Mike Burgener has said, “I don’t believe in over training, just under recovery.”  And he is not alone.  We Olympic lifting coaches have all said similar things over the years (myself included).  But, these types of statements are highly misleading and tend to give off the wrong impression.  A better statement would be,

“Train as hard as you can, as often as you can, and spend the rest of your time working your ass off on recovery.”

Managing your fatigue is the key to your success in this sport.  Generally, your ability to come in as often as possible to practice the snatch, the clean, and the jerk will determine your success. 

Terminology

I’ve talked about this before, but I think it’s valuable to go over it again.  In strength and conditioning circles, we use a couple of variables to manage the fatigue of our athletes.  The most important of which are Volume, Intensity, and Frequency.

Volume is simply the number you get when you multiply sets times reps when you’re doing an exercise, in a workout, or even in a week, etc.  So, if you are doing snatches for 5 sets of 3 reps, your volume on the snatch today is … 5 x 3 = 15. (See, that math degree counts for something!). NOTE that we use the “times” symbol, “x”, to denote sets “times” reps when we write up our programs for a reason.

Now, if you want to have a total squat volume of 30 for the day, you can do 10 sets of 3 (10 x 3), or 3 x 10.  As you can see, while volume is important to keep in mind, it doesn’t tell you the whole story.  We need to know something about how hard things are for you.

Intensity is the amount of “work” you are putting in.  If you can do 20 chin ups as a max, but only do 10 in a set, that is NOT intense.  If you do 17, 18, more … then it is.  It is a subjective variable.  And it is good to keep it that way. 

There is another term, Load, that describes the Volume x weight used.  Load was designed to be more “accurate” at describing the intensity of workouts.  But, I find it problematic.  For instance, some athletes with a lot of slow twitch muscle fibers in their legs will find doing 8 reps at 90% of maximum in the squat taxing as hell, but doable.  Other, more fast-twitch, athletes will barely be able to do 3 reps at 90% without nearly falling over.  If they have the same 1 rep max, then the LOAD will appear different for both, in fact, higher for the first athlete, even though they found it relatively the same in terms of intensity.

NOTE:  If I’m a “Bulgarian” in any way, it’s in my belief that we should always go off of how an athlete feels for the day, not what we think the numbers are telling us.  (For this reason, I avoid percentages in the routines I write as much as I can.  If I write 5 sets of 2 reps, I mean hard and heavy for 2 reps on each set – I don’t know if that’s 80% of your 1 rep max, more, less … just lift hard)

Frequency is what it sounds like.  It’s the number of times you come in to do something.  So, if athlete #1 does 20 snatches all in one workout, but athlete #2 does 20 snatches spread out over 2 workouts in the same day, then #2 has a higher frequency, even though they are both doing the same volume for the day.  The bonus of a higher frequency – when volume is held constant – is that you can usually work harder in each session than you could have if you did it all at once. 

3 Easy Steps

As promised (and after my standard round-about way of getting here), these are the 3 easy steps you can take to start training like an Olympic weightlifter today!  (This is NOT for beginners.  You must have a decent level of technical proficiency and overall athletic capacity before this makes any sense.  And it helps greatly to have a coach or good training partner to watch you and keep you from overdoing it.)

1. Keep your Frequency and your Intensity HIGH, and your Volume LOW.  This can be accomplished in a myriad of ways.  One of my favorites is a classic “Bulgarian” variation.  Like to hear it?  Here it go:  Do 1 to 3 heavy workouts per week (depending on age, recovery capacity, etc) and as many light workouts as you can.  Stick with singles ONLY on the classic lifts; and singles, doubles, and the occasional triple on squats.  On your heavy days, go to a true max for the day on all three lifts (snatch, clean and jerk, and front squat), and do some back off sets (1 to 4) at 85% or even 90% of that max if you can handle it.  The light days, do technique work with nothing heavier than 80% of the previous days max, do some prehab stuff, chins/push ups/dips, etc.  Keep it mellow.  It’s about practice.  Do the Oly lifts at least 5 days a week, if you can. 
2. Stick with the classical lifts and their variations to avoid eccentrics and nervous system burnout.  The eccentric portion of the lift is the “down” part.  It’s the part that tends to cause the most fatigue and soreness.  If you only do the “up” part, and then drop the weight (as is done with snatches and clean and jerks) then you avoid a whole lot of soreness and CNS fatique, and are able to train more often.  I like 70%+ of your work to be on the Olympic lifts themselves (or very close variations like power snatches, hang cleans, etc).  Now, obviously you can’t avoid the “down” portion of a front squat!  But, by sticking to low reps, you will keep yourself fresher.
3. Avoid the power lifts most of the time.  Deadlifts and back squats are great.  But, they become quite problematic for the Oly lifter.  Squats done in the method of the powerlifter – wide stance, bent over – are very taxing on the low back which is a prime stabilizer in the oly lifts.  Deadlifts are just brutal!  They take so much out of you that you can end up spending an entire week trying to recover.  This is BAD.  I strongly believe that you need to be lifting singles on the Olympic lifts in the 80%+ range OFTEN if you are going to be able to lift at 100% in a contest.  It’s as much psychological as physiological, but either way, if you can’t keep in the groove of lifting heavy snatches and jerks because you are too zonked from your deadlift workout, you are not doing yourself a favor. Technical proficiency and confidence with heavy weights are far more important than your brute strength in this sport. 

