Power to the People Professional: How to Add 100s of Pounds to Your Squat, Bench,and Deadlift with Advanced Russian Techniques

by Pavel Tsatsouline

A strong man understands that there is no one right way to train and that there are many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. He is not going to get side tracked from his plan by the latest cool routine.

Dikul uses a simple technique to spot systemic overtraining and nip it in the bud. Count your heart rate in the morning, before you get out of bed. Sit up and count again. Then stand up and do it. The difference between each consecutive reading should not exceed 10 BPM. If it does, lower the intensity in the next workout. Dikul insists that no one—not even experienced strength athletes—should pursue pure strength specialization for more than 30-40 days in a row.

“I approach heavy and light weights the same way. After all, it is light weights that get us injured more often because we approach them half-hearted.”

“The experience of Soviet weightlifters shows that the greatest effect in strength development is reached when sessions with heaviest loads are done every other day (3 days a week). On other days athletes perform additional special strength exercises, as well as technique exercises, practically training daily.” (Ozolin, 2006)

Understanding the phenomenon of fatigue specificity enables one to progress faster because you can train more often and still recover.

The first secret is to train all the muscle groups—including the small ones—on separate days from the powerlifts (two out of five weekly workouts). The second secret is to practice harder, ‘out of the groove’, powerlift variations.