Topic: A few questions from a beginner.

[Albert B. Gonzalez]

this is all preference, there isnt a "best" or "better" program. to say that one guy has better progress because he implements different movements than the guys who stick to pure o-lifting is wrong. youll never lift like kendrick ferris not because you dont have a similar program, it because youre not kendrick ferris. of course this is obvious becuase everybody is different. when it comes to how ever you train you get what you can take. and what you take totally depends on how much you put in to it and focus. 150%-200% deadlifts or not.

[kaptain.kayak]

But this is all theory, and talk. Increase your deadlift to 500lbs and switch your high bar back squat to a low bar, and see for yourself. your pull will go up like mine.

Ok, that worked for you, but I stopped deadlifting and back squatting and my competition lifts have been shooting up like crazy.

Anecdotal evidence doesn't work!

[Patrick Bateman]

But this is all theory, and talk. Increase your deadlift to 500lbs and switch your high bar back squat to a low bar, and see for yourself. your pull will go up like mine.

Ok, that worked for you, but I stopped deadlifting and back squatting and my competition lifts have been shooting up like crazy.

Anecdotal evidence doesn't work!

how were you programming the low bar back squats and deadlifts, and at what weight and percentage of your 1rm? and at what body weight?

[Chuck Lopez]

this is all preference, there isnt a "best" or "better" program. to say that one guy has better progress because he implements different movements than the guys who stick to pure o-lifting is wrong. youll never lift like kendrick ferris not because you dont have a similar program, it because youre not kendrick ferris. of course this is obvious becuase everybody is different. when it comes to how ever you train you get what you can take. and what you take totally depends on how much you put in to it and focus. 150%-200% deadlifts or not.

there IS a best program for different body types and different needs, bulgarian style training is better for those who don't have a strength deficit but for those whose back, hips and hams and overall body  needs strengthening just the lifts and front squat is the LAST thing they need, you can put all the focus in the world into it if you're using a program not suited to your needs you are going to fail

[Albert B. Gonzalez]

obviously you are not famaliar with the father of the bulgarian system a mr.Ivan Abadjiev. as contradictive as your statement was theres no arguing over fact. here a piece of article on the famous coaching legend"In 1969 when Abadjiev took over as national coach, the team used 19 exercises in their training. Over the next 20 years, as he continually adapted his program, exercises were progressively discarded until 1986 when his lifters performed just 5 (Snatch, Power Snatch, Clean and Jerk, Power Clean and Front Squat) and exclusively for single repetitions. Throughout this period the team's results in International competition continued to improve and Bulgaria became the top weightlifting nation in the world.

Popular weightlifting 'assistance exercises' such as pulls, deadlifts and back squats were discarded because their movement path and speed of execution does not exactly mirror that used in the competition lifts. Abadjiev states that all available adaptation energy must be committed to exercises with the greatest cross over (i.e. snatch, clean + jerk and front squat!). Additionally, these popular assistance exercises are often performed with loads exceeding those possible in the competition lifts, and for multiple repetitions. This type of training causes substantial skeletal and central nervous system fatigue that reduces the quality of future workouts" not my words. guess what was the #1 quality Abadjiev looked for in lifters? "WILL POWER"

[Chuck Lopez]

the bulgarians built up their lifters with bodybuilding exercises and general strength lifts gradually decreasing exercises until they reached required levels of performance, oh and abadjiev never dropped back squats in his program or did I not see vid of galabin boevski back squatting 250kg @ 69kg? or how about vanev pulling 200kg for triples @ 70kg? don't believe everything biased bulgarian britains/americans like david woodhouse or stever gough write.

[Patrick Bateman]

i think you guys are illustrating what i don't like about modern thought processes in olympic lifting. That i bought into.

Yes the bulgarians only did sn, c and j, and fs. And the russians did XYZ, and greeks do BLah blah blah, and the chinese do rah rah rah. But guess what?

We are not as genetically gifted as those guys. We probably haven't been lifting for 10 years by the time we are 18. We are not a scouted few from a talent pool of millions. we are not on the steroids that they are on. And we probably don't have access to the facilites that they have.

All these facts for me meant that i wasn't making big gains on a modern conventional olympic routine.

i think it is really important to appreciate that what a national team does at the elite level pretty much bears no relation to what goes on in our pithy little gyms, at the novice/intermediate with 'average' genetics.

i know it is harsh to say it like that. but it is the truth.

i mean if i were to do usain bolt's training routine, it would probably do nothing for me. Why? because my best 100m is around 12 seconds. His 100m was below that pre-puberty. We are two completely different gentics levels of athlete.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

An absolutely amazing claim, and completely erroneous. Weightlifting is multi-factorial and until you can scientifically categorize one set of genes as being superior to another in physical strength/speed/power, you should not say such things. Can you even tell me what genes Bulgarians have that American don't, or what the supposed difference is? No.