The Most Important Principle of Strength & Conditioning

As far as I can recall one of the most respected and most accomplished Powerlifters is Ed Coan (American). The most well known, respected, accomplished Strongman is Bill Kazmeier (American). Strongest deadlifter, Andy Bolton (English). This only a handful of non-Russian/Eastern European athletes who are well accomplished.

Oleksandr Kutcher Totals 1,509 Raw With WDFPF Affiliate | Powerlifting Watch

Ukrainian powerlifting sensation Oleksandr Kutcher competed last weekend in a competition with the Ukrainian affiliate of the WDFPF, the UDFPF Drug Free Championships. Kutcher lifted raw in the 165 pound weight class and squatted 518 pounds, benched 374, and deadlifted 617 pounds for a 1,509 pound total. Subsequently, Kutcher was disqualified from the contest due to drug testing violations in the IPF.
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His total was beat by this guy: Wade Hooper at USAPLNationals.com..The 2007 USAPL Mens National Powerlifting Championships! (American). He didn't fail the drug test.

So fuck off with the whole "Russian super-secret training methods" bullshit. Here's the real secret: Russian and Eastern European athletes are sponsored by the state. They don't work jobs and take care of families. They eat, live, and sleep their respective sport.

Andy Bolton is a full-time truck driver who trains when he can.

Interesting thing I found when I Wiki'd Bill Kazmeier:

Later, Kazmaier opened a fitness club in Auburn, Alabama. The gym closed in 2005. After Kaz Fitness Center in Auburn, AL closed in 2005, Kazmaier opened, and continues to operate, S.W.A.T. gym in Opelika, AL.
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I live within 40 minutes of Opelika. I'm going to have to check that out.

This wasn't directed at anybody in particular, just those who think there is something mystical about training.
 
Merrill, I don't know how u can rank Kazmaier as the most accomplished, respected and well-known strongman.

Louie Simmons has based a lot of his training methods on Russian training because the russians were ahead of their time.
 
akakabuto said:
Merrill, I don't know how u can rank Kazmaier as the most accomplished, respected and well-known strongman.

Louie Simmons has based a lot of his training methods on Russian training because the russians were ahead of their time.
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American Strength Legends: Bill Kazmaier

By 1979, at the young age of 25 years old, he did so winning the American powerlifting championships and the IPF world championship that year in the superheavyweight class.
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He is remembered for his powers of concentration and perseverance over adversity. He was the first human to bench press over 300 kg. or 660 pounds. He held the world record bench at 661 pounds for a long time. He was the first man to lift all five McGlashen Stones in competition. He remains the only man to lift the Thomas Inch Dumbell overhead. He could cheat curl 315 pounds for fifteen reps. He still has the IPF and USPF Senior American record total in powerlifting (1100 kg. or 2420 lbs.). He set this in 1981 in Columbus, Georgia. He was an IPF champion twice in 1979 and 1983. In the 1978 national championships in the 125+ kg class in Dayton, Ohio, he squatted 865 lbs. He benched 622 pounds. He deadlifted 804 pounds. This gave him a total of 2292 pounds. In 1983 when he won again in Gothenberg, Sweden in the 125+ kg. weight class. He squatted 848 pounds. He benched 501 pounds with a sever pec injury. He deadlifted 799 pounds. This gave a total of 2149.
He also competed in the World's Strongest Man Contests. He competed in six of them. In 1979, he came in third. From 1980 until 1982, he won the competitions handsomely. He was the first man to win the WSM title three times in a row. In 1981, he tore his pec while bending cold rolled steel bars in the WSM. This makes his 1983 IPF championship all that much more significant. After this tear, he lost more than one-hundred pounds off his bench. He was forced by the organizers of the WSM into a premature retirement in those competitions. He was simply too dominant in the WSM. The organizers decided not to invite the reigning WSM back to compete for several years. Instead of throwing in the towel and giving up, he continued to compete in lesser known strong man tournaments, such as the Ultimate Challenge and the Le Defi Mark Ten. He returned to the World's Strongest Man Contest in 1988 and came in second to John Paul Sigmarsson. In 1989, he competed again. He came in fourth because he severely strained his ankle in the first event.
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I agree that Louie Simmons adopted conjugate periodization, max effort, dynamic effort, and repetition methods from the Russian strength coaches. And he used prilepins chart as guidance on loading parameters. Other things he does are probably attributed to things he learned from Russian text as well. The strong men of the 50's and 60's were doing something similar however. Doug Hepburn is known for doing singles in the 90% range and performing triples in the 60-70% range. He also cycled his workload through his own form of periodization. I don't see how the Russians were ahead of their time.
 
