them. The brain structure changes take a few days to a few weeks. Changes in individual nerves happen quickly, a few days at most. This is why the dark times occur. Its the adaptive period thats needed for the brain and body to get to the next higher level. Natures little joke is obviously making us feel like crap when we are actually improving.
The body is trying to get us to stop the stress so it isnt forced to remodel the whole place, but thats exactly what you want. Thats why its so important to keep pounding away through it all. You want the greatest adaptation to take place.
Guys who are afraid of this response are guys who are lifting because they like the way it makes them feel. If you do lighter workouts, this serotonin is raised, but there is no signal to adapt. You feel â??highâ?. Basically lifting weights becomes like a drug. People feel better doing light useless workouts, just like they feel better taking a hit of crack. I think this is why no one wants to try lifting the Bulgarian way. They are addicts.
You asked me about cortisol. There are no good and bad hormones. There are only hormones specific to your physical activity. Do you know why cortisol is released in weight lifting? Cortisol controls the blood pressure and concentration of blood sugar.
With short bursts of intense lifting (singles and doubles), blood sugar is not the primary fuel. Blood sugar only becomes an issue when you are doing higher reps. Cortisol is released mainly as a way to cope with these high reps, a way to shuttle more fuel (blood sugar) into the muscle tissue by using higher blood pressure. This is one reason bodybuilders have their posing trunks in a bunch over it. Cortisol is dealt with just like serotonin. The body tries to adapt to using it, and all the bodybuilders run and scream. If they stuck with it theyd go through a response much like the â??Dark times, and theyd be able to handle more high rep sets afterwards.
In this case, cortisol is specific to the activity bodybuilders, not power or olympic lifters. Keep your reps low and you never have to worry about it. (It has nothing to do with total volume, only reps in the set.)
Thats funny what you mentioned about the Bulgarians having huge adrenals. It makes sense. They adapt by getting larger and stronger just like anything else. Thats also a great argument against limiting â??geneticsâ?. Someone else would look at normal sized adrenals and say they would obviously be overloaded by stress. The Bulgarians entire organism changed in response to their lifting. Form follows function. Awesome stuff.
The adrenals dont only release cortisol, they release adrenaline as well. Adrenaline acts as one of the triggers to this adaptive period. You should go read the lecture by Ivan Abajiev here :
- weightliftingexchange.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74&Itemi d=75
He explains this whole adaptive period and how it effects more than just the musculature. Go read the paragraphs which start with:
"So this is our aim when we are training athletes, that we would build up all those organs and muscles needed for a certain performance, not only the muscles, but the whole cardiovascular and other systems that support the working of the muscles in order for a better performance. The adaptive process however, does not only include all the lungs and the heart and the other organs that I mentioned."
So I hope I explained that all well enough. Bottom line, from a physiological standpoint - BROZ IS RIGHT. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Take care.
(p.s. - If you think maxing squats daily is tough, try typing all of this out on a phone!)
First of all I would like to thank the Weightlifting Federation for inviting me here.
This material that I have prepared here for you for today is the same material that I lectured on in front of the Greece Committee last spring. They specifically asked me to present my material because one of their athletes, Ekatarina Tanou, was using this method of training and has incredible results using this method. She was third in the world for 100 meter sprint, and last year she was one of the best white athletes, and she has been using my methods of training.
If you pay attention to what I am saying and if you think logically about what I am saying then you will see that this method is applicable to almost any sports training. We will be concentrating on weightlifting nonetheless.
I have been asking myself a question, why such countries such as Uruquay, Paraquay, Peru, not to mention Brazil, have incredible achievements in, say, football, considering that those countries do not have stable sports methods or academic sports development. And yet, they have better results in comparison to other countries like Germany or Russia, which have been studying sports as an academic for a very long time.
The other question that I have been asking myself is why such universal athletes do not exist anymore, why it is so difficult to be good in different disciplines, such as only 100 meters or jumps. These athletes who do only one discipline they do it well but it is almost impossible to be good in a lot of disciplines at the same time.
The same question is with athletes who train 10 different disciplines. They have a mediocre scale of good results. For each sport they are not at their best at one of those sports because they try to perform good in all the 10 of them which prevents them from being good at only one sport.
The fourth question that I have been asking myself is why, when observing animals, for instance, they dont have micro and macro cycles. They dont have leisure periods. They are all the time active. They dont have performance of 80% or 70%. They only have performance achievements of 100% all of the time. The way that animals prey, whatever they do, they do it their best and they do it at 100%. This is the way they survive.
And tonight I will try to answer all those questions in my lecture.
[Referring to a graphic illustration displayed on an overhead projector.]
Please forgive me for the simpleness of these examples, but every time I talk with opponents who do not share my point of view, I have found that this is a simple method of explaining the way I think and the way muscles work and this is a simple way to present it graphically although it is not an academic way.
As you can see this is a train with coaches which is performing a certain function. We can compare this to a group of muscles or to a muscle fiber which also performs some kind of duty. It also has dynamic function.
Literally there is a difference between a living organism and this machinery, and I will try to talk about that.
[Pointing to the diagram.]
The smoke indicates that this is a functioning machinery. Those are the same engines below, but they are not functioning. When this machinery is at work, it is using up its resources, energetic as well as plastic. When the resources are emptied out, then there is a signal sent to the central control unit. On its behalf, it contacts those depots which have the energy that the machine needs in order to continue working. And those depots present the necessary energy back into the machinery, they feed it back. The little ones are not active right now because they do not send a message that their resources need to be refilled and that is why they are not functioning at the moment.
[He changes to a second graphic diagrams.]
This is the reverse situation. As you can see those two smaller engines are working at the moment. It is because they have sent a signal of the need for the depots need to be refilled, and so naturally the central control unit would send water or whatever energy is needed back into them in order for them to function.
This is the precise way that a human body would function or human muscles or any living organisms muscle function. That when there is a lack of energy, there is a signal sent to the brain which, on its behalf would provide them with nitrogen and whatever else is needed for them to function (energies) through the blood circulation system. Up to here the mechanism of the way they work is absolutely identical. But the difference between the living organism and the machinery shown here is as follows.
[He points to a different portion of the second diagram.]
Now we have switched on the little trains. This is a law in organics that the function builds the organ, or, the muscle. And when they function, they form new structures. On the examples shown, they are growing. First of all -- this is the coal storage, if we are talking about the train -- so it will extend its size [indicating].
[He changes to a third graphic illustration.]
As they enlarge their size, the number of . . .
[Abadjiev leaves the projection screen and draws a circular figure on butcher paper.]
This is a human cell and in the cytoplasm there are swimming those organelles which have this shape and form. This is basically how the energy received into a cell is deformated [sic] so the cell can use the energy provided. That is why they are called energy stations of the human cell. This is where energy is formed, and in the appropriate measure, then it goes into becoming energy that the human organism needs to perform.
[He returns to the third diagram shown on the projection screen (i.e., the train diagrams).]This means that the number of those mitochondria is bigger so that the size of the whole cell will change and become bigger also. Which practically means that the more energy it receives, the more it grows, and the stronger the power of the engine will be.
Also, as well as the change of the cells and everything grows [transl.], the contacts between, in the organism, they change also, and they become faster and stronger. The quantity of blood cells is also growing, so there will be more blood provided, and they supply more oxygen. So those structures are making the muscular system stronger and bigger. But we are talking now only about living organisms, and this is the difference between this machinery and the human organism.
[Abajiev changes to a fourth diagram (also apparently illustrating the train analogy).]
As you can see, when the upper engine is not working, it reverses its size, the size is now a reverse process of what we were talking about just now, that it grows smaller if it is not activated and does not function. The minute it stops functioning, there activated a catabolic reaction, which means that the muscle would grow smaller. It will change its size.
If you were developing muscle fiber . . .[He pauses, returns to the butcher paper, and draws three illustrations of basic muscle fiber-arrangement types: smooth, parallel, and _____.]
And those are the different shapes of muscles. We have one muscle that could be one after another one, when theyre parallel, . . . this is the different types of muscles. They all have a particular function, they all react to different things. For instance, when we have slower, but heavier exercise, then those muscles [pointing to ____ fiber arrangement] are the ones that are doing the work. The ones that need speed and heaviness at the same time, then those parallel muscles are activated, because power or strength of the muscles depend on different things, different parameters.
[He draws a separate diagram and draws an elongated elliptical shape on the paper.]
The part of the muscle which is contracting is called sarcomera. The longer it is, the faster it reacts, the faster it contracts. The shorter it is, it could provide enormous strength, but for a longer period of time. And there are muscle groups that can work without oxygen provided, anaerobically. And there are those muscles who work aerobically, with oxygen.
For instance, when we have a sprinter or cross runner, this is the muscle which is activated [he points to his hip flexor/ upper outer thigh area]. This is used for running and sprinting and longer running periods. [Translator: Correcting, not sprinting before.]
[Abadjiev points to his quads.]
Those two muscles which are located on both sides of the knee, they take part when sprinting is necessary, also called out of phase muscles. They turn food into energy without using oxygen. When we are talking about longer distances, then the energy is formed using oxygen. So that the ones that are used for longer running distance, they have a bigger number of mitochondria. This is where the cycle of Krebs takes place and over 1,500 kilojoules of energy are formed.
And when we are talking about anaerobic working of the muscles, then we are talking about 60% less production of those mitochondria from the same amount of energy. So in the longer period, when we look at different training muscles, there are different muscles that are used for different groups and they are the ones who change their size accordingly to the training system.
[Abadjiev returns to the train diagram on the projection screen.]
That is why when we change, when we are not lifting weights, when we are doing something else . . . if we say that on the upper picture the engine is the one that is used to lift weights, if we do something else not lifting weights we are using other muscle groups, in another exercise not weightlifting, those are the muscles that are being contracted.
So naturally those ones on the lower picture, they start changing their size, or there is a growing process. And there is a theory of priority in the energy supply of the human body, so naturally those, not the one on the upper picture, but those two will have the priority of getting energy and stimulation.
So we have used this system when weightlifters have done other exercises, not only weightlifting. For instance, I saw here that some of your trainers do jumps with weights. Which means that immediately the energy supplies for those muscles will be activated, the ones that are necessary for a jump to be performed, which means that there will be energy taken from the basic muscles needed in weightlifting.
And it is not only the matter of the muscle itself growing, but it is the connections and the blood vessels which supply it with needed energy, they change their form and shape too. So then, if we go back to doing the same exercise, which is shown on the upper picture, then it wouldnt be as easy for it to get energy anymore. And those are physiologically proven right, that the mechanism works precisely this way. Respectable biologists and physiologists have proven that this is right. As it is proved also that when we have, when there is new proteins and the muscles are growing and protein is developed [pointing to the lower part of the diagram, depicting muscles trained on non-weightlifting exercises] and what have you then it is at the same moment that the muscles on the upper picture [those used for weightlifting] begin shrinking.
So if we concentrate our energy onto other exercises, then it means that the creative process of the muscle needed in weightlifting will be stopped, which means that in a longer period of time it will not be as easy to develop into its original shape anymore, or size.
And afterward if we were to use those smaller muscle groups for weightlifting, it means that it will not be easy for those organs to be adapted in order to perform in the way a weightlifter would want it to. They too need oxygen. Somebody has to supply the oxygen.
So naturally making their demand for oxygen, they are sending a signal to the central control unit, and then it goes into the cardiovascular system, and so it is activated, and it starts supplying energy back into the muscles. We start breathing more frequently. The whole breathing process is activated. This means that with the new situation, if we take for instance that the triangle is the lungs [indicating on diagram], new creative processes would start developing in the lungs, and also the muscle controlling the lung function. And naturally in the lungs, the number of alveoles, they become bigger, they increase their size, in order to supply the oxygen into those new muscles, they have changed their size as well.