NOTE:  I’m experimenting with ways to incorporate deads into a Bulgarian-like program more aggressively, because deads ARE so good at making you brute-strong.  I’d like to be able to do them more often (they’re fun! Check me out doing 17 reps in 1 minute with 315 pounds at a local strongman show).  But, I’m not in a position to make any conclusions yet.  Stay tuned!

Disclaimer! 

The fact is, this is only ONE way to approach training like a weightlifter.  There are plenty of high volume approaches out there (the Russians and Chinese national teams are famous for such craziness).  But, when the volume goes up, something else has to come down, or you are heading toward burn-out street!  These high volume programs tend to keep intensity low to medium – they run like gymnastics programs. 

Gymnasts aren’t doing 1 rep maxes on the pummel horse!  They instead do a ton of attempts all throughout the day (high volume, high frequency).  But, any single attempt isn’t all that taxing. (For them, of course. It would kill most of us!)

I personally have found it easier to manage athletes fatigue with the above lower volume approach (especially when heading into contests).  But, there are plenty of highly successful systems that use lots and lots and lots of volume.  Just keep in mind the idea of balance, and that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

My friend, and fellow Portland Oly lifter, Mighty Kat blogs about her time at the Tommy Kono Open and includes the 10 things she learned while there.  I particularly like the first:

1. Having tape at a meet is like having cigarettes around smokers. People will come out of the woodwork to bum some.

Very true!

Here’s a vid of her and some others lifting.  Congratulations, Kat!

It is an understatement to say that Olympic weightlifters are obsessed with Bulgarians.  No, not the people, or the great food (my Step Dad is Bulgarian, I can testify), or the copious consumption of vodka (well … maybe a bit of that). No, Olympic weightlifters are obsessed with Bulgarian weightlifters, and even more so with their previous head coach Ivan Abadjiev.

Much of this obsession culminates in an attempt to use the ‘Bulgarian method’ of training in some manner on their own.  The problem with this is two-fold.  First, it is hard to pin down just what the method was in the first place that catapulted a tiny nation of only 8 million people into weightlifting superstardom and kept them there for decades.  Second, whatever the exact methods used by the Bulgarians, we do know that they were far out of the zone of practicality for most Americans.

That said, it is still instructive to first evaluate just what the Bulgarian system was actually like.  And then to find a way to incorporate some of the best of it into your training. 

While you can’t train exactly like a Bulgarian, you CAN get much stronger applying some of the same principles upon which their system was founded.

Also, this is my own interpretation of the stuff that is out there about the Bulgarian system. As I mention below, there is little to go on, so we’re forced into the position of interpreters of scarce data (like paleontologists).  Not enviable, but inevitable.

[side note:  It is a fact that the Bulgarians – along with nearly ever other dominant country in sports – used a shite-ton of steroids and other drugs.  Abadjiev hasn’t shied away from this fact, though he calls them (cryptically) ‘recovery agents’.  The two main reasons you CANNOT train like a Bulgarian are: 1) you don’t have the time, this was their job; 2) you aren’t on a bunch of drugs that enable you to recover so fast.  I’m not going to make this a steroids post.  I still believe you can gain a lot from a modified Bulgarian approach.  But, it would be naive to pretend that steroids didn’t play a big part.  That said, most of the countries have their lifters on steroids, so the Bulgarians were hardly unique in this respect.  In other words, drugs were a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for their success.]

What Is the Bulgarian ‘System’?

Sadly, Ivan Abadjiev has never written a book outlining precisely how he trained his lifters (in the late 90’s there was talk, but it never came to fruition).  And none of his lifters have come out with a ‘tell all’ book, either.  We’re left with interviews of Abadjiev and his lifters, a few articles, some writings by those that have spent time with them (e.g. guys like Randall J. Strossen).  It isn’t perfect, but we do have a few things to go on.  See my reference list at the bottom for a few good reads.

Adaptation

The first key principle that we can glean about the Bulgarian system is the principle of Adaptation.  The point is simply that you adapt in direct response to a stimulus.  Different stimuli produce different adaptations.  The adaptations that come from sub-80% lifts are different that the ones that result from >90% lifts. 

The point then, under this idea, is to focus your energy at the top-end weights in training so that you encourage the proper adaptations that are the most sport-specific. 

In a general sense we know this to be true.  How specific we can take it is debatable.  But, on the balance, Abadjiev is on to something. If you want to prepare to lift heavy weights, it makes sense to lift heavy weights.

Specialization

The next principle is Specialization.  Exercises that are not directly related to the sport shouldn’t be relied upon. The thinking is that they don’t result in the right adaptations, for one. But, the other reason is that Olympic weightlifting is one of the most unique sports on the planet.  No other sport requires maximum intensity, high level technique, at such a rapid pace.  It doesn’t matter how good your technique is at 80% or even 95% of max.  All that matters is how good your technique is at 100% of max weights. 

