Topic: Bulgarian Style Training

[Steve Gough]

John (and Glenn)

Your responses this a.m. have been heartfelt, sincere and loaded with hope for the future. If you add up all those lately who have added to this mix you might conclude that there are a considerable number out there in usa weightliftingland with the same vision... and will. Good things can happen from this. I would hope that the "powers to be" would take note and deign to join. Let us keep the ball rolling. Work with each other like we've never done before.

Steve

[Steve Gough]

Here we go again with... "the chicken vs the egg." Recruiting, yes! In the meantime what do we tell those who now have a chance? Sorry, we have to wait until we attract Chinese-like numbers. Never will happen. But produce results with the numbers we have and watch us grow. If not, at least we'll have far greater satisfaction than we now possess.

As for the training philosophy, again I disagree. I wish that someone who can really explain the concept of the "nervous system" that the Bulgarian training system addresses would step forward and make it understood so that all get it. It has nothing to do with countries or ethnic background or whatever... it has to do with the human-animal within us. It has to do with adaptation, total adaptation to the movements we contest... the snatch and the C&J. If you/we/anyone comes up with a better system, then fine, let's go for it. In the meantime we need to create some enertia... in a direction that has proven results.

[glennpendlay]

steve, let me take a stab as best i can, to explain what i think are the differences between the bulgarian and russian systems and their effect on the body.

in my opinion, it all boils down to a trade-off between overload and specificity.

overload of course is doing something you are not used to doing, something you are not adapted to, that then causes the body to change to accomodate it...  if you do LOTS of different things, it stands to reason that you can better overload the body.  you simply have a much easier time coming into a training session and doing something new and unusual enough to elicit an adaptation, whether it is an unusual load or exercise or anything else.

on first glance, this would seem to mean more variety is better, but thats not quite the whole story.  adaptations are specific...  if you adapt to doing a pull, how much of that adaptation will carry over to the clean?  50%?  more or less?  we can agree that there is some carry-over, but it is not 100% i think.

a more specific program, with less variety, will make it much harder to continue to overload the body, because of the constant use of the same type of training stimulus...  however, if all one ever does is 100% snatches, then it would stand to reason that although after time and adaptation it is hard to continue to overload the body with this type of work, and the overall overload and adaptation is smaller, 100% of the adaptation is applicable to doing 100% snatches.

so to fastforward a little, you have a choice of two things if you want to be at either extreme...  a workout that gives a LOT of overall physical adaptation, but a small percentage of it applicable to 100% snatches, or a workout that gives a smaller overall adaptation but a very high percentage of it applicable to 100% snatches.

given this, its easy to see why a lifter trained on the soviet system might appear more muscular and overall more athletic, but a lifter trained on a bulgarian system might get more weight on the snatch out of smaller muscles and less total physical ability/adaptation.

the adaptations of the body to a weightlifting type of load are numerous.  take the nervous system adaptations...  these are mostly specific, very specific to the work done.  more motor unit recruitment during a specific trained task, and better cooperation between muscles and muscle groups during a specific task...  such as muscles relaxing when they should, differing muscle groups supplying the correct amount of force at the correct time, etc.  i think its obvious that the bulgarian type of system operates mostly at the neural level, training the body to deliver its force more perfectly for the competitive exercises.

when it comes to "building muscle", there are a lot of different things that can go on inside a muscle to make it bigger.  the simple explanation would include the difference between hypertrophy of the sarcomere and hypertrophy of the sarcolema, which is part of what i think abajiev was getting at in the famous tape most of us have seen.  in simple terms, not everything inside of  a muscle contracts, there are also blood vessels, organells which supply energy, etc.  adaptation is specific.  if you demand great force output but little else, the muslce adapts to supply more force.  if you demand endurance, a totally different set of adaptations take place.  if you look at a muslce biopsy under a microscope, you could tell the difference between the adaptation to 20 rep squat workouts and singles on the clean and jerk.

of course it is all much more complicated than this, i really dont know what is appropriate on this type of forum.  i hope i dont sound like i am talking down to people, im just trying to make sense to someone with no physiology background.


my own personal opinion is that an athlete should do both work that is specific and work that is more general, going more toward the former as the career progresses.

[glennpendlay]

well darn if i had read that i wouldnt have posted.  obviously he covered it better.

but one thing he did leave out, it seems to me, is the differences between the two systems when it comes to exercise variety.  i think this is a lot more important than the differences in loading style.