So does the heart, the heartbeat is activated also. It also changes its structures in order to change its capacity. With the other, for instance on a human leg, the muscles will not change their number, but it is proven in the heart for instance that there could be muscle structure changes that produce new muscle, and their size and shape also is changed. Which means that with a single heartbeat, the amount of blood thrust out of the heart is bigger. Which will result in more blood going up to the muscles. They will make the creative and the energetic levels higher. All those performing muscles which take part in the performance or function, they all need to adapt to the new situation, they change their size, their density of working, which is a chain of changes in the human organism.
So this is our aim when we are training athletes, that we would build up all those organs and muscles needed for a certain performance, not only the muscles, but the whole cardiovascular and other systems that support the working of the muscles in order for a better performance. The adaptive process however, does not only include all the lungs and the heart and the other organs that I mentioned.
The first adaptive period of the organism is an emergency one, which activates the hormone use in the blood and the organism. The first ones to be activated are adrenaline and noradrenaline.
[He quotes from a published paper.]
It is said in this work for instance that the adrenaline can be lifted as much as to 1,000 ng/ml from 0.5. It is almost 1,000 times higher than its normal amount. This whole adaptive mechanism plays a huge role in the functioning of the organism.
It is not only in sports, but that it is how our organism adapts to any number of changes, for instance, the cold when we go outside. And it is cold and there is a rush of adrenaline and naturally your cardiovascular system starts to work faster in order for your heart to produce enough blood to get you warm.
[Abadjiev returns to the easel and draws another circular diagram.]
Adrenaline also activates this anabolic machinery called [unintelligible]. This is the membrane of the cell. It is formed by four molecules, and we will be interested in only two of them. This is how the adrenaline divides this [part of the cell]. One of them mobilizes the calcium inside the cell. So calcium is needed in order for those two to be united, and as the disappearance of those little bridges that we see here [occurs, there is] the contraction of the muscle; as they are pulled apart, the muscle contracts.
The other one is activated and is connected with proteins and it starts building up new protein in the core of the cell. Later on I will be talking about the anabolic effect. So the adrenaline and the noradrenaline have a huge function in the adaptive period. The other hormones as well. All other hormones have their different functions, but I will not be stopping on them.
So naturally everything is controlled by the brain, the adaptation and the growth of the muscles. And they are also determined huge changes in the kidneys, they grow bigger in size, and their production is also changed.
Another very important thing is how the body learns to economize with less hormones and it lessens its demands, it becomes more sensitive. Those new muscle cells that are produced, they become more economical in their demands. And it has been proven that those new muscles, they need less blood supply. So it means that they can better perform because of their new economical way of functioning.
All those processes begin with a stress reaction, exercise being a stress. [Referring back to the train-car diagram.]
If there would be another coach after the engine of the train, then it would mean a new adaptation, and it is the same as with weightlifting when we add some more weight to the bar. All those functioning systems are in a stressed condition, they have the so-called stress reaction, and it activates all those mechanisms of all those systems. Their functioning grows, and so the structural changes begin, and new structural shapes and sizes can be formed.
So in the first stage that I mentioned before, the emergency stage, some times the production of adrenaline is way too high for the use of those systems.
When there is a bigger strain on the muscle there is a catabolic effect. As we can see here [referring to diagram] this is the size of a normally functioning cell, this is the cell after it has been adapted already to the new conditions, it becomes bigger, and this is the size of the cell after adding to its functions. So here we have already added those extra coaches to the train. It is bigger than in the beginning but it is smaller here when its in its extreme situation, the emergency state that we were talking about. Some athletes cannot overcome this stage of the extra strain on the muscular system and they cannot have the process, cannot obtain the maximum of the process, they cannot have this adaptation in their muscles.
In order to avoid injuries and complications, we have to avoid the state of hyperfunctioning of muscles and cells. The organism itself can form a stress limiting system. This system allows the organ at certain stress levels, it measures the amount of stress it thinks that a human muscle or cell can take and it limits it to a certain level. The organism has this level of the stress that it can take to avoid injuries or discomfort. This amino acid, which has one of those functions, to limit performance. Other such limiters are beta endorphins and enkepholytes, they have tranquilizing effects. The brain cells also have their way of avoiding injuries by limiting stress. There are also other ones but I will not be talking about them.
[Referring back to train-car diagrams.]
So, when we have already built the upper system, and we have developed those three systems [indicating lower part of diagram] , when we have built the system of the hormonal balance, and when they all function together economically, and also the stress limiting system, after all those systems have been adapted well and function well with one another then this muscle which is most used, for instance in weightlifting, it will be dominant. And together with the stress limiting system, only then we can talk about full adaptation, when all those systems function together, equally supporting each other, then we have structural extremely well-functioning system.
This is why in our training program we have only four exercises that we perform. Which means that we are not using new material, we are not using energy or plastics in order to build new functioning systems. We do not force them to go into catabolic reaction. And this is the way that we make sure that the muscles adapt faster and better. And when I say adaptation I do not mean adaptation of only adaptation of one single muscle but the whole system that functions together, all those that I have been talking about, the heart, the lungs, the central control unit, and all the others.
There is also another fact which will prove the well-functioning of our theory. This is the cross-adaptation. This is well as can be proven from the theory of relativity that when you try to have many organs and one its own turn dominates the others they cannot be just as well functioning, all of them. We have to concentrate on building up a system which has only one primary and dominating organ, and then it could function and we can grow. This is the cross-adaptation that I mentioned earlier, for instance, adapting yourself to the cold or adapting to high-strength training periods.
In their adaptation there are some structures that are alike and some which are different. For instance, we wont be concentrating on the blood circulation because we are not training outside, we dont need to heat the body already. But naturally people who, for instance, cross country skiing, which exercise outside, they will need the adaptation of muscles as well as the adaptation of warming the body. It goes without saying that as they develop their muscles, the percentage of fat will be different, because they will need the fat to keep them warm. This is why for instance we which have not developed those kind of skills, it will be different for us to go outside, we will be less prepared than a person who has already developed himself to surviving in the cold.
This is why trainers from our circle that have done weightlifting and they have achieved some kind of high achievement in weightlifting, they cannot go and adapt themselves to other circumstances such as being out in the cold. That is why we have to concentrate on keeping ourselves healthy before competition. Athletes who are in excellent form and shape, the number of their . . . lymphocytes which means that the immune system is lower . . . when we concentrate on building up muscles and building up those particular systems, naturally strength has been taken from our other skills.
[Translator was losing him in the prior sentences.]
[Indicating on his systems diagram.]
The T-lymphocytes that I was just talking about, they are the ones responsible for keeping those the connections between different muscles and organs, they have the ability to carry energy and then dissolve and give it into a different muscle or muscle group. So this is what I meant when I said the immune system is lowered. It means that with the lowering of the number of those T-lymphocytes that the immune system fails to perform at its normal rate. So you have to be extremely careful before competitions or when they achieve this hyper state of condition.
[Referring to a new diagram.]
This example that I will be talking about will come to show again why it is very important to use only one set of exercise modes. But now we will not only be talking about what kind of exercise to do but we are going to be talking about the amount of strength that is used during an exercise. Heiden [sp?], a very renowned physiologist claims that this is the density which goes through the neurons into the muscles, stimulating the muscle. When we are lifting 100 kilos, through the neurons there is a set of impulses sent, and this is the density of the impulses.
[Indicating on a diagram that appears to compare graphically signal density data and protein structures associated with a 100 versus a 110 kilo lift.]
And if he is doing the weight shown on the upper picture, presuming this is his record weight, that he would be doing in a competition, then the impulse density is much bigger. This density [associated with the heavier lift] activates this one particular part of the DNA chain [indicating]. Those genes have particular storage of information. And accordingly with this specific part of the DNA where the information is stored there is certain proteins produced which have this shape. And when we have the density shown on the upper picture [heavier], then there is another information which is used from the DNA chain, and then there is produced this kind of protein [indicating] which has another set of characteristics.
And Heiden claims that only this set of proteins would be activated only at this density, which means that only by lifting 100 kilos will you be activating what you have been building, those proteins. During a competition, the density is like shown on the upper picture, and those will be the proteins activated in a state of competition or higher performance and those [indicating the proteins associated with the lighter, lower lift and signal density lower on the diagram] will be passive, they will not be activated, because of the density. So, when we are lifting weights which are not the maximum amount we could lift, and this lift is being performed in aerobic conditions, when there is a supply of oxygen, we will not be activating the density and the real performance of the muscle, it will not be taken to its extent. While lifting those higher weights, there will be a chance of producing more anaerobic energy.
[indicating the higher lift portion of the diagram].
That is why it is important that we lift our maximum, in order to produce those kinds of proteins and those kinds of structures that we will be using in a competition, for instance. We dont want to spend our energy building structures that will not be used under extreme situations.
This comes to show why our training method is that we are lifting our almost maximum during training. Before we were talking about lifting many tons a day of weight. About the middle of the 70s, we were lifting up to 60 tons a day. But we were not producing any effect. The speed at which we were training was different, it was higher. But those were little weights, not the maximum of an athlete. This is why our athletes now lift up to 4 tons a day, but they are performing in this zone [indicating] in the maximum zone, of maximum achievement. So we are building this particular protein structure that we will be using under extreme circumstances as competitions are, for instance.
It has been proven that the heart is one of the better protein productive organs. And the lung muscles, in their intensity of producing protein. And then all the other muscles which are on the hands and legs. All the scientists think that this is due to the sum of the exercise which is performed. The sum of performance of a certain muscle, the heart being a muscle also, for instance, the heart is performing for 24 hours, that is why it is one of the better protein producing muscles. The lung muscles they also work for 24 hours, but at a lower tempo. It also has a very dense function, but less than the heart, because it works slower. And then all the rest of the muscles, but then naturally because they perform only in certain periods of time, they are not active 24 hours per day, that is why they produce less protein. Naturally they have less function. So naturally the higher production of protein makes the building, of those adaptive systems that we have been talking about, faster.
So naturally we were looking for a way to expand those muscles which are used in weightlifting, leaning on those functions of the organism. We are lifting bigger weights, but slower, and we make less attempts. But in order to develop those particular proteins, we were forced to do more work in order to make those particular muscle groups work and perform.
You cannot be lifting big weights densely in the duration of one training. Thats why we have divided the training session into different parts. And so we have first snatches, then pulls [note: this is almost certainly a mistranslation, and should be clean & jerks], then snatches again, so we have twice snatches, and then squats afterward. But in the afternoons we change the order so those muscles are overall equally pressured. So what we are doing we have the maximum weights with lower tempo and lesser attempts. This is how we achieve this effect of building up precisely those muscles that are needed in weightlifting.
Now I want to show you a system which triggers a natural metabolic reaction. And this will be on the example of lifting weights. This system is called the ties between the functional and the genetic apparatus. And what is the structure of those ties.
[Indicating on a diagram of gene structure.]
All medical workers know about the genetic repressor, which is the one that limits the function of DNA. For this scientific achievement they have received a Nobel prize. This is the DNA chain. This is the genetic regulator. This is the promoter, the upgrader, and those are the structure genes. This is the genetic repressor which has entered the DNA chain. And it has stopped its function. So this part is non-functional, not the least. This is a deformed genetic repressor.
It cannot enter this DNA. So this DNA operator is free to work, and by work meaning producing proteins. So as the cell functions, it changes its structure. Those structures restructure, or metabolize, what neurons told them. So the more the function, the more those restructuring metabolizers achieve. So these metabolizers enter the structure of the gene repressor, and it has deformed it. And this being an enzyme it enters the structure and it becomes active. They can enter straight into the genetic repressor if it has the right shape or the right characteristics, but they can also enter from other places. So this means that it has entered the repressing gene, which has deformed the repressing gene, so that it cannot enter the DNA chain, which means that the DNA chain is performing normally and it is producing protein which is also known as an anabolic reaction.