Pavel is a pretty good writer and and an even better marketer. I would not consider him un-knowledgeable with regards to strength training, but he is far from the expert that he makes himself out to be. His books are heavily laced with quotes and references to others who are experts in strength training ( which is smart of him) and they are sprinkled with liberal doses of comrade speak. His most innovative idea is the grease the groove, which is probably not his own, but he has popularized it nonethless. I think to be considered an expert, you better either have the credentials yourself, or have coached/taught those principles to those who have benefitted from them. (ideal scenario is a combination of both)
 
Hold on you guys. I have to go do a conditioning session right now. The program I am using was written by a super-secret underground Kenyan distance running coach of the 60's and 70's. It was given to me by a Kenyan foreign exchange student. In exchange for this highly coveted program I agreed to help with the guy's conversational English so he can meet women. I am also instructed to never release the contents of this program (under punishment of death) as it is highly advanced and way better than any other distance running training program ever written.
 
Merrill:

You are talking out of your ass.

1) Russian powerlifters are not paid a salary by the state. They have jobs like everyone else.

2) Oleksander Kutcher only competed head-to-head against Hooper once (at the 2003 IPF worlds) and he placed third to Hooper's fourth.

3) It's pretty fucking hypocritical to look down on Kutcher for using steroids when Kazmaier was juiced and coked out of his freaking mind back when he competed in PL and strongman.

4) Ed Coan is banned from the IPF for life for failing multiple drug tests.


UpTheShutFuck.jpg
 
Chaos Mitten said:
Merrill:

You are talking out of your ass.

1) Russian powerlifters are not paid a salary by the state. They have jobs like everyone else.

2) Oleksander Kutcher only competed head-to-head against Hooper once (at the 2003 IPF worlds) and he placed third to Hooper's fourth.

3) It's pretty fucking hypocritical to look down on Kutcher for using steroids when Kazmaier was juiced and coked out of his freaking mind back when he competed in PL and strongman.

4) Ed Coan is banned from the IPF for life for failing multiple drug tests.
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I should have never brought up steroids. It is a moot point in athletics.

My bad on Oleksander Kutcher. I had the wrong information.

The only thing I was trying to point out was that I don't think that there are any "secrets" to training methods. The success of any athlete is usually rooted in skill, hard work, consistancy, and attitude.

I took it too far. Apology to anyone offended.
 
Merrill said:
I should have never brought up steroids. It is a moot point in athletics.

My bad on Oleksander Kutcher. I had the wrong information.

The only thing I was trying to point out was that I don't think that there are any "secrets" to training methods. The success of any athlete is usually rooted in skill, hard work, consistancy, and attitude.

I took it too far. Apology to anyone offended.
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Merrill,

I have always liked, appreciated and respected you. After this post those have all just increased substantially. You were caught in an error, admitted it and apologized--a fine example for this board. well done sir
 
Thanks Keith. I should have kept my mouth shut. I am generally not one to site such things incorrectly. It is and always will be a continuous learning process for me regarding strength and conditioning practices.


Chaos Mitten said:
1) Russian powerlifters are not paid a salary by the state. They have jobs like everyone else.
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As far as this, I was not referring to Russian powerlifters, I was referring to the old Soviet state-sponsored training system which was for olympic training It does not have anything to do with powerlifting or strongman so I should not have brought it up.


EZA's original post was a really good read. I had never heard the terms "internal power" and "external power" before. Very interesting points.

I also like this statement:

"In any event, there will probably always be more disagreement than agreement and more questions than answers, but in the end to each his own, at least there will always be a reason to train."
 
Merrill,

Out of curiousity have you ever read any of thr russian texts? It's not that they have any secret methods, it's that their framework for understanding human performance is much better than that of the west. Their state sponsored model had top level scientsts, coaches, and athletes all working under one system in a coordinated fashion. Their coaches kept track of massive amount of data, their scientsts reviewed the data, and the athletes followed all their programs without question. This gave them a distinct advantage over a systems like ours where there is very little coordination between the scientists doing research and the coaches working with athletes.