[Steve Gough]

Glenn,

Excellent! This is more or less what I was asking for and you have answered it with deft clarity. I defer to your obvious grasp.

As for combinations in any form of the two (Russian and Bulgarian) I can only reason that Abajiev experimented with all combinations imaginable (at least the ones that made sense) to finally reach the results his lifters accomplished and the system we now discuss.

Then the question to me becomes, why waste time and effort on something already "hashed out", tried and rejected? Do we use what little resources (ie the best talent we have currently) to findout, thereby possibly limiting not only their results, but their time in which to do it? Abajiev in that tape definitely states that one must do the complete system in order for it to work. (my words). On that I would defer to his experiences and findings.

I should state a caveat which I seem to always omit, when I refer to this system and why I support it I am always talking about employing in a timely manner when each individual exhibits readiness (physically and mentally). What to do with beginners, intermediates may be a different story entirely. Though I tend to head in that direction from the gitgo.

As for your explaination comparing the different muscle sizes,etc, between Russian and Bulgarian lifters, does this have anything to do with what Abajiev refers to as "the quality of muscle?" If so, are we too fascinated/taken in by size over said-quality?

Again, great job on the explanations.

Steve

[glennpendlay]

well i cant read his mind...  and i wasnt all that impressed with the tape to tell you the truth.  i thought he put forth some pretty basic muscle phys and then drew conclusions from it which were a pretty huge stretch...  and that does NOT mean i dont like him or his system, just that i dont think that one thing follows another quite as easily as the tape made it seem.  

look, we all know the same basic things about human and muscle phys...  the russians, the bulgarians, the americans.  if it were as simple as that we could just go to someone like dr. kilgore (or stone?) and ask him how to train.  

quality of muscle...  the most obvious or logical thing this could mean in this context is how much actual myosin and actin you have per pound of muslce, what proportion of the cross section is myofillaments what proportion is not.

[Steve Gough]

"We could go to someone like Dr. Kilgore (or Stone) and ask him how to train."

Well, why haven't we? And if so, where are the results?  Correct on paper, but paper is not where its at. An old military axiom states that "battle plans are out the window as soon as the first shot is fired." And that I believe is where in our sport "true" coaching comes in.

The truth of the matter is that we only have two examples (currently) of World Champions in this country to cite... Oscar and Cheryl. Both from Savannah, though I dare say both a product of different coaching. One, by Michael Cohen, and the other ??? Oscar, himself, either entirely or mostly unless otherwise corrected. Both equally obvious were given great foundations in which to begin with, but gut feeling tells me that one of them took it from there to another level of which only he has reached thus far.

Each unique without a doubt. Though, I would say that Oscar's championship was by far the bigger nut to crack. He has led the way for the rest of us. Amazing to me that we really know next to nothing of his training career, methods, thoughts, etc etc. As for someone at the OTC taking credit... please, let us not insult our intelligence. It's hard enough to swallow, what, 23rd in the World, without having to sugarcoat our standings when no one really believes it.

The Abajiev interview really clarifies (at least to me) what you see of Abajiev (the old man) in the tape... a man, maybe with failing health, a man at the end of his career, for better or worse, unappreciated by some, admired by others. All the while totally glossing over the accomplishments by the "what-are-you-doing-for-me-lately crowd." He may not impress you now (or ever), but what they did under his watch is literally epic in scope and a goal for us to shoot for even if only on a limited basis.

Putting egos aside, what if anything is to be learned? Do we just build a better mouse trap? or just do as good or better a job using the simplelest of methods which just happen to have recorded the best of results?

[glennpendlay]

well, i dont think hes off his rocker at all  (assuming that this comment wasnt directed at ME?)...  but here is what i think.  ivan (arent we on a first name basis by now?) had theories and ideas about training that WORKED.  thats all there is to it.  he applied his ideas and they were successfull.  but not everyone wants to listen.

so, he goes back to muscle phys and tries to justify what hes doing with science...  the problem is, any decent grad student could come up with a good way to justify, using accepted science, the bulgarian, the russian, or any one of many other training systems equally well.  really, we simply dont know enough about all the 1 million variables involved to write out sets and reps and plans by reading a physiology text.