Lifting weights we are achieving the contraction of a certain muscle which grows and which is needed for the weights to be lifted and we are changing its structure. So during training if we are using maximum amount of weight and only a few attempts to lift that weight, that means that we are activating this whole system, which will achieve the growth of that muscle and its maximum performance. So by stimulating with adrenaline those molecules, they bring more calcium into the cell. By doing that, they are making the genetic repressor dysfunctional, which means it cannot enter the DNA chain, and so it means that it can perform up to its maximum.
But this is because of the adrenaline which is made during training sessions. Adrenaline is released only when we are doing the maximum amount of weight. In order to achieve this higher level of adrenaline release, we used to do Monday, Wednesday and Friday, training sessions in front of an audience, which resembled the situation of a real competition, when you have the lights, the audience, the crowd, the judges, and the emotional factor also plays a very important role, it stimulates the release of adrenaline. So you performed up to your maximum three times a week, almost in competition circumstances, which releases the adrenaline needed, which makes this whole mechanism function, which enables a certain muscle group to grow and perform better.
This is the way a different medicine, which releases, which makes more adrenaline to be released, they work exactly on this principle. Limbuterol [sp?] being one of this kind of medicine, which is now on the list of no-no substances.
Now we will be talking about the amount of training.
For instance, in bodybuilding, bodybuilders do not lift their maximum, but they lift a certain amount of weight many times. Mehrson [sp?] says that a cell has a particular amount of what it needs in order to function and it can self-energize itself.
[Drawing diagram of muscle structure]
This is the main fiber. It has those contractive proteins. Those other fibers are acting as kind of supporting the main fiber. Those fibroblasts do not have the contracting proteins which the main fiber has. Basically what they are doing is acting as donors and supporters of the main fiber. In order to be able to support the main fiber during dense exercises, they enlarge their size. This is called [unintelligible]. This is the process when they are changing their structure.
But if there are too many attempts, there is a process called hyperplasia. Those supporting fibers start to divide, and their quantity grows bigger. And they also start working on supporting the main fiber, but they do not have those contracting proteins. So the main fiber can function and perform longer, because of the supporting fibers, but on its own, its strength does not grow. But the muscle itself grows bigger. This, we are talking about bodybuilding.
So basically before, when you used to do this training with many repetitions, our weightlifters looked completely different, they had much bigger muscles. But Yakoblev [sp?] says that this actually prevents the main fiber from functioning correctly. It does not give it strength, even though it looks bigger.
If we go back in time and look at the technique that our weightlifters used to use, it is very incorrect and difficult to perform with it. On the scale, bodyweight is growing and they go into another category because their bodyweight is growing, but strength itself does not grow bigger. There have been many tests made with lifts and the repetition, and it shows that the classical exercises are much more productive, even in the psychological aspect. Not only that there are different muscle groups achieving the same movement, and even the movement itself is different, and the speed of the performance is altered and changed.
Not only the strength of the muscle is important but also the coordination in between the muscle groups is very important in order to perform. And even this is an obstacle when you are doing not only the classical exercises, because you ruin this coordination, and you cannot perform the classical exercises anymore when in a competition for instance. So when we are doing only pulls, then the symbiotic structure of the muscles is different, and even the muscles have memory, so then they cannot as well perform when we are doing the clean and jerk.
The better the coordination, the better the economical working of the organism, and the better function of the muscles. This is why we are not doing those half pulls anymore, and nobody, none of our athletes have lowered their achievements. Quite the opposite, they have achieved even better.
And now we will be talking just a few words about the medicine which induce this protein production. There are stronger, medium, and less strong medicines which do it. The stronger ones are forbidden. Some of the middle ones are not yet forbidden, but are soon to be. And all of the lower ones are naturally free to use.
If you achieve all those systems activation that we have talked about, but you do not take certain medicines which will increase the protein production, naturally those who use those stronger drugs, they have a better performance chance than you. [Garbled few words] . . . will only be Bulgarian athletes who have lifted almost five times their weight in world championships.
I have had this idea of gathering all sorts of athletes in one sports hall for instance, and having them perform without any kind of stimulants and with this system of training. There is not a doubt in my mind that the difference in methods would clearly be shown as a better one in comparison to others.
Naturally you are aware that there are systems of avoiding doping tests or not completely working within the rules of it. That is why there is a lot of dishonesty in sports nowadays.
And I will end my lecture with this sentiment.
The Finnish coach has been to Bulgaria and you have seen the way that we exercise, and with this lecture to complete it I think that you will clearly see that this is a good and proven to work system. I now take the opportunity to invite all of the other sportsmen. You are welcome in Bulgaria to get to know our system and how we work and train. By using this theoretical knowledge and the things that I can show you in practice, I assure you that will better your results. For instance, the Finnish had an Olympic champion, since 1968, the Swedish too also have very strong competitors. When our weightlifting was not consistent in Bulgaria, the Polish were absolutely great. I have a joint recommendation to all the Scandinavian games that you will achieve Olympic medals.
Question and Answer Session (paraphrased)
Before Abadjiev became head coach in 1969 there were more than 19 ways of lifting weights, including jumps, running. Eventually, almost all of those exercises dropped away from the weightlifting program. They used to do camps at altitude in winter, and do a lot of skiing to build the heart and lungs.
As a result, he started scientifically exploring why adaptation works the way it does and why the primary muscle groups should be supported. Weightlifters who were the most physically developed, who had the most achievement, he had them carry a piano up to his apartment on the fifth floor, and they could not make it past the second floor. Little gypsy boys who were not very developed carried it all the way to the fifth floor, and that was very embarrassing.
The exercises dropped first to 8, and in Vittoria in Spain, we had 6 gold medals, which were two more than the Russians had.And then in 1986, we started doing only 5 exercises, and then we had seven golds, and the Russians had two. And in events the next year we had seven again and the Russians had two. This shows clearly that by limiting the exercises we got better results.
You could be doing those four exercises and still not achieving anything because it depends on your lifting the maximum weight you could lift. In many situations, you dont know what your maximum weight is, I mean you think that something is your maximum weight is and it isnt, because the athlete can be wrong about his maximum achieving state. We can use pulse rate to discover the maximum weight. If the athlete has a pulse of less than 180, it means that he can do more.
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awesome post man@!$@
Just some stuff i have saved over the year ppl might be interested in, il try post a new article every day or so:
This first one is by average joes gym, he trains the strongest teenager in the world, he came on bb.com for a bit and answered everyones questions in ridic detail.
I am familiar with his program. I have a LOT of issues with it.
1) Lunges suck and I think are very dangerous. When you go heavy,fast or simply aren't perfectly strict you have a tendency to push hard and because of the deep split you push off to one side and lean to the opposite as a reflex to get up. I have witnessed many people injure a knee doing this (including my wife - who refused to listen, snuck off to the "ladies only" section. She split her meniscus and I had to carry her to the hospital from the gym. She was out of commission for 4 months and 5 yrs later her knee is still jacked) Lunging down is NOT a natural way for the human body to lift. Do you ever see kids lunging down to grab something? It's an unnecessary risk with little benefit. That is the classic definition of dumb. You wanna stretch the quads? kneel down and lean back. This is a much better stretch. It stretches the quad more from the hip and not as much from the knee.
i dno, if you're compensating that hard, then the weight is too heavy.. i lunge down to pickup things all the time lol.
2) Jumping and plyos should be left to jumpers and track athletes who needs to jump. As a lifter we don't need that additional stress put on any joints. save the stress and energy for training.
agree
3) %'s don't work. Plain and simple. How many times have you had to go in and hit a max but you didn't sleep well, feel under the weather etc. but have to lift a designated amount of weight? Conversely, how many times do you feel great but are only allowed to go to 65-75% when you really feel like you could hit a PR that day? It's hard enough to peak at a meet a few times a year and feel like you are prepared to hit weights that are pre-determined. How can you possibly do it every workout, every lift? simple - you can't.
beast ^^
4) The more often you attempt max, the more opportunities you are giving yourself to feel what max feels like, make max attempts, hit PR's, and it builds confidence. Eventually max is usual and as routine as walking down the street. Every morning I would squat at least 220 (usually more, but that was my "minimum" I HAD to do regardless of how I felt) like clockwork. I could do it just as easy as walking to my car to drive home. Pat is currently doing 250 every morning. It is so routine that at any given time, night or day 7 days/wk he would be able to do it without even blinking.
high frequency psychopaths, but it works.
*****5) NOT training everyday leads to more injuries! IF you train everyday then your entire body is fatigued. Muscles, tendons, cartilage, ligaments, etc. When you train every other day, then the muscles and avascular tissues don't recover at the same pace. What happens is the muscles become fresh and recover but all the connective tissue is NOT. When the additional stress put on these weakened tissues (that never really got a chance to recover) by fresh muscles = injury. Lifting everyday keeps everything in a state that is equal and consistent within the system. A balance or harmony within. The fatigued muscles can't contract enough to harm the other tissues. The weak link moves from body part to body part, and in a sense is not letting the other parts max so that's when they are resting!
interesting..
6) The progress from this program is because of the volume. Most people don't even come close to the amount of volume that it demands in regular workouts. The progress is wrongly attributed to the %'s and reps scheme. It's not. IT's the workload.
7) The human body cycles up and down at unpredictable waves. The program can't take that into account. What if you started 5 days earlier? Would you be more successful? It is not possible to predict how you will feel and start the program at an optimum time within your own cycle to have more success. You can't succeed every workout unless the #'s were skewed from the beginning.
****8) How many opportunities for PR's did you miss out on by spending an entire year only squatting 3x/wk when you could be doing 7-14? In a entire year, just squatting once a day = 2x the volume of this program. 2x/day for 12-14 sessions a week is 400% more. That's the only % that is important!
If and When I Return, I Will Be 10x Better Than I Ever Was!
y 1,2,3,4,5,6: squat to max (best weight at perfect competiotion technique) + back off sets of minimum 3x2, upto max of 50 reps. going back upto max or beyond if the weights start to feel light enough
day 1,3,5 bench press to max (2 wide,1 close grip)+ back off sets (quantity will need some experiment because I have not tried with bench in over 10 yrs)
day 2,4,6 deadlift 2-3 x 10 sets all from floor. vary % based on positions and back health
If you are gonna train 4x/wk then day 5&6 will be in the next week.
any assistance rehab/bodybuilding such as pullups, dumbell flyes etc should follow at the end as well as grip work based on how you feel. These are optional and should be done at discresion
Most importantly- speed is ALWAYS the priority! When squatting and pulling getting up fast is soooo important, as well as the bench. Doing the press quickly to generate power is key too. going slow with light weights is a big NO NO!!
Monday - Max squats, Max bench
Tuesday - Max squats, Max Deadlift
Wed - Max squats, Max CG bench
Thurs - Max squats, Deadlift (70-85%, as long as there's gas left in the tank)
Friday - Max squats, Max bench
Sat - Max squats, Deadlift (70-85%)
brozknowz is a beast..
iginally Posted by Neuro_Doc View Post
@crackyflipside - In the "dark times"? it's just as I said, a lot like "withdrawl"? from substance abuse. If you want the specifics, I?ll try to lay them out for you as best I can. Maybe this will clear up some of the misconceptions people like IA and his nuthuggers have over what actually happens when you lift weights. Then again, maybe monkeys will fly out of my behind...
Most people think the only part of the body to adapt to lifting are the muscles, tendons, ligaments, etc. In fact, the brain also adapts to whatever stress you put on the body. It physically changes its structure and ability to deal with chemicals which directly relate to your physical activity. If you are a runner, youll get better at making and using chemicals which deal with running. Youll also develop and affinity for extremely short shorts, politics, FOX news, granola, etc.