The only way to train yourself to handle yourself with utmost technique at high intensity at max weights is to do just that with the competition lifts themselves.  No exercise can mimic them.  They are your prime strength builders and technique builders.  Add in some front squats and you’re good. 

Abadjiev even dumped the back squat:

"Our athletes do not do any "supportive exercises" they stay with full clean and jerk, snatch, and front squat. We have found that taking back squat out is more effective for the healthy lifter. Sticking with the three lifts named above as the only training for the advanced and healthy lifter…. If the athlete is injured they will do back squat or parts of the lift the full lifts (ie. high pulls, push press, etc…). You must be extremely careful with the stresses you put on your athletes. You must have direct benefits from each exercise because the athlete has limited recovery capacity." IA

Competition Mode

Abadjiev believed that the best training experiences were contests themselves.  He had his lifters in so many contests that they were happening nearly every 3 weeks!  And in the weeks leading into the contests, they were still attacking max weights.  Training sessions mimicked contests – except that they were worse, because you had to take more attempts at weights you missed, not to mention you still had a ton of squatting to do.

Make your training sessions as much like contests as you can in terms of intensity, exercise selection, and reps. And then compete as often as humanly possible. 

Intuitiveness

A point that is often overlooked is the importance in their system of intuition.  Since there is virtually no variety in training at all, it becomes paramount that the lifter learns to interpret what their body is telling them – it’s the only ‘periodization’ available to them.  On days they feel good, they should push it and go for broke.  On days they feel crappy, lay off.   You’ll be back in a few hours anyway.

The other mental point is a total willingness to embrace failure.  Under this system, athletes will miss and miss and miss.  All the time, missing.  They go in, go heavy as hell, and fail.  As time goes on, they fail at higher and higher weights, thereby increasing the weights with which they succeed. 

It is through missing that you learn the character of a lifter.

With intuition, lifters create their own version of periodization:

Lifters might take as little as 1, or as many as 10 attempts at maximum. They might hit a maximum and immediately drop back to 80% before progressing back up (sometimes with minor adjustments in the weights attempted). Alternatively, after one or more maximum attempts they may perform drop down, ‘flushing’ sets at various intensities. Additionally lifters change the order of exercises or repeat exercises within the same session to add extra stimulus where required. Finally, the coach might change the training frequency in a given week to permit greater time for recuperation. These and other variables can be continually adjusted to keep training both mentally and physically stimulating (See Appendix). It should be stressed that Bulgarian lifters utilize daily ‘training’ maximums rather than absolute (best ever) maximums. On a given day, depending on fatigue and arousal levels, these two loads could vary significantly.

[I’m going to refrain from the myriad jokes that could result from the “arousal level” comment!]

Examples of Routines

Most of the time when someone says ‘Bulgarian training’ they mean the following:  Lift as heavy as you can on singles on the classical lifts, 3 times a day, 6 days a week. 

That is a gross oversimplification that leads to some wildly problematic training – and overtraining.  Abadjiev was highly worried about recovery capacity – or more accurately, the lack thereof.  While his lifters had the benefit of ‘recovery agents’ (roids!), constant massage therapy, ice-baths, etc, they still weren’t machines.  No one, even on steroids, can lift like that.  No one.

Instead, there were heavy days/workouts, and lighter workouts.  On the heavy days, one might do ton of lifts at the maximum.  But, on a light day or workout, they may only do power snatches and power cleans and front squats to 70-80%.  Or full lifts, but lighter.

One of the more frequently seen examples is the most basic:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday

9am – 12pm: snatch to heavy single; half-hour break; clean and jerk to heavy single; half hour break; front squat to heavy single.

They may also include back-off sets (singles of course) in the 90% range of whatever the heavy single was. (When I say up to a heavy single, I mean full-on as if it were a contest.  Keep going up till you miss, then try it again.)

3pm to 6pm: same as morning.

9pm: Front squat to heavy single.

Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday

Same as Monday, but only do power versions (or light full versions).  Also, dump the evening front squats.

Sunday

9am: Front squats to heavy single.

Yep, every day – even the Sabbath.  

Another option that I’ve seen is to do only Snatch and Front squats on Mon/Wed/Fri, only Clean and jerk and Front squats on Tue/Thur/Sat, then Front squats on Sunday.  Go heavy when you feel like you can, lighten it up when you have to.  Keep recovery in mind.  (I particularly like this model, it’s intuitive, and basic, and easy to implement.)

How to Use the Bulgarian Ideas to Your Advantage

There are only a few components to juggle when writing a training routine:  exercise selection; sets; reps; volume; load; frequency; and intensity are the main ones.

The Bulgarian training system kept the exercise selection down to a minimum: snatch; clean and jerk; front squat; and sometimes the power versions.  They kept the reps exclusively to singles.  The sets varied depending on how they felt.  The volume (sets x reps) was low. The load (sets x reps x weight lifted) was moderate.  But, the frequency and intensity were both very high. 