one example that i always thought was interesting.  greg hauff (sp?) published an paper on "cluster sets" that i think is available on this website.  as i remember, the premise of the paper was that when using cluster sets, you could keep the speed and tempo and power generation of the exercise closer to the values attained in a "fresh" state for longer, and do a greater volume of work without the values mentioned deteriorating.  the conclusion was then made that since average power generation values were higher, these type of sets would be better for the development of power.

now, this is interesting, except for the fact that a LOT of assumpions are made in order to conclude this in my opinion, i think a person could have taken the same data and concluded the total opposite depending on his or her particular personal feelings...  for example, doesnt zatsiorsky (who is as respected as anyone in the field) say that when using the repeated efforts method, it is in fact FATIGUE and going to FAILURE (and when you think about it, failure presupposed a slowing down and reduction in power production) is neccessary to get the best results...

i think that two different authors, with two different mindsets, could take the data that was gathered in this particular study, and written two entirely different conclusions using two entirely different reference lists, both of which could be convincing and could be pretty much supported by relevent scientific literature.

now this all doesnt mean that i dont like cluster sets or that i disagree completely with greg.  it just means that i sometimes read studies, and look at any assumptions, or how the data is presented, and play devils advocate.

in fact, the 20 singles in 20 minutes that is westside (or mills, depending i guess on where you got the idea) inspired and that we use, is kind of similar to a "cluster set".  we have had good success with kids using this type of work, and chris wilkes got the idea from us and has used it in the training of his lifters, a couple of whom have set american records.

but what strikes me is that my "explanation" of why i think it works is entirely different from that of greg and his study!  in my opinion, the type of fatigue, the slow onset of fatigue (as opposed to say, doing a set of 5 all at once) FORCES you (or allows you) to perfect your technique more and more as the workout goes on.  you can see, as the fatigue slowly sets in rep after rep, the kids not pulling the bar as high or as fast, but pulling it straighter, getting under faster, etc.  the body just slowly adapts over the 20 minutes to do whatever it takes to complete rep after rep, requiring better and better and more and more effecient technique as the power diminishes.  its not uncommon to see kids be able to build the weight up over the last 5 reps to hit new personal records even though there is obvious fatigue and loss of power.

so there you have two different explanations, both quite different, as to why the same type of training works.  and no, the training is not really the same, greg used pulls, his emphasis was on power production and he did not do 20 reps with 45 sec rest between each...  while i used snatches and clean and jerks and the emphasis was on technique and weight lifted...  but both protocols have some important things in common, that of a number of submaximal lifts done with short rests between, instead of the normal way of doing 3-5 reps in a row, then a long rest, then another 3-5 reps in  row, etc.  in fact id say that the defining factor for this type of training, and the defining factor used in his paper to differentiate the studied protocol ffrom more normal protocols was the short rests interspersed throughout the reps....  and yet two people not only have two different explanations as to why they work, one explanation centers on the elimination or reduction of fatigue, the other explanation centers on how the fatigue produced actually is part and parcel of the reason for success!

im not anti-science, im not anti-research.  if i was i wouldnt have gone through the trouble of getting my masters degree and doing my own research on over-reaching and the effect that manipulations of homones has on the training effect.  i think science is good and there is a lot to learn from it and that any coach should read it and learn and that some scientific knowledge is really required to be the best coach you can be.  i am hopefull that in the future there will be much more to learn from science about training, and that this knowledge will help all coaches to be more effecient...

but an often quoted saying is "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" which i think means basically that if you know only a little about a subject you are more likely to figuratively put your foot in your mouth than if you know nothing.  i think that right now we know "a little" about the bodies response to training and all the variables involved.  we know enough to draw conclusions, but not to be assured that these are the correct conclusions.  we know just enough, i think, to draw any conclusion we want if we are creative enough.

studies like the cluster set study and many others will help us know more, are worthwhile, and i think actually immensly valuable.  but we should be carefull about the breadth and depth of the conclusions we draw from studies.  certainly conclusions can be drawn, things can be learned, but maybe not quite as much as some people would like.  the first doctors had some strange ideas, but upon the foundations of bloodletting was built penicillan and MRI machines and the washing of the doctors hands between surgeries...

where did all this start?  oh yeah, bulgarian training and its basis in muscle phys and science.  to summarize my feelings, the training works, but it is not a forgon conclusion based that should be reached after reading a physiology text.