One thi`ng that pissed me off about IA is his insistence that the CNS fatigues? in some way. Bulls**t. People are still taught that the nervous system runs off of electrical impulses like a power cable. It doesnt. The nerve impulses (synapses) run off of chemicals (neurotransmitters). If these chemicals are not present, there is no signal between brain and muscle. The reason you can measure electrical impulses in the nervous system is because the electrical impulse is a BYPRODUCT of this chemical reaction. Its called an electrochemical reaction.
A large part of how strong we are is the ability to create and deal with a higher concentration of these neurotransmitters. The nerves develop more receptor sites to connect with them, and the glands learn to make more of the neurotransmitters themselves. Only then do you get a stronger impulse.
When you start placing demands on the brain to lift maximum weights every day, it says "oh crap I need to learn how to make and use these chemicals or hes going to kill us". So it goes through an adaptive period where it shuts down some functions and tries to upgrade?. These are the "dark times"?.
The main chemical in muscle contraction is SEROTONIN. It actually regulates how HARD the muscle contracts, which is why only the heaviest weights seem to effect our mood, the reason why people shy away from maximal lifting and cower from the imaginary symptoms of overtraining.
Serotonin just happens to be the main feel good hormone in the body. It directly effects your mood and mental outlook, your â??happinessâ? and willingness to train. Your sleep, appetite, and also effects the cardiovascular system (your heart rate increases when you are supposedly overtrained - this is why). The serotonin cycle in the brain gets screwed up when drug addicts go into withdrawl (most recreational drugs artificially influence the serotonin pathways, which is why they are so much fun). There are other neurotransmitters which get effected by this (acetylcholine for example), but serotonin is the big one.
So, when the body receives a demand to lift heavy things on a daily basis, the brain shuts down the serotonin receptors to upgrade them. The brain structure changes take a few days to a few weeks. Changes in individual nerves happen quickly, a few days at most. This is why the dark times occur. Its the adaptive period thats needed for the brain and body to get to the next higher level. Natures little joke is obviously making us feel like crap when we are actually improving.
The body is trying to get us to stop the stress so it isnt forced to remodel the whole place, but thats exactly what you want. Thats why its so important to keep pounding away through it all. You want the greatest adaptation to take place.
Guys who are afraid of this response are guys who are lifting because they like the way it makes them feel. If you do lighter workouts, this serotonin is raised, but there is no signal to adapt. You feel â??highâ?. Basically lifting weights becomes like a drug. People feel better doing light useless workouts, just like they feel better taking a hit of crack. I think this is why no one wants to try lifting the Bulgarian way. They are addicts.
You asked me about cortisol. There are no good and bad hormones. There are only hormones specific to your physical activity. Do you know why cortisol is released in weight lifting? Cortisol controls the blood pressure and concentration of blood sugar.
With short bursts of intense lifting (singles and doubles), blood sugar is not the primary fuel. Blood sugar only becomes an issue when you are doing higher reps. Cortisol is released mainly as a way to cope with these high reps, a way to shuttle more fuel (blood sugar) into the muscle tissue by using higher blood pressure. This is one reason bodybuilders have their posing trunks in a bunch over it. Cortisol is dealt with just like serotonin. The body tries to adapt to using it, and all the bodybuilders run and scream. If they stuck with it theyd go through a response much like the â??Dark times, and theyd be able to handle more high rep sets afterwards.
In this case, cortisol is specific to the activity bodybuilders, not power or olympic lifters. Keep your reps low and you never have to worry about it. (It has nothing to do with total volume, only reps in the set.)
Thats funny what you mentioned about the Bulgarians having huge adrenals. It makes sense. They adapt by getting larger and stronger just like anything else. Thats also a great argument against limiting â??geneticsâ?. Someone else would look at normal sized adrenals and say they would obviously be overloaded by stress. The Bulgarians entire organism changed in response to their lifting. Form follows function. Awesome stuff.
The adrenals dont only release cortisol, they release adrenaline as well. Adrenaline acts as one of the triggers to this adaptive period. You should go read the lecture by Ivan Abajiev here :
- weightliftingexchange.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74&Itemi d=75
He explains this whole adaptive period and how it effects more than just the musculature. Go read the paragraphs which start with:
"So this is our aim when we are training athletes, that we would build up all those organs and muscles needed for a certain performance, not only the muscles, but the whole cardiovascular and other systems that support the working of the muscles in order for a better performance. The adaptive process however, does not only include all the lungs and the heart and the other organs that I mentioned."
So I hope I explained that all well enough. Bottom line, from a physiological standpoint - BROZ IS RIGHT. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Take care.
(p.s. - If you think maxing squats daily is tough, try typing all of this out on a phone!)
First of all I would like to thank the Weightlifting Federation for inviting me here.
This material that I have prepared here for you for today is the same material that I lectured on in front of the Greece Committee last spring. They specifically asked me to present my material because one of their athletes, Ekatarina Tanou, was using this method of training and has incredible results using this method. She was third in the world for 100 meter sprint, and last year she was one of the best white athletes, and she has been using my methods of training.
If you pay attention to what I am saying and if you think logically about what I am saying then you will see that this method is applicable to almost any sports training. We will be concentrating on weightlifting nonetheless.
I have been asking myself a question, why such countries such as Uruquay, Paraquay, Peru, not to mention Brazil, have incredible achievements in, say, football, considering that those countries do not have stable sports methods or academic sports development. And yet, they have better results in comparison to other countries like Germany or Russia, which have been studying sports as an academic for a very long time.
The other question that I have been asking myself is why such universal athletes do not exist anymore, why it is so difficult to be good in different disciplines, such as only 100 meters or jumps. These athletes who do only one discipline they do it well but it is almost impossible to be good in a lot of disciplines at the same time.
The same question is with athletes who train 10 different disciplines. They have a mediocre scale of good results. For each sport they are not at their best at one of those sports because they try to perform good in all the 10 of them which prevents them from being good at only one sport.
The fourth question that I have been asking myself is why, when observing animals, for instance, they dont have micro and macro cycles. They dont have leisure periods. They are all the time active. They dont have performance of 80% or 70%. They only have performance achievements of 100% all of the time. The way that animals prey, whatever they do, they do it their best and they do it at 100%. This is the way they survive.
And tonight I will try to answer all those questions in my lecture.
[Referring to a graphic illustration displayed on an overhead projector.]
Please forgive me for the simpleness of these examples, but every time I talk with opponents who do not share my point of view, I have found that this is a simple method of explaining the way I think and the way muscles work and this is a simple way to present it graphically although it is not an academic way.
As you can see this is a train with coaches which is performing a certain function. We can compare this to a group of muscles or to a muscle fiber which also performs some kind of duty. It also has dynamic function.
Literally there is a difference between a living organism and this machinery, and I will try to talk about that.
[Pointing to the diagram.]
The smoke indicates that this is a functioning machinery. Those are the same engines below, but they are not functioning. When this machinery is at work, it is using up its resources, energetic as well as plastic. When the resources are emptied out, then there is a signal sent to the central control unit. On its behalf, it contacts those depots which have the energy that the machine needs in order to continue working. And those depots present the necessary energy back into the machinery, they feed it back. The little ones are not active right now because they do not send a message that their resources need to be refilled and that is why they are not functioning at the moment.
[He changes to a second graphic diagrams.]
This is the reverse situation. As you can see those two smaller engines are working at the moment. It is because they have sent a signal of the need for the depots need to be refilled, and so naturally the central control unit would send water or whatever energy is needed back into them in order for them to function.
This is the precise way that a human body would function or human muscles or any living organisms muscle function. That when there is a lack of energy, there is a signal sent to the brain which, on its behalf would provide them with nitrogen and whatever else is needed for them to function (energies) through the blood circulation system. Up to here the mechanism of the way they work is absolutely identical. But the difference between the living organism and the machinery shown here is as follows.
[He points to a different portion of the second diagram.]
Now we have switched on the little trains. This is a law in organics that the function builds the organ, or, the muscle. And when they function, they form new structures. On the examples shown, they are growing. First of all -- this is the coal storage, if we are talking about the train -- so it will extend its size [indicating].
[He changes to a third graphic illustration.]
As they enlarge their size, the number of . . .
[Abadjiev leaves the projection screen and draws a circular figure on butcher paper.]
This is a human cell and in the cytoplasm there are swimming those organelles which have this shape and form. This is basically how the energy received into a cell is deformated [sic] so the cell can use the energy provided. That is why they are called energy stations of the human cell. This is where energy is formed, and in the appropriate measure, then it goes into becoming energy that the human organism needs to perform.
[He returns to the third diagram shown on the projection screen (i.e., the train diagrams).]This means that the number of those mitochondria is bigger so that the size of the whole cell will change and become bigger also. Which practically means that the more energy it receives, the more it grows, and the stronger the power of the engine will be.
Also, as well as the change of the cells and everything grows [transl.], the contacts between, in the organism, they change also, and they become faster and stronger. The quantity of blood cells is also growing, so there will be more blood provided, and they supply more oxygen. So those structures are making the muscular system stronger and bigger. But we are talking now only about living organisms, and this is the difference between this machinery and the human organism.
[Abajiev changes to a fourth diagram (also apparently illustrating the train analogy).]
As you can see, when the upper engine is not working, it reverses its size, the size is now a reverse process of what we were talking about just now, that it grows smaller if it is not activated and does not function. The minute it stops functioning, there activated a catabolic reaction, which means that the muscle would grow smaller. It will change its size.
If you were developing muscle fiber . . .[He pauses, returns to the butcher paper, and draws three illustrations of basic muscle fiber-arrangement types: smooth, parallel, and _____.]
And those are the different shapes of muscles. We have one muscle that could be one after another one, when theyre parallel, . . . this is the different types of muscles. They all have a particular function, they all react to different things. For instance, when we have slower, but heavier exercise, then those muscles [pointing to ____ fiber arrangement] are the ones that are doing the work. The ones that need speed and heaviness at the same time, then those parallel muscles are activated, because power or strength of the muscles depend on different things, different parameters.
[He draws a separate diagram and draws an elongated elliptical shape on the paper.]
The part of the muscle which is contracting is called sarcomera. The longer it is, the faster it reacts, the faster it contracts. The shorter it is, it could provide enormous strength, but for a longer period of time. And there are muscle groups that can work without oxygen provided, anaerobically. And there are those muscles who work aerobically, with oxygen.
For instance, when we have a sprinter or cross runner, this is the muscle which is activated [he points to his hip flexor/ upper outer thigh area]. This is used for running and sprinting and longer running periods. [Translator: Correcting, not sprinting before.]
[Abadjiev points to his quads.]
Those two muscles which are located on both sides of the knee, they take part when sprinting is necessary, also called out of phase muscles. They turn food into energy without using oxygen. When we are talking about longer distances, then the energy is formed using oxygen. So that the ones that are used for longer running distance, they have a bigger number of mitochondria. This is where the cycle of Krebs takes place and over 1,500 kilojoules of energy are formed.
And when we are talking about anaerobic working of the muscles, then we are talking about 60% less production of those mitochondria from the same amount of energy. So in the longer period, when we look at different training muscles, there are different muscles that are used for different groups and they are the ones who change their size accordingly to the training system.
[Abadjiev returns to the train diagram on the projection screen.]
That is why when we change, when we are not lifting weights, when we are doing something else . . . if we say that on the upper picture the engine is the one that is used to lift weights, if we do something else not lifting weights we are using other muscle groups, in another exercise not weightlifting, those are the muscles that are being contracted.
So naturally those ones on the lower picture, they start changing their size, or there is a growing process. And there is a theory of priority in the energy supply of the human body, so naturally those, not the one on the upper picture, but those two will have the priority of getting energy and stimulation.
So we have used this system when weightlifters have done other exercises, not only weightlifting. For instance, I saw here that some of your trainers do jumps with weights. Which means that immediately the energy supplies for those muscles will be activated, the ones that are necessary for a jump to be performed, which means that there will be energy taken from the basic muscles needed in weightlifting.