The key to the system is high intensity, high frequency, specificity, and an intuitive approach to volume (more sets when feeling good, less when not). 

You can take from that menu what you think will benefit you most. 

Here’s an example of one of my all-time favorite Bulgarian variations for people who can hit the gym often, but not for long each time.

A-day

am/pm: Snatches, Front squats

B-day

am/pm: Clean and Jerks, Front squats.

Alternate these workouts 4 to 6 days a week.  (Workout should take between 20 to 40 minutes.)

Do only singles.  Work up to as heavy a lift as you can on the classical lift for the day, then if you feel good, do some back off singles at 90%.  Front squat to a max-ish weight (remember not to miss!).  Do 1 or 2 back off singles on a good day.

On days you feel strong, you’ll be able to do a lot.  On days you are dragging, let it be.  Just work up to a heavy lift, then front squat whatever you can for a single and go home.  If the crappy days are really crappy, that’s normal.  Don’t feel bad.  That’s part of the program.

You can do the workout only once a day or twice a day, depending on what you have time for, and what your goals are.  It’s a simple and intuitive training routine that most anyone can thrive on. 

Is it realistic for you?  Maybe not.  If you can only come in 3 times a week, you’ll need to make up for the lack of frequency with higher volume in each workout.  And you can’t just do 1 classical lift in each workout  or you’d only be doing it 1 to 2 times a week which isn’t enough. 

If that is you.  Do both lifts all three days, go heavy and hard and finish with back squats.  Same workout every day you come in.  You can progress remarkably far with this.  Go up to something heavy on the classical lift, do some back off sets (2 to 6), move on.   The workouts should be less than an hour and 15 min’s.

The Downsides of the Bulgarian System

There are at least four major downsides to the Bulgarian system.

The first is injury rates.  It is a fact that lifting at the maximum of your ability every day, all year, is not good for you.  It’s hard on your joints, it’s hard on your muscles, and your connective tissues.  There is a reason that Ivan Abadjiev’s nick-name is ‘The Butcher’. 

I am a big believer that if you are never missing on the Oly lifts, you are going too light.  I advocate (in intermediate and above lifters only!) missing regularly.  It teaches you more about your flaws than anything else, and it confers great mental fortitude skills. 

But, I don’t think you should miss on any other exercises – ever!  That’s a lofty goal, that won’t be met.  But, missing on other exercises is far more dangerous.  When you miss on an Olympic lift, you were only under tension for a few nano-seconds.  Your technique broke down, and you dumped the bar.  It’s not something that puts your body under great strain.  It was not a miss at the muscular level, it was at the technique level. 

The same cannot be said of other exercises like front squats, where the action is slow, and your muscles are under tension for far longer.  In these cases you miss because you couldn’t put in enough force.  You strain to put in max force, fail at the muscular level, and something pops …

No fun.  The Bulgarians missed front squats all the time. 

The second is more pedestrian, but arguable nearly as important: boredom.  When all you are doing are the 5 lifts – snatch, clean and jerk, power snatch, power clean, and front squats.  That’s it.  Forever.  You get bored.  There is just no way out of that.  If you’re a top lifter, getting paid to lift, then fight the boredom.  But, if you ain’t … what’s the point again?

Variety is not only the spice of life, it is the spice of lifting.  Most of us really enjoy doing other exercises too.  We don’t want to skip doing deadlifts or Chin ups just because it isn’t directly related to performance of the Oly lifts.  Come on! Them’s fun to do!

Third, the Bulgarian program is not at all good at producing sarcoplasmic hypertrophy – an increase in the fluid in your muscles.  This is the kind of muscle size that bodybuilders have.  It looks good, but it doesn’t make you all that strong in comparison to your appearance. 

But, I say, “who cares?” 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you are NOT a high-level Olympic weightlifter (National level at least), and that you NEVER will be (neither am I, by the way).  Most of us will always be intermediates.  Forever.  And that is totally fine.  Most of us are doing this because it is fun. We ain’t going to the Olympics. 

So, if we pop out of our weightclass, are bigger than we should be to be supremely competitive, etc … who cares?  While sarcoplasmic hypertrophy doesn’t result in massive strength gains it is good for you in other ways. For one, it increases you metabolism, so it becomes easier to stay lean.  It also looks good.

Let’s face it, this is America.  We don’t like to put the value of function over the value of form.  If a guy has large arms and shoulders, he’ll be more inspired to keep at it.  Similarly, if women notice that their butts and legs are more shapely because of lifting they’ll be more likely to stay. 

Consistency is key.  Paying attention to aesthetics increases consistency.  It’s a fact, and it can’t be ignored in the American market.

Finally, number four.  Most lifters need a lot more work on assistance exercises to perfect their technique.  Remember that when we are talking about the ‘Bulgarian system’, we’re really talking about the top lifters in their system.  You and I are not that, and never will be (at least them’s the odds). 

