Topic: Bulgarian Style Training

[patrick ward]

Patrick, in a perfect lifting world, you would have excellent technique and always make your targeted lifts. In otherwords, warm up, advance up the scale, do what you set out to do and then stop. Otherwise, you proceed accordingly, doing what you can accomplish at that time, while making logical decisions as to when "enough is enough, when to stop or when to keep pushing." I believe when the Bulgarian system is at its best, expecially with adept lifters, multiple sessions are performed daily at a crisp pace with the least amount of lifts performed. Otherwise, if you tend to pound away, miss after miss and that becomes your signature, then the chances of burnout becomes greater and you get too use to failure.

How many misses do you typically allow your athletes to have before moving on?  I know that my coach doesn't like me to miss anything in pratice and usually if I miss to in a row I have to move on to something else.  However, I have watched the bulgarian training tapes and they will miss a weight many times (sometimes half a dozen or more) in an attempt to make a successful lift.

[Steve Gough]

Patrick,

Abajiev states to the effect that misses are not necessarily bad training. Well, what does he mean, what is he trying to say? I think that you, just like me, have to figure that out for any particular occasion when that situation arises. Maybe you see something that leads you to believe that success is a whisper away. Maybe the focus was at first missing. Maybe confidence is gaining and by attempting just one more time success will come. Lots of maybes can come to the fore, don't you think? I am sure that others reading this thread may decide to jump in with their two cents. For my money you (the coach or the lifter) must believe that attempting this weight is valid, is ready. And just as assuredly you have to be ready to put the brakes on within a reasonable distance. Personally, I have stopped attempts after just one try. Other times I have let them go on three, four, fives times, etc and seen success. Something led me to believe that it was there ready to emerge. And just as often nothing on God's green earth could get me to believe that pushing on would produce anything other than failure. And often times the lifter must not be denied the chance to push his/her envelope. After all it is up to the individual to reach where he wants to go. It is that "internal thing" that "championship drive" that only a very few possess that must be satiated. Just don't delude yourself. Know yourself. Know your limitations. Be dogged. But, if you don't have it today, don't lose sight, it will come.

Steve

[patrick ward]

Patrick,

Abajiev states to the effect that misses are not necessarily bad training. Well, what does he mean, what is he trying to say? I think that you, just like me, have to figure that out for any particular occasion when that situation arises. Maybe you see something that leads you to believe that success is a whisper away. Maybe the focus was at first missing. Maybe confidence is gaining and by attempting just one more time success will come. Lots of maybes can come to the fore, don't you think? I am sure that others reading this thread may decide to jump in with their two cents. For my money you (the coach or the lifter) must believe that attempting this weight is valid, is ready. And just as assuredly you have to be ready to put the brakes on within a reasonable distance. Personally, I have stopped attempts after just one try. Other times I have let them go on three, four, fives times, etc and seen success. Something led me to believe that it was there ready to emerge. And just as often nothing on God's green earth could get me to believe that pushing on would produce anything other than failure. And often times the lifter must not be denied the chance to push his/her envelope. After all it is up to the individual to reach where he wants to go. It is that "internal thing" that "championship drive" that only a very few possess that must be satiated. Just don't delude yourself. Know yourself. Know your limitations. Be dogged. But, if you don't have it today, don't lose sight, it will come.

Steve

excellent answer.  thanks for the response.  :)

[Scott Willis]

For those who use the Bulgarian system, how do you train the last month before a before a competition?

[David Woodhouse]

Training frequency & attempts at maximum decrease.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Has anyone been using the Bulgarian system and getting results? Coach Burgener? Coach Gough? Coach Pendlay? Coach Lundahl? Has anyone had an athlete adapt to the system and prosper? Is the Bulgarian system fit for long term use, or only periodically, as a form of over-reaching? Is it only fit for some mentalities? Only some cultures?

Will the organism adapt to perpetually higher levels of workload? What is the optimum? Can one adapt to a Bulgarian style, three-workout a day, seven day a week program? I believe some people could. For some, it may even produce results unattainable any other way. Of course, there are also downsides. But, what about the up?

Any comments?

[Matt Foreman]

First of all, I'm not training any of my athletes on a Bulgarian style program, so my comments will just be from theory and thinking.

From what I understand of the Bulgarian program, which is probably about as much as any Americans who just do the reading, watch the videos, listen to the lectures, etc., I don't think it's conceptually designed for lifters to have long weightlifting careers.  If you're following the program in its purest form, I think it would be very difficult to do for extended periods of time if you're not taking drugs.  The recovery would just be too tough if there's not some extra testosterone present.  Even if you modify the program (which obviously changes the whole situation in any number of ways), it would be tough to keep up with the workouts for long if the basic program is still centered around basic "Bulgarian principles", for lack of a better term.

Now, not all coaches believe that a long weightlifting career is important.  Some coaches, and athletes, believe that you should go hell-bent-for-leather as long as you can, push the envelope until your body basically stops producing results (hopefully attaining some major success in this process), and then retire so you can go get married, get a career, buy a house, have kids, etc.  And I'm certainly not saying this approach is wrong.  I don't use it personally because I've chosen to make weightlifting a lifetime sport, and that choice involves finding ways to keep lifting and keep healthy into the older years.  I don't think there are many people who would argue for using a Bulgarian approach for masters and old guys with full-time careers and beat-up joints.  But if you're talking about a U25 competitor who trains full-time and wants to make a serious run at an Olympic Team or WC medal, then it's a different story.

Personally, I would be interested in hearing information about the methods of clean American lifters who have made it to a high level.  Instead of constantly talking about ideas for how we can get our guys to a WC medal level without drugs (which I don't even believe can happen 99% of the time, given the many ways the deck is stacked against us), I would like to hear more about the training methods of guys like Vaughn, Kelley, Barnett, etc. who have done the biggest weights of any Americans in the modern era.  Let's not discard their methods because they've only resulted in an 11th place finish at the Worlds.  That 11th place at the Worlds, we must remember, is largely attributed to several factors in international weightlifting that are beyond our control.  The only thing we can control is how much weight we can lift in our system, and the guys who have succeeded most in that system must have some ideas that would help a lot of people.

Just some thoughts.  I'm sure not everyone agrees with all of them, and that's fine.  But we should try to stay away from the "I'm all for trying different things, as long as they're different things I approve of" thinking, if we really want to think outside the box.

[Scott Safe]

Great post, Matt.  We know alot about athletes that have reached the medal podium from other countries, but if they are on steroids, is that information relevant for American athletes that are drug free?  My guess is we know very little about how to climb the hill with drug free athletes.  The powerlifters/bodybuilders I know that have told me they used steroids say the difference in training and recovery is absolutely amazing.  We absolutely need info from top Americans that we know were/are clean.

Scott