And it is not only the matter of the muscle itself growing, but it is the connections and the blood vessels which supply it with needed energy, they change their form and shape too. So then, if we go back to doing the same exercise, which is shown on the upper picture, then it wouldnt be as easy for it to get energy anymore. And those are physiologically proven right, that the mechanism works precisely this way. Respectable biologists and physiologists have proven that this is right. As it is proved also that when we have, when there is new proteins and the muscles are growing and protein is developed [pointing to the lower part of the diagram, depicting muscles trained on non-weightlifting exercises] and what have you then it is at the same moment that the muscles on the upper picture [those used for weightlifting] begin shrinking.
So if we concentrate our energy onto other exercises, then it means that the creative process of the muscle needed in weightlifting will be stopped, which means that in a longer period of time it will not be as easy to develop into its original shape anymore, or size.
And afterward if we were to use those smaller muscle groups for weightlifting, it means that it will not be easy for those organs to be adapted in order to perform in the way a weightlifter would want it to. They too need oxygen. Somebody has to supply the oxygen.
So naturally making their demand for oxygen, they are sending a signal to the central control unit, and then it goes into the cardiovascular system, and so it is activated, and it starts supplying energy back into the muscles. We start breathing more frequently. The whole breathing process is activated. This means that with the new situation, if we take for instance that the triangle is the lungs [indicating on diagram], new creative processes would start developing in the lungs, and also the muscle controlling the lung function. And naturally in the lungs, the number of alveoles, they become bigger, they increase their size, in order to supply the oxygen into those new muscles, they have changed their size as well.
So does the heart, the heartbeat is activated also. It also changes its structures in order to change its capacity. With the other, for instance on a human leg, the muscles will not change their number, but it is proven in the heart for instance that there could be muscle structure changes that produce new muscle, and their size and shape also is changed. Which means that with a single heartbeat, the amount of blood thrust out of the heart is bigger. Which will result in more blood going up to the muscles. They will make the creative and the energetic levels higher. All those performing muscles which take part in the performance or function, they all need to adapt to the new situation, they change their size, their density of working, which is a chain of changes in the human organism.
So this is our aim when we are training athletes, that we would build up all those organs and muscles needed for a certain performance, not only the muscles, but the whole cardiovascular and other systems that support the working of the muscles in order for a better performance. The adaptive process however, does not only include all the lungs and the heart and the other organs that I mentioned.
The first adaptive period of the organism is an emergency one, which activates the hormone use in the blood and the organism. The first ones to be activated are adrenaline and noradrenaline.
[He quotes from a published paper.]
It is said in this work for instance that the adrenaline can be lifted as much as to 1,000 ng/ml from 0.5. It is almost 1,000 times higher than its normal amount. This whole adaptive mechanism plays a huge role in the functioning of the organism.
It is not only in sports, but that it is how our organism adapts to any number of changes, for instance, the cold when we go outside. And it is cold and there is a rush of adrenaline and naturally your cardiovascular system starts to work faster in order for your heart to produce enough blood to get you warm.
[Abadjiev returns to the easel and draws another circular diagram.]
Adrenaline also activates this anabolic machinery called [unintelligible]. This is the membrane of the cell. It is formed by four molecules, and we will be interested in only two of them. This is how the adrenaline divides this [part of the cell]. One of them mobilizes the calcium inside the cell. So calcium is needed in order for those two to be united, and as the disappearance of those little bridges that we see here [occurs, there is] the contraction of the muscle; as they are pulled apart, the muscle contracts.
The other one is activated and is connected with proteins and it starts building up new protein in the core of the cell. Later on I will be talking about the anabolic effect. So the adrenaline and the noradrenaline have a huge function in the adaptive period. The other hormones as well. All other hormones have their different functions, but I will not be stopping on them.
So naturally everything is controlled by the brain, the adaptation and the growth of the muscles. And they are also determined huge changes in the kidneys, they grow bigger in size, and their production is also changed.
Another very important thing is how the body learns to economize with less hormones and it lessens its demands, it becomes more sensitive. Those new muscle cells that are produced, they become more economical in their demands. And it has been proven that those new muscles, they need less blood supply. So it means that they can better perform because of their new economical way of functioning.
All those processes begin with a stress reaction, exercise being a stress. [Referring back to the train-car diagram.]
If there would be another coach after the engine of the train, then it would mean a new adaptation, and it is the same as with weightlifting when we add some more weight to the bar. All those functioning systems are in a stressed condition, they have the so-called stress reaction, and it activates all those mechanisms of all those systems. Their functioning grows, and so the structural changes begin, and new structural shapes and sizes can be formed.
So in the first stage that I mentioned before, the emergency stage, some times the production of adrenaline is way too high for the use of those systems.
When there is a bigger strain on the muscle there is a catabolic effect. As we can see here [referring to diagram] this is the size of a normally functioning cell, this is the cell after it has been adapted already to the new conditions, it becomes bigger, and this is the size of the cell after adding to its functions. So here we have already added those extra coaches to the train. It is bigger than in the beginning but it is smaller here when its in its extreme situation, the emergency state that we were talking about. Some athletes cannot overcome this stage of the extra strain on the muscular system and they cannot have the process, cannot obtain the maximum of the process, they cannot have this adaptation in their muscles.
In order to avoid injuries and complications, we have to avoid the state of hyperfunctioning of muscles and cells. The organism itself can form a stress limiting system. This system allows the organ at certain stress levels, it measures the amount of stress it thinks that a human muscle or cell can take and it limits it to a certain level. The organism has this level of the stress that it can take to avoid injuries or discomfort. This amino acid, which has one of those functions, to limit performance. Other such limiters are beta endorphins and enkepholytes, they have tranquilizing effects. The brain cells also have their way of avoiding injuries by limiting stress. There are also other ones but I will not be talking about them.
[Referring back to train-car diagrams.]
So, when we have already built the upper system, and we have developed those three systems [indicating lower part of diagram] , when we have built the system of the hormonal balance, and when they all function together economically, and also the stress limiting system, after all those systems have been adapted well and function well with one another then this muscle which is most used, for instance in weightlifting, it will be dominant. And together with the stress limiting system, only then we can talk about full adaptation, when all those systems function together, equally supporting each other, then we have structural extremely well-functioning system.
This is why in our training program we have only four exercises that we perform. Which means that we are not using new material, we are not using energy or plastics in order to build new functioning systems. We do not force them to go into catabolic reaction. And this is the way that we make sure that the muscles adapt faster and better. And when I say adaptation I do not mean adaptation of only adaptation of one single muscle but the whole system that functions together, all those that I have been talking about, the heart, the lungs, the central control unit, and all the others.
There is also another fact which will prove the well-functioning of our theory. This is the cross-adaptation. This is well as can be proven from the theory of relativity that when you try to have many organs and one its own turn dominates the others they cannot be just as well functioning, all of them. We have to concentrate on building up a system which has only one primary and dominating organ, and then it could function and we can grow. This is the cross-adaptation that I mentioned earlier, for instance, adapting yourself to the cold or adapting to high-strength training periods.
In their adaptation there are some structures that are alike and some which are different. For instance, we wont be concentrating on the blood circulation because we are not training outside, we dont need to heat the body already. But naturally people who, for instance, cross country skiing, which exercise outside, they will need the adaptation of muscles as well as the adaptation of warming the body. It goes without saying that as they develop their muscles, the percentage of fat will be different, because they will need the fat to keep them warm. This is why for instance we which have not developed those kind of skills, it will be different for us to go outside, we will be less prepared than a person who has already developed himself to surviving in the cold.
This is why trainers from our circle that have done weightlifting and they have achieved some kind of high achievement in weightlifting, they cannot go and adapt themselves to other circumstances such as being out in the cold. That is why we have to concentrate on keeping ourselves healthy before competition. Athletes who are in excellent form and shape, the number of their . . . lymphocytes which means that the immune system is lower . . . when we concentrate on building up muscles and building up those particular systems, naturally strength has been taken from our other skills.
[Translator was losing him in the prior sentences.]
[Indicating on his systems diagram.]
The T-lymphocytes that I was just talking about, they are the ones responsible for keeping those the connections between different muscles and organs, they have the ability to carry energy and then dissolve and give it into a different muscle or muscle group. So this is what I meant when I said the immune system is lowered. It means that with the lowering of the number of those T-lymphocytes that the immune system fails to perform at its normal rate. So you have to be extremely careful before competitions or when they achieve this hyper state of condition.
[Referring to a new diagram.]
This example that I will be talking about will come to show again why it is very important to use only one set of exercise modes. But now we will not only be talking about what kind of exercise to do but we are going to be talking about the amount of strength that is used during an exercise. Heiden [sp?], a very renowned physiologist claims that this is the density which goes through the neurons into the muscles, stimulating the muscle. When we are lifting 100 kilos, through the neurons there is a set of impulses sent, and this is the density of the impulses.
[Indicating on a diagram that appears to compare graphically signal density data and protein structures associated with a 100 versus a 110 kilo lift.]
And if he is doing the weight shown on the upper picture, presuming this is his record weight, that he would be doing in a competition, then the impulse density is much bigger. This density [associated with the heavier lift] activates this one particular part of the DNA chain [indicating]. Those genes have particular storage of information. And accordingly with this specific part of the DNA where the information is stored there is certain proteins produced which have this shape. And when we have the density shown on the upper picture [heavier], then there is another information which is used from the DNA chain, and then there is produced this kind of protein [indicating] which has another set of characteristics.
And Heiden claims that only this set of proteins would be activated only at this density, which means that only by lifting 100 kilos will you be activating what you have been building, those proteins. During a competition, the density is like shown on the upper picture, and those will be the proteins activated in a state of competition or higher performance and those [indicating the proteins associated with the lighter, lower lift and signal density lower on the diagram] will be passive, they will not be activated, because of the density. So, when we are lifting weights which are not the maximum amount we could lift, and this lift is being performed in aerobic conditions, when there is a supply of oxygen, we will not be activating the density and the real performance of the muscle, it will not be taken to its extent. While lifting those higher weights, there will be a chance of producing more anaerobic energy.
[indicating the higher lift portion of the diagram].
That is why it is important that we lift our maximum, in order to produce those kinds of proteins and those kinds of structures that we will be using in a competition, for instance. We dont want to spend our energy building structures that will not be used under extreme situations.
This comes to show why our training method is that we are lifting our almost maximum during training. Before we were talking about lifting many tons a day of weight. About the middle of the 70s, we were lifting up to 60 tons a day. But we were not producing any effect. The speed at which we were training was different, it was higher. But those were little weights, not the maximum of an athlete. This is why our athletes now lift up to 4 tons a day, but they are performing in this zone [indicating] in the maximum zone, of maximum achievement. So we are building this particular protein structure that we will be using under extreme circumstances as competitions are, for instance.
It has been proven that the heart is one of the better protein productive organs. And the lung muscles, in their intensity of producing protein. And then all the other muscles which are on the hands and legs. All the scientists think that this is due to the sum of the exercise which is performed. The sum of performance of a certain muscle, the heart being a muscle also, for instance, the heart is performing for 24 hours, that is why it is one of the better protein producing muscles. The lung muscles they also work for 24 hours, but at a lower tempo. It also has a very dense function, but less than the heart, because it works slower. And then all the rest of the muscles, but then naturally because they perform only in certain periods of time, they are not active 24 hours per day, that is why they produce less protein. Naturally they have less function. So naturally the higher production of protein makes the building, of those adaptive systems that we have been talking about, faster.
So naturally we were looking for a way to expand those muscles which are used in weightlifting, leaning on those functions of the organism. We are lifting bigger weights, but slower, and we make less attempts. But in order to develop those particular proteins, we were forced to do more work in order to make those particular muscle groups work and perform.