I like to divide the lifting world into two camps: Divers and Pullers.  Divers are aggressive on the 3rd pull and get themselves under the bar very fast.  But, they tend to cut their 2nd pull short, and so leave the bar out front too much and will miss out front (there are lots of other reasons people miss out front of course, but this is a big one).  Pullers love the 2nd pull.  They got lots of power when it comes to getting height on the bar.  But, they don’t even bother with a 3rd pull. They instead try to race the bar down – and lose.  If they can’t power it up, they can’t make it. 

Over time, each type will get better and better.  But, certain assistance exercises make a major difference (pulls for divers, full-muscle snatch/clean for pullers, etc).  To not use these would be a mistake. 

It comes down to your goals and your level.  The Bulgarian system in its entirety is for very advanced lifters – only.  The rest of us should take from it what we can, but not get carried away. 

Conclusion

I’m still a fan of Bulgarian-ish lifting, even though much of it is not applicable to us.  I like heavy singles; I like sticking to the basics; I prefer frequency + intensity over high volume; and I agree that if you don’t train at the high end of performance regularly, you won’t be ready when it counts.

But, there are downsides that can’t be ignored.  “Take what is useful, discard what isn’t,” said Bruce Lee.  Applies perfectly well here.

References

• Abadjiev, Ivan. “Competition as an Integral Part of the Training Cycle.” http://www.mikesgym.org/programs/uploads/abadjiev1.pdf
• Abadjiev, Ivan. Lecture.  http://www.theironsamurai.com/2010/05/21/ivan-abadjiev-lecture-bulgarian-olympic-weightlifting/
• Drechsler, Arthur. 1998. The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance. A is A Communications.
• Everett, Greg. 2009. Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide to Coaches and Athletes. Catalyst Athletics, LLC.
• Klose, Thomas. 2000. “Evgueniy Popov: The Bulgarian Buffalo.” MILO: A Journal for Serious Strength Athletes. Vol 8, Number 1. pp. 98 – 103.
• Strossen, Randall J.. 1999. “Bulgaria 1998.” MILO: A Journal for Serious Strength Athletes. Vol 6, Number 4. pp. 83 – 86.
• Strossen, Randall J. 2000. “Petar Tanev: A New Passport and a Golden Year.” MILO: A Journal for Serious Strength Athletes.  Vol 8, Number 1. pp. 118 – 122.
• Woodhouse, David.  “Ivan Abadjiev + the Bulgarian System”.  http://weightliftingexchange.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=438&Itemid=60   You can also download it here.

You can find some opinions about the Bulgarian methods as interpreted by Mike Burgener, Glenn Pendlay, and Steve Gough on these audio podcasts here.

Check out the first issue of a new online strength magazine focused on Olympic Weightlifting, Strength Plus.  Scroll to the bottom and right click the image of Kendrick Ferris to ‘save as’.  It looks like this:

This issue is ‘inside the French system’.  Oooh, sexy!  It’s pretty massive (70 pages).  It also includes an interview with Kendrick Ferris (they also feature a weeks-worth of his workouts!), photos and commentary from the 2010 Arnold, a cartoon, and a feature on Sarah Roble’s transition from throwing to lifting.

It’s put together by Rachel Crass – Editor; Robert Hall – assistant editor; and Rampant Lion Productions – Publisher. 

From the editorial intro by Rachel Crass:

The first issue is done, and what a crazy ride it has been. When I chose to create a magazine devoted to Olympic-style weightlifting, I had no idea what awaited me. But perhaps my naïveté was a good thing, as this magazine might not be here without it; few enlightened peo-ple would have taken on such a mind-bending project.

Nevertheless, here we are. Weightlifting in the United States has a magazine again and, hopefully, will have one for a long time to come.

I’m looking forward to it!

OK, the title of this post is a bit misleading.  But, it seems as though many people believe that “Diet vs Exercise” is a valid question with an obvious answer: Diet. 

They may not believe it consciously.  But, in their actions this is what happens.  In truth, of course, there is not an exclusive “or” separating diet and exercise – you need both.  If you want to change your body composition; if you want to increase performance; if you want to live healthier; then you have to pay attention to both.

That said, there is an ordering of the two. 

I can sum up my entire fitness-philosophy with two phrases:

1. Exercise before Diet.
2. Weightlifting before Cardio

These two phrases imply an ordering of the list {diet, weightlifting, cardio}.  My ordering is

1. Weightlifting
2. Cardio
3. Diet

What is amazing is that my ordering is precisely to opposite of the order in which most people go about getting “in shape”.  When someone first decides they want to make a change, the first thing they do is go on a diet.  After they’ve gotten that down, they add in some cardio.  And if by some miracle they haven’t given up yet, they finally throw in some half-ass weightlifting. 

I’m here to tell you to do the opposite. 

If you want to get any benefit at all related to fitness (fat loss, muscle gain, strength gain, etc) then you must begin with weightlifting.  Slowly add in cardio (but not the kind most people think).  And finally get a diet plan that makes sense.

Why? You ask.

Dieting by itself doesn’t work long term.  If you’re goal has anything to do with performance or muscle gaining, then you know this. But, people looking to lose fat seem to delude themselves into thinking that they can solve their physical problems with a “magic” diet.   I’m not even talking strictly of “fad” diets.  Even a well-designed diet is worthless in the long run without exercise.