We don't have a real structured system of athletic development as a whole. Also, many of their best coaches and scientists left many years ago, Verkhoshansky is in Italy, Zatsiorsky is at Penn State, etc. On overage the european countries won about 2.5-3 times as many medals per person in olympic and international competition over the 80s according to the research I've seen. There is no doubt they were ahead of us. It's not that they have any secret methods, it's that their understanding of how to apply the right methods at the right time is far better than ours. I would suggest reading some of their materials to see what I'm talking about.
 
anything by Verkhoshansky, Zatsiorsky, or Viru would suffice for the purposes of this conversation
 
You can go to Verkhoshansky Site and join his board and download some articles off there. There are two good articles entitled, "Resistance Exercises as a Specialized Means for Physical Preparation of Athletes" and "Topical Problems of the Modern Theory and Methodology of Sports Training." I would suggest anyone who wants a better understanding of the eastern philosophy and methods to read those to start with.
 
EZA said:
Merrill,

Out of curiousity have you ever read any of thr russian texts? It's not that they have any secret methods, it's that their framework for understanding human performance is much better than that of the west. Their state sponsored model had top level scientsts, coaches, and athletes all working under one system in a coordinated fashion. Their coaches kept track of massive amount of data, their scientsts reviewed the data, and the athletes followed all their programs without question. This gave them a distinct advantage over a systems like ours where there is very little coordination between the scientists doing research and the coaches working with athletes.

We don't have a real structured system of athletic development as a whole. Also, many of their best coaches and scientists left many years ago, Verkhoshansky is in Italy, Zatsiorsky is at Penn State, etc. On overage the european countries won about 2.5-3 times as many medals per person in olympic and international competition over the 80s according to the research I've seen. There is no doubt they were ahead of us. It's not that they have any secret methods, it's that their understanding of how to apply the right methods at the right time is far better than ours. I would suggest reading some of their materials to see what I'm talking about.
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I have not read any full translated text. I have only read the free translations that I have found online. I did not invest in any full texts because I always figured that there would always be things lost and misunderstood in translation. I will take your recommendations though. Elitefts.com lists several texts for sale here:

Elite Fitness Systems

Any recommendations of where to start? All of the texts seem reasonably priced.

As far as them earning more medals than the U.S., I always attributed that to the selection process and training they did with young children, seeking out those who would most likely be superior athletes based on skill, genetics, and personality. Regardless of training methods, the larger pool of athletes would lead to more potential for olympic winners. This is speculation on my part though.

I parallel it with the popularity of team sports like basketball and football in the U.S. Thousands of kids in the U.S. participate in these team sports. The cream of the crop rise to play them professionally. The olympic sports are not as popular in the U.S., probably because they are not glorified as much. There are a lot less participants.

Remember how the U.S. basketball "Dream Team" won the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain beating its eight opponents by an average of 44 points.
 
From Elite I'd suggest starting with Programming and Organization of Training and Fundamentals of Special Strength Training in Sport, but keep in mind if you've never read this type of material before you will have a very difficult understanding it because the frame of reference they use based on their perspective of human performance is totally different. Their selection process certainly played a role but it was their training methodology that cultivated the talent they did have, which was far less than ous.

A good friend of mine who was a national level decathlete and junior olympic level track coach in Russia commented about the selection process and the genetic diversity and athletic talent we have here once. He said that for while in russia part of his job was selecting young athletes for athletic programming and out of a typical school of 300 russian children he would find 10-15 that would be selectable.

After he moved to the US he started a non-profit PE program for middle school children in Eugene, OR and said about 20-25% of the children in the school would have qualified athletically using their selection criteria. The genetic diversity, agriculture, technology, etc. gives us a huge advantage in the talent pool and is largely why we're able to be as successful on an international level.

It was largely their systematic training methods and structured program that was able to take a much less genetically talented population and turn it into the success they had and continue to have.

Also yes there aren't as many participants in the olympic sports from a percentage of the population standpoint but compare our population to that of russia, germany, bulgaria, etc. and we have a significantly higher number of children participating in youth sports of all kinds, olympic sports included. And using the Dream Team example is a good one, what has happened to our superiority in the game as of late? How are we getting beat now in a sport we once dominated? Even if we don't have the top NBA talent participating, we're still putting some of the best players in the nation in and we're losing.
 
I'll order that book this week I need to order a new foam roller anyway. Thanks.

As far as not understanding the text, I am not a kinesthiologist, if that will hold me back.
 
Damn man that was a great read to take up my time during my break in between classes.
 
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