You cannot be lifting big weights densely in the duration of one training. Thats why we have divided the training session into different parts. And so we have first snatches, then pulls [note: this is almost certainly a mistranslation, and should be clean & jerks], then snatches again, so we have twice snatches, and then squats afterward. But in the afternoons we change the order so those muscles are overall equally pressured. So what we are doing we have the maximum weights with lower tempo and lesser attempts. This is how we achieve this effect of building up precisely those muscles that are needed in weightlifting.
Now I want to show you a system which triggers a natural metabolic reaction. And this will be on the example of lifting weights. This system is called the ties between the functional and the genetic apparatus. And what is the structure of those ties.
[Indicating on a diagram of gene structure.]
All medical workers know about the genetic repressor, which is the one that limits the function of DNA. For this scientific achievement they have received a Nobel prize. This is the DNA chain. This is the genetic regulator. This is the promoter, the upgrader, and those are the structure genes. This is the genetic repressor which has entered the DNA chain. And it has stopped its function. So this part is non-functional, not the least. This is a deformed genetic repressor.
It cannot enter this DNA. So this DNA operator is free to work, and by work meaning producing proteins. So as the cell functions, it changes its structure. Those structures restructure, or metabolize, what neurons told them. So the more the function, the more those restructuring metabolizers achieve. So these metabolizers enter the structure of the gene repressor, and it has deformed it. And this being an enzyme it enters the structure and it becomes active. They can enter straight into the genetic repressor if it has the right shape or the right characteristics, but they can also enter from other places. So this means that it has entered the repressing gene, which has deformed the repressing gene, so that it cannot enter the DNA chain, which means that the DNA chain is performing normally and it is producing protein which is also known as an anabolic reaction.
Lifting weights we are achieving the contraction of a certain muscle which grows and which is needed for the weights to be lifted and we are changing its structure. So during training if we are using maximum amount of weight and only a few attempts to lift that weight, that means that we are activating this whole system, which will achieve the growth of that muscle and its maximum performance. So by stimulating with adrenaline those molecules, they bring more calcium into the cell. By doing that, they are making the genetic repressor dysfunctional, which means it cannot enter the DNA chain, and so it means that it can perform up to its maximum.
But this is because of the adrenaline which is made during training sessions. Adrenaline is released only when we are doing the maximum amount of weight. In order to achieve this higher level of adrenaline release, we used to do Monday, Wednesday and Friday, training sessions in front of an audience, which resembled the situation of a real competition, when you have the lights, the audience, the crowd, the judges, and the emotional factor also plays a very important role, it stimulates the release of adrenaline. So you performed up to your maximum three times a week, almost in competition circumstances, which releases the adrenaline needed, which makes this whole mechanism function, which enables a certain muscle group to grow and perform better.
This is the way a different medicine, which releases, which makes more adrenaline to be released, they work exactly on this principle. Limbuterol [sp?] being one of this kind of medicine, which is now on the list of no-no substances.
Now we will be talking about the amount of training.
For instance, in bodybuilding, bodybuilders do not lift their maximum, but they lift a certain amount of weight many times. Mehrson [sp?] says that a cell has a particular amount of what it needs in order to function and it can self-energize itself.
[Drawing diagram of muscle structure]
This is the main fiber. It has those contractive proteins. Those other fibers are acting as kind of supporting the main fiber. Those fibroblasts do not have the contracting proteins which the main fiber has. Basically what they are doing is acting as donors and supporters of the main fiber. In order to be able to support the main fiber during dense exercises, they enlarge their size. This is called [unintelligible]. This is the process when they are changing their structure.
But if there are too many attempts, there is a process called hyperplasia. Those supporting fibers start to divide, and their quantity grows bigger. And they also start working on supporting the main fiber, but they do not have those contracting proteins. So the main fiber can function and perform longer, because of the supporting fibers, but on its own, its strength does not grow. But the muscle itself grows bigger. This, we are talking about bodybuilding.
So basically before, when you used to do this training with many repetitions, our weightlifters looked completely different, they had much bigger muscles. But Yakoblev [sp?] says that this actually prevents the main fiber from functioning correctly. It does not give it strength, even though it looks bigger.
If we go back in time and look at the technique that our weightlifters used to use, it is very incorrect and difficult to perform with it. On the scale, bodyweight is growing and they go into another category because their bodyweight is growing, but strength itself does not grow bigger. There have been many tests made with lifts and the repetition, and it shows that the classical exercises are much more productive, even in the psychological aspect. Not only that there are different muscle groups achieving the same movement, and even the movement itself is different, and the speed of the performance is altered and changed.
Not only the strength of the muscle is important but also the coordination in between the muscle groups is very important in order to perform. And even this is an obstacle when you are doing not only the classical exercises, because you ruin this coordination, and you cannot perform the classical exercises anymore when in a competition for instance. So when we are doing only pulls, then the symbiotic structure of the muscles is different, and even the muscles have memory, so then they cannot as well perform when we are doing the clean and jerk.
The better the coordination, the better the economical working of the organism, and the better function of the muscles. This is why we are not doing those half pulls anymore, and nobody, none of our athletes have lowered their achievements. Quite the opposite, they have achieved even better.
And now we will be talking just a few words about the medicine which induce this protein production. There are stronger, medium, and less strong medicines which do it. The stronger ones are forbidden. Some of the middle ones are not yet forbidden, but are soon to be. And all of the lower ones are naturally free to use.
If you achieve all those systems activation that we have talked about, but you do not take certain medicines which will increase the protein production, naturally those who use those stronger drugs, they have a better performance chance than you. [Garbled few words] . . . will only be Bulgarian athletes who have lifted almost five times their weight in world championships.
I have had this idea of gathering all sorts of athletes in one sports hall for instance, and having them perform without any kind of stimulants and with this system of training. There is not a doubt in my mind that the difference in methods would clearly be shown as a better one in comparison to others.
Naturally you are aware that there are systems of avoiding doping tests or not completely working within the rules of it. That is why there is a lot of dishonesty in sports nowadays.
And I will end my lecture with this sentiment.
The Finnish coach has been to Bulgaria and you have seen the way that we exercise, and with this lecture to complete it I think that you will clearly see that this is a good and proven to work system. I now take the opportunity to invite all of the other sportsmen. You are welcome in Bulgaria to get to know our system and how we work and train. By using this theoretical knowledge and the things that I can show you in practice, I assure you that will better your results. For instance, the Finnish had an Olympic champion, since 1968, the Swedish too also have very strong competitors. When our weightlifting was not consistent in Bulgaria, the Polish were absolutely great. I have a joint recommendation to all the Scandinavian games that you will achieve Olympic medals.
Question and Answer Session (paraphrased)
Before Abadjiev became head coach in 1969 there were more than 19 ways of lifting weights, including jumps, running. Eventually, almost all of those exercises dropped away from the weightlifting program. They used to do camps at altitude in winter, and do a lot of skiing to build the heart and lungs.
LOL @ little gypsy boys As a result, he started scientifically exploring why adaptation works the way it does and why the primary muscle groups should be supported. Weightlifters who were the most physically developed, who had the most achievement, he had them carry a piano up to his apartment on the fifth floor, and they could not make it past the second floor. Little gypsy boys who were not very developed carried it all the way to the fifth floor, and that was very embarrassing.
The exercises dropped first to 8, and in Vittoria in Spain, we had 6 gold medals, which were two more than the Russians had.And then in 1986, we started doing only 5 exercises, and then we had seven golds, and the Russians had two. And in events the next year we had seven again and the Russians had two. This shows clearly that by limiting the exercises we got better results.
You could be doing those four exercises and still not achieving anything because it depends on your lifting the maximum weight you could lift. In many situations, you dont know what your maximum weight is, I mean you think that something is your maximum weight is and it isnt, because the athlete can be wrong about his maximum achieving state. We can use pulse rate to discover the maximum weight. If the athlete has a pulse of less than 180, it means that he can do more.
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again, great post.. love all these little notes & blurbs into one post :) big fan of that
peace man
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Definitely the best post I have read in years. I've ignored it at first because it was too long, but I'm now glad that I've read it, very very interesting.
http://weightliftingexchange.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74&Itemi%20d=75
If you think about it, a person getting old and keeping the same amount of muscle will get less and less athletic. Why is that happening if that person has the same muscles and strength? Possibly strength goes down as well despite that person having the same amount of muscles and bodyfat. In that case, I think the only logical explanation, besides joint pain when trying to be athletic, jump run etc, is the neurotransmitter speed/hormonal stuff is weaker in the body. That has to be it. It's a change inside the body in itself that makes that person less athletic. There are obviously so many factors though.
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Definitely the best post I have read in years. I've ignored it at first because it was too long, but I'm now glad that I've read it, very very interesting.
http://weightliftingexchange.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=74&Itemi%20d=75
If you think about it, a person getting old and keeping the same amount of muscle will get less and less athletic. Why is that happening if that person has the same muscles and strength? Possibly strength goes down as well despite that person having the same amount of muscles and bodyfat. In that case, I think the only logical explanation, besides joint pain when trying to be athletic, jump run etc, is the neurotransmitter speed/hormonal stuff is weaker in the body. That has to be it. It's a change inside the body in itself that makes that person less athletic. There are obviously so many factors though.
if you kept muscle mass the same (which generally doesn't happen, there's usually a decline in overall CSA AND decrease in IIx fibers), it's mostly due to rate abilities (RFD) diminishing (decrease in the discharge rates from motoneurons to the mu's), decreased testosterone/androgens, & decreasing neural drive (increased synchronization of MU's, decrease inhibition/protective mechanisms such as Golgi etc). So, the actual mechanisms responsible for recruiting motor units fast decreases, as well as the ability to voluntary recruit that mass. As people age, they see increased activity of the antagonist (coactivation), which can decrease overall force production, this ties back in with the synchronization of mu's etc.
I'd imagine alot of those changes could be mediated by PED's etc, as long as one stays healthy.. It's not coincidence that with changes to the endocrine system (andropause), power/strength also is effected negatively.
peace mang
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Another long post but i found this pretty interesting, i wish i had of saved more of the info john broz gave out, maybe there is more on his site will have to check it out.
You know what kills me? When we get shocked about overweight people, injured athletes, or when I hear about another study trying to figure out why we arent living as long. Ill be the first to state that there is way more we dont understand, than what we do about the human body. But, lets not make it so complex that things sitting right under our noses seem so mysterious.
I believe that if we look at training and health through an evolutionary lens, we can get an instant perspective of where were at as a species, and where were going if we dont straighten out most of our anti-human behavior.
It all starts with a simple rule of mine.
Spit in the face of Mother Nature and something bad is bound to happen.
There are things you are currently doing that youre just not designed for. Keep it up and problems are going to happen.
I know what you want. You want to increase your muscle mass, be a badass athlete, get lean, or score with more members of the opposite sex. I know this because youre human. Everyone has those desires to take over the tribe by force and spread your genes. Its in your DNA. Weve all been designed to think this way. Unfortunately, as you will see from this article, our current generation is doing almost everything in its power to counteract these urges (as evidenced by the fact most of us are not ripped, jacked and chick magnets). And as youll see, besides not meeting our immediate desires, it just might be killing us.
Interesting? Well, if youre one of the few that still want the strong body and attractive mate, the easiest way to get any of these is to hop in your time-traveling Delorean, go back to the right date, and choose your parents wisely. I say this because the current group of parents may just be wiping out our future.
Today parents tell their kids to eat everything on their plate, drink all of their juice, stop running around and to put on shoes before they sit down to play their video games. And often, instead of forcing adaptations that were designed to have, we create crutches like clothes, medicine, shoes and calculators that make our lives easier, but make us physically and mentally soft. Call me environmentally conscious, but when I hear an overweight mom or dad tell their equally overweight kid to clean their plate, I only want to clean their clock. To kill two birds with one stone, a good way to do this would be to take a copy of Charles Darwins work over the top of their ever-softening dome.
This year is the 200th anniversary of Darwins birth and 150th of the first edition of his landmark book, On the Origin of Species. You may know Darwins main theory: that species will evolve through genetic variation and natural selection.