When you go an a calorie restricted diet you put your body in a catabolic state.  This lowers many of your bodies “good” hormones, and increases many of the “bad” ones like cortisol. (OK, strictly speaking there are no good or bad hormones, but some are better for your fitness goals than others.)  The negative hormones will decrease muscle mass, lower metabolism, and make it harder for you to lose fat. (Ironic, ain’t it!)

This hormone change is a negative byproduct of dieting that you have to deal with. However you need to mitigate it.  Exercise increases the positive hormones and decreases the negative ones.  It helps preserve muscle mass, and increases both metabolism and fat loss. 

Yes, if you want to make fitness progress you have to have a diet in place. But, you can’t rely on it by itself.

OK, so exercise first, diet second. Got it. But, why not start with cardio?  There are 2 reasons.

One, even when we’re talking about interval training (like sprinting) we’re only hitting part of your body. 

Let’s be honest, however.  When most people start their programs with cardio, they are not doing hard sprints (or metabolic circuits which involve weights), they are using steady-state cardio (jogging and its ilk).  Steady-state forms of cardio just don’t confer the same metabolic effects that interval training or weight training do.  While both intervals and weight training (done with intensity) raise your metabolism for up to 36 hours after exercise (called the EPOC effect), steady-state doesn’t.

In addition, steady-state cardio will cause your body to become more efficient at fat burning.  While that may sound good, it is very bad.  A more efficient car uses less gas to go the same distance.  You want your body to be a gas-hog.  You want it to burn tons of fat with little time – not tiny amounts of fat with massive time!  Weightlifting makes you the Hummer of fat-loss.

Two, starting with cardio can increase injury rates.  Weight training is very controlled.  You only lift the amount of weight you can safely in a controlled pattern of movement.  Cardio is not as controlled – even on a treadmill or other machine.  Think about how many “repetitions” your legs do every time you go jogging, or when on on the stair stepper.  It’s in the hundreds to thousands.  That is a lot of potential damage.  Each impact is worth many multiples of your bodyweight, slamming down on your joints. 

Conclusion

When you start with weightlifting, you increase the positive hormones you body needs to reach its goals, you increase metabolism, you lose fat, you gain muscle, and you decrease injury rates.  No other one thing can do all of that.

Once you are comfortable in your weight training routine, you can add in some cardio work.  I strongly suggest some kind of intervals over steady-state (the only exceptions are distance athletes – like marathon runners, tri-athletes – and strength athletes, as odd as that sounds).

And finally, when you have a solid weightlifting routine and a cardio routine, THEN you can start worrying about your diet. 

Oscar Wilde, from The Importance of Being Ernest

Everything popular is wrong

That may not sound very Zen, but it is.  It comes down to being aware of the natural human instinct to jump on bandwagons.  The more aware you are of any natural tendency the more rationally you can react to them.  And jumpin’ on bandwagons is rarely a good idea.

In fitness and strength training, it is VERY true that nearly everything that is popular is wrong … dead wrong.  For instance, if you’re shocked by any of the following statements, then you have been following bad (but popular) advice.

1. There is no such thing as “toning” a muscle.
2. Jogging will not make you thin.
3. You should lift weights if you want to lose fat.
4. Carbs are not the devil.
5. Yoga is not enough.

Let’s go through these really fast just to help dispel any lingering disbelief you might have.

One:  There is no such thing as “toning” a muscle.

OK, sometimes I’m guilty of using the word “toning” my advertising to entice women to join my workout programs.  But, the fact is, the word is meaningless.  Muscles either get bigger or they get smaller.  They can also get stronger or weaker, but we’ll just talk about the visual stuff since that’s what “toning” refers to.

When someone says they don’t want to make their muscles bigger, they just want to tone them, they are talking nonsense.  What they MEAN (without knowing it) is that they want to keep their muscles the same size and lose the fat that is covering them up.  This way their arms will look long and lean, for instance.

Sadly what people think they mean is that they want to do specific styles of training that will cause the muscle to be lean rather than bulky.  This is silly.  Leanness is not the opposite of bulkiness.  Leanness is a function of how much fat you have.  If you have little fat, you’re lean.  If you have more fat, then you look less lean.  Bulkiness (in terms of big muscles – not just fatty tissue) is a function of how large your muscles are.  You can be both lean and bulky (think of Bodybuilders), or you can be lean and skinny (supermodels).

If what you want is to be lean and small, then say that.  Don’t walk up to a trainer and tell them you want to be toned not big and muscle-bound.  That’s a great way to make a good trainer cringe.

Two:  Jogging will not make you thin.

This fact trips people out.  The bottom line is not that jogging isn’t good exercise.  It’s that your body is far too good at adapting to it.

In order to make consistent progress, you have to do exercises that are hard for your body to do.  At first, jogging is hard.  But, after a fairly short period of time, your body adapts and becomes very efficient at doing the same workouts.  If you used to burn 800 calories on a 5 mile jog, after a few months you might only need to burn 400 for the same 5 mile jog – and you’ll feel like it’s easier to do!  (those are made up numbers, btw.)