What he meant is that there will be a number of different presentations of a species, so that there will be the best chance of a species survival in any environment. The ones best suited for survival make it, while the others are weeded out. Translation: If you are as tough as nails, you get to eat. If you get to eat, you get the chicks. If you get the chicks, your genes (and the genetic variations that led to the favorable traits that got you the food and girl) get passed on. Also known as: Survival of the Fittest.
I like Darwins work, not only because its provocative, but also because his concept of natural selection is applied in so many industries today (like business and science). My goal is to apply it to training and the human body. Then, Ill explain in evolutionary terms a lot of things that we see today that we are missing or just making way too complicated.
So, lets take a step back and use the old concept of evolution to create a new revolution about our training, diet and future.
How Do You Feel About Evolution?
Before I go any further, I must say I never want to offend anyones beliefs. Evolution is still a racy topic and in its teaching in certain school systems across the US, some see it as undermining religion. I dont want that in any way to be the focus of this article. Thats not my belief and definitely not my intention.
If this is a topic you havent thought much about, however, I will say that the more you ignore the information and stay spellbound, the more trouble youll be in.
What Id like to do is reach a consensus by asking a few questions:
* Can we agree that humans have been on this planet for a long time? The fossil record goes back two to five million years.
* Can we agree that the appendix is a suspected organ thats now dormant? You can take it out and not have problems. What was it for?
* Can we agree there is a fight or flight response? This ancient protective mechanism is now causing new evolutionary problems like Road Rage, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and more
* Can we agree that the reproductive cycle in women is getting longer and the sperm count in men shrinking? If you didnt know it, they areGULP!
* Can we agree that cancer rates, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and infertility are at an all-time high? We are also passing genes for these problems on to our children.
If we can start to agree on these things, it shows us something very interesting: were changing from what we were. These statements above and the prediction that our pinky toe will eventually evolve away is what I call contemporary evolution. If youre into the caveman diet, eat/train Paleo, or think it might just be true that grass fed meat instead of hormones loaded is healthier, maybe youre into this idea more than you think!
So, if we can agree that the last handful of years demonstrate that evolution is taking place, lets have some fun with it. Go way back and try to come up with an explanation as to why we may be doing ourselves more harm than good when it comes to our training and diet.
Human Development and Exercise
The brain essentially developed while working out. Research shows activity is essential to brain development and learning. A million years ago we were on the move approximately 6 10 miles per day. Thats how we were designed and where we learn best. We had to remember what was trying to kill us. When hunting and moving, we needed to remember how to hunt again and also what not to do again. These are pitfalls like quicksand, bad berries, etc. I find it funny how we ignore our senses today and poison ourselves, just because there are a bunch of zeros on the label.
A big brain and its ability to remember things separates us from all od the other species on the planet. To remember is to survive. We have forgotten all the things were supposed to do, like eat right, exercise, etc. Weve also forgotten how to listen to our bodies. Perhaps our brain has gotten too big and now were weeding ourselves out. To find these humans suffering from evolution amnesia, just go to your local supermarket. Anyone of these zombies that you see solely roaming the inner isles of the store hunting for the next bag of cocoa crappies or sugar coated poison crisps is your target.
When you put an animal in zoo, give it a steady stream of food without the necessity of exercise, three things happen:
1. It goes nuts.
2. It stops reproducing.
3. It gets fat.
In a way, it might be natures way of making sure that animal doesnt live on. Well, were in the zoo and since there arent any bars, we just dont know it. But we do know all three problems are starting to plague us. Just sit in an airport for a few hours and people watch to see just how shallow the gene pool is actually getting.
Are We Making Athletes Worse?
Now I know people train hard. Why else would you be on this site? But heres something we never really stop to consider: are we making ourselves worse through certain types of training?
I think we are.
In some cases, I think the human species hasnt evolved fast enough for the stress were currently trying to endure.
Sports and most exercise for that matter are contrived. Let me say that again, sports and most exercise for that matter are contrived. We did not evolve on it. Sports are the last 50-100 years out of 8 million. Most fitness crazes are even less. As a result, we arent ready for a lot of it. Actually, almost all of the injuries that confuse many doctors today like ACL, concussions, sports hernias, patellofemorals, etc., could be confusing them because they for the most part never existed!
Lets cut the confusion, and give some easy explanations:
* Concussion: The human head is not designed to speed at 30 to 90 mph and then come crashing into something head onand it wont be anytime soon that it will.
* ACL: We were meant to run straight ahead, just faster than the other guy that gets eaten. Now sports need us to cut, land, rotate, pivot, etcand ACLs happen. That one is just not going away, it is getting worse!
* Sports Hernia: The most common sport to see this in is hockey. The common number of our ancestors that skated none. Enough said.
Overuse injuries? How about we rename these injuries inhuman repetitious irritants. Tennis elbow? Jumpers Knee? Carpal Tunnel? Throwers Shoulder? Golfers Low Back? Yeah, I dont think prehistoric men worried about that. He was more worried about something called Sabre Tooth Puncture.
According to the fact this generation will live less than their parents, we could make a case that we are De-evolving. I think were just naturally selecting ourselves out of things, but we dont even know it. Darwins theory was that things who could not survive the conditions were weeded out. When new things were added to some species, they couldnt adapt.
Im pretty sure its going to be a long time before our ligaments are either very vascular, or so strong they dont break. It will be a while before our skulls can handle full-collisions on the football field, and that kids are born with the motor program to skate instead of walk. Until then, the problems are going to continue to happen. We have more training than ever, more education than everand more injuries than ever. Were simply doing things we arent designed for, and instead of protecting ourselves, or lessening the eventual injury, we actually increase both the chances and severity.
Need an example?
Lets say I take you and make your quads and glutes stronger, but neglect your adductors and abductors so theyre not as strong. Weve created an imbalance, which is potentially a problem. You werent designed to have some muscles completely able to overpower other smaller muscles and take the force. You can now actually tear a muscle off.
So now Ive made your primary movers bigger, but your stabilizers are still weak. Now I tell you to run as fast as you can, even though youre not built for slowing down because your ancestors for a million years never had this skill imprinted into their genetic code. You dont have a natural motor program for it because you didnt have to score a touchdown or cut to make a layup a million years ago. Do you see how this could be disastrous? For the person not into the evolution idea, but is still reading for kicks, just think bigger engine, same car, no breaks. All sports demand a change of direction and slowing down, but we havent been built for it.
This example shows only three things we have to understand about the human organism to make sure we dont hurt ourselves: deceleration, eccentric control and muscular balance. But, whens the last time you thought of any of those when you decided to do your squat workout?
By taking this evolutionary approach, we obtain a starting point to base everything else. So, just for fun, lets take a few other stabs in the dark to see what we can uncover.
Functional Assessment?
Yeah, these are the popular thing now. Lets face it, the biggest dysfunction is obesity. This results from bad eating and the biggest dysfunctional behavior: living a sedentary lifestyle. Put those together and you got fat people that are all tight in the same places. In my mind, as peoples weight goes up, both their flexibility and assessment scores are going to keep going down. And the problems will be in all the same spots. The solution is not to foam roll your fat ass for an hour and then whack down a 1,000 calorie latte/protein shake either. The solution is simpler than that. Get up, close the hole under your nose and start moving arounda lot.
Over the last 17 years, Ive watched assessments continue to evolve. It all started for me in 1993, when I started learning orthopedic assessment at the Medical University of South Carolina. Weve moved from muscle to muscle during this period getting deeper into anatomy, but unfortunately further from a remedy. First it was the tight pecs, which affected the shoulder. Then we got deep into the rotator cuff and how important that is. Then, it was the psoas and hammies. Then we got fancy and noticed the lats and the subscapularis. Then it was lower traps. Now, tight ankles are the new big thing. Who knows, maybe next year well be back to the same tight pecs which will lead to the 2011 Rotator Cuff Revolution.
Come on guys, we sleep 7 8 hours a day. Now, in a soft bed with the feet plantar flexed under our fluffy covers, the ankles are going to lock up a bit. Now, that might be ok if we were active and maybe took our shoes off as you will see later, but we dont walk or move the feet very much. Then, we put on our tight fashionable shoes with a heel lift and wonder what the problem is. The tight soleus and gastrocs put more pressure on the knee and low and behold we have patello-femoral syndrome to go with our plantar fascitis. Another couple of classic nebulous things no one seems to really understand.
Then, when we arent in the bed because our knees and feet are killing us, were sitting hunched over watching our de-evolution marvel: the TV. This leads to our tight psoas and hammies. We, as a species spend more time sitting than ever. The entire process, our body is molding into the positions we spend the most time in. Tight pecs, lats, ankles and hip flexorsyeah I think we got it.
Then, when we want high performance a few hours a week in a contrived sport we are surprised by the injury that was bound to happen. Hey, Im all for Assessment, but only when theres real execution behind it. So until we change the causes, dont look for easy solutions, look for changes in behavior. If you cant help a person make changes there, then does it matter if they know what to do but dont ever do what they know? And behavior brings us right back to evolution now doesnt it?
Evolutionary Answers to Interesting Questions
Why cant athletes accelerate properly?
Behavioral evolution is an interesting concept. People are inherently afraid of things that used to cause them hard. Think of why kids are afraid of snakes and spiders. They may not do too much damage now. Really, how many deadly spiders do we see on a daily basis? But a few hundred thousand years ago, they could kill you. Same thing with falling down while sprinting.
Speaking of sprinting, while training the NFL combine guys, the hardest thing to get them to do is to accelerate. To truly accelerate you have to almost fall on your face. To really hit it perfect where your center of gravity is far in front of your base of support so you can use gravity to your advantage, you have to go way past your comfort zone.
So why wouldnt my guys accelerate properly? Because they were scared of falling. But what kind of sense does that make?
Whats the worse that would happen? Youd fall, everyone else in the tribe would pass you and youd get eaten. People have a big fear of falling. We weeded out the guys who fell on their faces. If you wanted to run to avoid being dinner, youd have to be really tall to maintain speed and be careful not to fall.
But it doesnt work like that on the 40-yard dash. If my guy wants to make 8 million bucks, he has to learn how to detrain that 8-million-year-old response.
So what do I do? I have him fall on his face. Over and over.
Its the only way to teach the proper position. After they realize they wont get hurt or eaten by a tiger, we back off the falling part by just a hair, and teach them how to explode out of that starting point. Thats how looking at evolution has helped me produce over 150 of the fastest and sometimes richest guys in the NFL.
Are your shoes making you soft and weak?
For years people have been calling me the barefoot guy since Ive been preaching about shoe-less training at every seminar I give. My athletes do their speed training, mobility, stretching, and lower-body strength exercises barefoot.
Heres why.
Hammer toes? Achilles Tendonitis? Corns? Bunyons? Plantar fascitis? Yeah, take off your shoes.
When I was working solely as a physical therapist, one of the areas I could never make a great impact with people was their feet.
In therapy, if you had shoulder surgery I wouldnt just put you in a sling. First, Id get the range of motion back, start building strength and make a physical change. But with a foot, conventional wisdom was to just put you in a softer and softer shoe until eventually youd wear a boot and then move to crutches. Thats in the reverse direction!
After some research, I learned that roughly 25 percent of all the joints in your body are in your feet. If you look at the bone structure and how its designed its almost identical to your hand. Your feet should actually be fantastic sensors and just as mobile and capable as your hands! The heel pads are designed to get thickened like the sole of the shoe. Yet the prehensile ability and durability of the feet in adults is almost gone since their feet have been shoved in shoes all their lives.
Just look at babies when theyre born; their feet are mobile and able to grip stuff. But Ive had first-round draft picks that couldnt even pick up a pencil with their feet! Too bad the first thing we do is get kids a pair of Air Jordans cause its so cute and then bronze them and hang them in pride when they grow out of them!
By having my patients and athletes take their shoes off and strengthen their feet, they regained balance and proprioception and their pains virtually disappeared. Now that their feet could move, they had less foot, ankle, knee, hip, lower-back and shoulder problems!
The more you take away the mobility of the foot by taping them up and putting them in further taped up shoes and cleats, thats where the injuries occur. You might as well cut to the chase and put some cement shoes on and be done with it. Youre not born with shoes on. Weve been convinced that its the shoe on the foot instead of the foot in the shoe that makes the difference. I dont agree.
Our feet are like two dead animals on the end of our legs we dont use. If we change that, I think well see better performance and a lot less injuries.
A few simple solutions: whenever you can take your shoes off, do it. Do the alphabet at night with your toes and ankles. Pick your socks up off the floor with your toes. Learn to use your feet again.
Why is sprinting such a great exercise?
Most guys arent doing any speed work and its a shame. Lifting weights and then sitting on the couch doesnt make you healthy. It makes you half a human being since youre missing a vital part: running.
Sprinting used to be mandatory.
A long time ago, if you couldnt sprint it meant youd be the first one who got chowed down on. You were the slowest one in the herd and youd get weeded out.
Not only does sprinting get your nervous system fired up, it also releases endorphins and growth hormone, and activates muscle fibers that would otherwise be dormant. That means triggering muscle growth and burning fat, all while doing something you were always intended to do! So, I believe the longer you go without performing this activity, the closer you get to the big dirt nap. Hey, its not nasty, its nature.
Why dont your muscles get sore after every workout?
A million people can tell me about delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) but no one can tell me why it happens. Not even one of the top scientists who studies it.
As he understands it, DOMS is microscopic tearing in the muscle fibers when they undergo stress that creates an inflammatory response that stimulates protein synthesis to create rebuilding of the muscle.
Need an example? Lets say you havent benched in a year. You head to the gym and crush your upper body with a ton of volume on the bench press. How do you feel the next day? Horrible, right? And a few days after that? Still a bit sore. Now lets say you wait a few more days until youre not sore anymore and then do the exact same workout. Will you be as destroyed when you finish? Probably not. Why does that happen?
My theory is that a hundred thousand years ago, when seasons and activity levels changed, the body had to be able to adapt to stresses on the fly and then not make us suffer again with repeated bouts of exercise. DOMS is a built-in protective mechanism.
Could you imagine sprinting or climbing for food and being sore as hell the next day when you had to sprint again? What good would that do you if you could never recover and adapt? Your performance would be decreased and you wouldnt be able to hunt, or get away from predators every day.
Ive also found that this protective mechanism lasts about two weeks. So, if you do something new with your body, you will be sore for a few days, but then protected against that stimulus for the next couple of weeks. Since you may not have had to hunt or fight every day a million years ago, it was an advantage to have this protection for a few weeks. Interestingly, upon trying to understand why it is two weeks, I researched that a human cant go without food for much over two weeks, so maybe that was all the time we needed. Again, interesting look at why we are the way we are and respond the way we do.
Why is it hard to activate the glutes?
When was the last time your glutes and lats were as crushed after a workout? If it has been a while, evolution can possibly help to explain why. While in an interesting conversation with the glute guy Bret Contreras in California, about the glutes, I realized that perhaps the difficulty in activating the glutes was not just a function of biomechanics, but also metabolic demand. What I mean is that the glutes are the biggest muscles in body. They require, therefore, the most energy once they are lit up, as well as tons of energy to recover once they are beat up. Those facts would predispose an evolutionary thinker to suggest that a million years ago these muscles would only activate in times of highest needs like escaping an attack or fighting for ones life. Interestingly, sprinting has been found to be an incredible way to activate the glutes. This would be the activity described above as needed for fight or flight.
Why are kids so fat?
Another shocker! The fastest growing age demographic for obesity are ages 2 5. Not really a shocker when you look at evolution. Also, kids that would eat anything a parent gave them from infancy to two years old develop a profound choosiness with food at ages 2 3. This evolved finickiness is because these are the precise ages that a prehistoric child became mobile and started foraging for themselves. If they didnt stick with the familiar, they would die off faster. The problem is that today, the familiar food for a three year old is hotdogs, nuggets and ten times the calories they would have gotten in the past. This is why that demographic is the fastest growing in obesity in the world! Kids wont clean their plate if you dont make them. Talk about adding in an anti-human habitual behavior.
Why is juice the downfall of man?
Ok, not that kind of juice. I am talking fruit juice, but Im glad I got your attention. For millions of years, we never took in any calories from the liquids we consumed. So essentially, were not designed to get calories from liquids. This design also dictates that we shouldnt feel satiated from our liquids either. So, today we are guzzling thousands of empty calories that dont fill us up. As a result of the increased calories, we dont feel full, throw down a bunch of food and get fatter.
Another theory I have about the fattening of man is that the human thirst response is slow. I keep hearing this, but does anyone ask why? Maybe cause it was so damn hard to get water a million years ago. Can you imagine if you were thirsty as hell back then? It would have driven a man nuts to the point he would be paralyzed. Today, however, we dont rely on any response. We just pound down our choice of colored sugar water and pack on the pounds.
A final piece on obesity and kids is sleep. Every other species on the planet sleeps when they are tired. Not us! We fill our day to tire ourselves out starting at a young age, then stay up until late at night stressing about what we did during the day and the fact that we have to get up earlier than we would like to do it again! I think perhaps one of the biggest technological and human damaging tools is not the fridge, the tv or the cell phone although they might not be helping either but the alarm clock! Just 15 to 30 minutes of sleep less a day, not only hurts our ability to recover, but its also now being linked with decreased IQ and obesity! Wake up an hour earlier like most of our kids today and think about that one. Oh wait, you cant because your IQ will be reduced. I know, lets send them to school instead..
Wrap-up
I hope everyone has enjoyed this manifesto. I guess I just needed to get some of these things off my chest. Im sure theres even an evolutionary explanation for that, as well as tons of things I left out from this article that need to be covered. The most important thing I wanted to achieve was not just to entertain you, but to make you think. As we evolved, our ability to think and adapt allowed us to take over every part of the planet. Now, we need to get back in touch with this ability and question just what were doing with ourselves.
I know that this article wont prevent injury, but perhaps better understanding it can help lead to less incidences. I know that this article wont stop the obesity epidemic, but maybe everyone will get a little more in touch with their inner caveperson. I know you might not work on your flexibility and start sprinting barefooted, but know that you should. I also know some people might have a problem with the topics covered, but that is why our skin was made able to thicken with use.
We all know the saying an apple a day keeps the doctor away, yet most of us might not have had an apple in a while. So, just like the topics I have stated about evolution, What are the consequences if theyre true and we dont do anything about it?
The future of mankind starts with you.
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i think that is the single longest post i've ever seen in all my years online (since late 80's) . read through a few paragraphs of it but i'll have to come back to the rest later. looks like lot of good stuff. thanks for sharing. :)
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EVERYTHING IS AN ABSOLUTE! CONTEXT DOESN'T MATTER, WHAT I DECREE IS LAW AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A FAT PUSSY OR A SKINNY PUSSY OR BOTH! MY LIFTERS ARE STRONG SO YOU SHOULD TRAIN LIKE THEM! I UNDERSTAND EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THE HISTORY OF SPORT BETTER THAN ANYONE WITH THAT THERE BOOK LEARNING! BOOK LEARNING IS FOR PUSSIES! ATHLETES OFTEN RUN 30 MPH AND GET CONCUSSIONS! THE BEST WAY TO TEACH THE FORTY IS TO HAVE YOUR ATHLETE FACEPLANT REPEATEDLY! JUICE IS EVIL! I AM KNOWLEDGEABLE BECAUSE MY LIFTERS ARE STRONG SO YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO ME!
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EVERYTHING IS AN ABSOLUTE! CONTEXT DOESN'T MATTER, WHAT I DECREE IS LAW AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A FAT PUSSY OR A SKINNY PUSSY OR BOTH! MY LIFTERS ARE STRONG SO YOU SHOULD TRAIN LIKE THEM! I UNDERSTAND EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THE HISTORY OF SPORT BETTER THAN ANYONE WITH THAT THERE BOOK LEARNING! BOOK LEARNING IS FOR PUSSIES! ATHLETES OFTEN RUN 30 MPH AND GET CONCUSSIONS! THE BEST WAY TO TEACH THE FORTY IS TO HAVE YOUR ATHLETE FACEPLANT REPEATEDLY! JUICE IS EVIL! I AM KNOWLEDGEABLE BECAUSE MY LIFTERS ARE STRONG SO YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO ME!
:ninja:
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This was so inspirational a part of it became my facebook status (i know it sounds corny :)) but i really liked it)
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I'm convinced that high frequency squatting is the thing for me. It's no coincidence that EVERRYYYY TIMEEEEE that I miss a single workout day, or it gets delayd by a day, I HIT A SLUMP. Some people might say "oh, its a nice deload, you'll come back stronger" but it never happens to me!!! Fuck it, I'm doing smolov jr for at least 3 weeks when I have break from college.
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I'm convinced that high frequency squatting is the thing for me. It's no coincidence that EVERRYYYY TIMEEEEE that I miss a single workout day, or it gets delayd by a day, I HIT A SLUMP. Some people might say "oh, its a nice deload, you'll come back stronger" but it never happens to me!!! Fuck it, I'm doing smolov jr for at least 3 weeks when I have break from college.
Well if you listen to Pfaff's acute relieving syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome, maybe you'll understand more about what's happening. Search for them (although I'm not sure if they are well represented anywhere other than filmed seminars).
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Whatever it is, I was doing 325 for 3x5 last month. Then I missed a workout day... Yesterday I did 275 for 3x5 with a bit of struggling.
Can you provide some useful links for me because I can't find any about those two things you mentioned.
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You probably won't find them pretty much anywhere... I have them on my HDD but they are long seminars... djoe has them too (he send them to me), adarqui has them (I send them to him) and I think Lance has them too. I don't know if I can be bothered to upload them AGAIN.
The idea is this:
Acute relieving syndrome: Happens during de-loads when you'd usually measure things to see improvements. Pfaff has actually found out the performance decreased during deloads so he was doing his measurements a week or so into the training plan (into full training and not into deload weeks).
Chronic load syndrome: It's when you do the same thing over and over and over and you stop responding to stimuli, so you need to change that stimuli.
There are certain waves of "training intensities" that happen during a year or season or whatever. It's how you manipulate that that creates results and it obviously is individual.
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well the deload is to be done only when you have 'over' worked your system...that is you fatigue ur cns and then you deload so you supercompensate....if you dont train 'hard enough' to fatigue your system, then there is no point deloading.
theres 2 cases why your squat may go down :
1) too little training in the period before - now you need to increase the training stimulus (more weight/more volume/more frequencey)
2) too much training in the period before - now you need a deload, so a decrease in the trianing stimulus
so in your case, if you want to use a deload, you need to train harder the weeks BEFORE that deload.
but if everyfing is working, why overcomplicate it?
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well the deload is to be done only when you have 'over' worked your system...that is you fatigue ur cns and then you deload so you supercompensate....if you dont train 'hard enough' to fatigue your system, then there is no point deloading.
theres 2 cases why your squat may go down :
1) too little training in the period before - now you need to increase the training stimulus (more weight/more volume/more frequencey)
2) too much training in the period before - now you need a deload, so a decrease in the trianing stimulus
so in your case, if you want to use a deload, you need to train harder the weeks BEFORE that deload.
but if everyfing is working, why overcomplicate it?
Well I guess djoe just answered perfectly. You don't really need to do a deload just for the sake of deloading, so basically, don't deload until you hit that chronic load syndrome.
When do you usually deload? Each... what # of weeks? Or you deload when you think you have to?
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My deloads are usually unplanned. I never do it when I'm on a streak of PR's.