One way to solve the problem is to up the number of miles.  But, once you get into the 8 to 10 range, we’re getting ridiculous.

Another way to up the workout is to stop jogging, and start running.  If you go faster, you will work harder and you’ll get a better training effect.  But, at some point you’ll start sprinting.  And no human being can sprint for 5 miles!

Instead, once you’ve gotten too used to slow cardio (again, it’s great at first for people who like it) then focus instead on weight training and interval training.  You’ll lose more fat faster, and your workouts will be shorter.  Win win!

Three:  Lift weights if you want to lose fat.

If you aren’t lifting weights, but your goal is fatloss, then you are missing out – big time!  Weight training not only helps you build muscle which in turn will help you lose fat.  But, weight training done in a superset style is very hard cardio much like sprinting.  You’ll burn more calories and you’ll get a more powerful EPOC effect (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) than cardio alone.  The EPOC effect basically raises your resting metabolism much higher than normal for up to 24 to 36 hours after exercise resulting in more fatloss.

And women, for heavens sake, no matter how hard you work at it, you will NEVER look like a man.  Read here to find out why.

Four: Carbs are not the devil. (Foosball is)

Carbs get a bad rap.   But, the fact is, you need them.  You need up to 130 grams a day just to keep your brain functioning correctly.  You need carbs before and during exercise to keep your workouts going strong, and you need them post-exercise to replenish glycogen stores.

If you drop carbs out completely, you are doing yourself a disservice.

Five:  Yoga is not enough

Yoga is VERY popular now.  For the most part, yoga is a good thing.  It’s great at getting totally sedentary people to get in some bodyweight strength work by holding themselves in tough positions.  It also does a great job of lengthening the muscles, which can aid in the prevention of injuries.

But, it doesn’t do much else.  Much like jogging, you adapt too fast to the cardio and strength components of yoga.  You need a dedicated cardio and a dedicated strength component in your fitness program.  Stretching is good, but flexibility is only one small component of overall fitness.

The points above are designed to make the simple point that you can’t just go along with what the conventional wisdom is when it comes to fitness and strength training.  You have to think a little harder, think outside the box, and search for solid information backed by science, not hearsay and inertia.

We’re off to the Russ Knipp Weightlifting Championships tomorrow
morning bright and early (2 hour drive, lift, 2 hour drive back!).  It’ll be Me, Roy, Chris, Celia, and Noel
competing this time. 

Leslie is both driving us down and taking video, so she’s doing the hard part! 

Wish us luck!

OH, and check out this great shot of Jessica Gee, one of Oregon’s top lifters, in a full clean at the American Open (that’s 92 kilos, MORE than 200 pounds!)

Jason Ferruggia has a new post about what kind of coach he is, and what kind of coach he isn’t.  He’s basically helping to define his own niche for anyone who doesn’t know what it is.

The fitness industry is just like any other industry – it’s a field of specialists who know what they are good at and what they aren’t good at, and then everybody else.  If you look for a trainer and they tell you “I do everything: bodybuilding training, fat loss, functional training, strength training, gymnastics, tennis training, yodeling, etc” … find a new trainer.

If you have a specific problem, go to the guy (or girl!) who specializes in fixing that exact problem.   Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying your coach needs to be so tightly defined that he’s only got ONE focus.  But, anything more than 3 (maybe four), and we’ve got a problem.

One of Jason’s major points about himself is that he is not a “motivator”.

Here’s a quote from Jason:

If you want to sit around and eat donuts all day why would that possibly bother me? And why would I want to motivate you? I’m not Jenny Craig or Matt Foley the motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river. What you do is your choice. Sure I will make fun of you, laugh at you and encourage others to do the same; but it’s your life, not mine.

If you are too stupid to realize that regular exercise and a healthy diet is a necessary part of life I’m not going to waste my time telling you. Get on some prescription drugs, order a sausage pizza and watch another episode of Friends.

OK, he’s WAY more intense than I am.  As you know, I’m a ridiculously mellow dude.  I meditate, I read books about Zen, I love ABBA and Romantic comedies, have seen every episode of Sex and the City (twice), and have a habit of laughing at all of my own jokes.  But, I am also NOT a motivational speaker.

Someone asked me recently what the name of my strength training company was, and I replied, “PDX Weightlifting.”

“Oh,” they said, “I think that would turn off a lot of people.”

I replied, “Yep.  And that’s the point.”

You see, I’m not a yeller.  I’m not like Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser.  I’m not here to call you up on the phone, get you off the couch, convince you that it’s time to workout, force you to work hard, and then nitpick you every step of the way.  There are trainers who do that for a living.  They’re great at it.  You need to be DEAD HONEST with yourself.  If you NEED a trainer to be your external motivator, then you need to hire one of these guys (actually, they’re usually girls).

I ain’t that guy.  I’m almost the opposite.  I’m way too relaxed.  In the gym, I’ll make sure you’re doing everything correctly, I’ll watch your lifts, I’ll discuss any and all topics you want to about your goals and progress.  But, I’ll also be cracking (bad) jokes and being very silly.  I do a great job of keeping the atmosphere exciting and fun.  That’s my personality.  And I expect everyone in my programs to stay positive and have fun while they workout, regardless of how hard it is.  NO whining – period. I have no tolerance for whining.   If you start wimping out, that’s you’re own problem.  And I’ll focus my energy of the folks who are working hard with a great attitude.

I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to.  If you say, “I can’t do it”, I’ll agree with you.  If you say, “it hurts”, I’ll tell you to stop or modify till it doesn’t hurt.  This is because when a truly motivated personal tells me this, it’s probably true! And I’m not going to make you do something that will result in injury.

Unfortunately, unmotivated people say these things as knee-jerk reactions to anything hard and as a result never push themselves hard enough to make any progress.

One of my favorite clients of all time is my client and friend Beth.  She’s been working out with me for a few years now, and in all of that time, I don’t think I have EVER heard her say the phrase “I can’t”.  This woman’s an animal.  She’s more than tripled her strength levels, gone from “skinny fat” to seriously lean, and looks and feels great.  (She regularly tells me about moving couches and other heavy shit up stairs by herself!)  All I do is show her the most efficient path toward her goals.  But, she’s the one who does all the work.  And boy, does she!

When my people tell me “it’s hard” or “what the HELL are you having me do?!”, or “I’m going to kill you for making me do this”,  they’re saying this as a badge of honor.  They do whatever I ask of them, and they work their butts off.  They may be cursing my name in the process … make no mistake!  But, they do it.

If you have no personal motivation, you have no business doing business with me because you WILL NOT get the results you want.  I’m a “lead the horse to water” coach.  You hire me when you want over a decades worth of knowledge, program design skills, solid real-world advice, a fun atmosphere, serious weight-training, and serious results.

Tony Robbins eating Peter Griffin!

If you need more motivation, buy some books by Tony Robbins.  And hey, once you’ve figured out your sh%t and decide you are ready to see the best results of your life and have a blast doing it, contact me and I’ll kick your butt with a big smile on my face.

I found this passage pretty funny from Jason’s post:

People ask me all kinds of questions when they find out what I do for a living.

“How do I lose this?” (grabbing a handful of a 48 inch waist)

“I don’t know.”

“How long should I do the stair climber for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t give up carbs but I want to get lean. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I only have twenty minutes to train, twice a week. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you’re into all that heavy lifting but I can’t do that. What can I do instead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m a girl and I don’t want to get too bulky so how should I lift?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do I get motivated to go to the gym?”

“I don’t know.”

By training, I am a competitive Olympic Weightlifting Coach.  THAT is what I do.  I train athletes and people who seriously want to train with an athletic intensity on weightlifting-based programs.  Every program I create is built through the lens of a weightlifting coach.

If you are someone who wants to be able to answer YES to that question box on your job application that says “can you lift 100 pounds?”, and then laugh that that sounds light, I’m your guy.

This can include lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds who have totally different end goals: obviously, competitive weightlifters; athletes in any “power sport” like baseball, football, golf; and fitness folks who want to be in the best shape of their lives and lose 20, 40, or more pounds of fat.  The commonality is clear.  All my people lift weights – hard.  That’s the glue.

If you come to me wanting to lose 20+ pounds of fat, I’m not going to take it easy on you just because you aren’t in a competitive power-sport.  I’m going to hammer you just like I would anyone else on heavy weightlifting exercises and make you ridiculously strong.  As you’re losing that 20 pounds of fat, you’ll keep all your muscle, you’ll in fact gain muscle, become “toned”, learn a bunch of cool exercises like the clean and snatch, front squats, deadlifts, etc.  And you’ll start being able to perform in a way you never have before in all of your life.

The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that he approached every problem with only 6 tools.  Whenever a problem came up, he looked in his tiny little tool box, and tried all 6 of those tools on it.  If that didn’t work, he switched to a new problem.

I’ve found that there are things that I can coach at a high level given the tools that I have and things I can’t.  These are the ONLY things I do – 1) Competitive weightlifting; 2) power-sport training; 3) extreme fitness training.    3 things.  That’s it.  I’m great at these things.  But, if you want to become the most kick-ass marathon runner of all time … you’ll need to find someone else.  That just isn’t what I do.

This particular quote sounds very much like my own way of approaching coaching (hey, that rhymed!):

Often times people will tell me that they want to train with me and that I if they hire me or come to my gym I really need to push them. No, I don’t. You need to push yourself. You’re hiring me for my program design skills which are based on 16 years of experience. I am not a cheerleader. Any nitwit can yell at someone like a drill sergeant. Just because a workout is hard doesn’t mean it’s effective. Just because a coach yells loudly it doesn’t mean he’s smart.

If you can’t find it within yourself and are not driven to excel, there is nothing I can do for you.

I’ll give hard working, motivated, intelligent people everything I have. But for everyone else I have no time or patience. I know this offends many people. But it’s just me being honest.

I feel very lucky.  I have a great set of people to work with.  They all come in, work hard, joke around, have fun, and get into great shape.  Not a bad job.