Clearing Up the Bulgarian Controversy

I’m not one to seek conflict, but sometimes it’s dropped in my lap. I also don’t feed the trolls, but when someone I respect a lot criticizes something I’ve written, I think it’s worthwhile to speak my peace, because online reputations are fragile things.

Lyle McDonald published an article today raking The Bulgarian Manual through the coals.

I invite you to read his article, and I want you to keep in mind while reading it that I agree with the vast majority of what he wrote. The only major thing I take exception with is that he attributed the positions in that article to me, and what I wrote in The Bulgarian Manual.

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Stress: The Silent Killer (of gains)

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One of the biggest problems we have when we talk about training is that we tend to only talk about physical stressors.

We like complicated periodization models, manipulating training volume, intensity, and frequency. In short, we like having a sense of control. We like thinking, “If I plan out and control these training factors, I’ll get this outcome.” Sure, nutrition and sleep play a role too, but as long as those factors (often given the blanket term “recovery”) are accounted for, you’re in the clear.

However, those factors don’t paint the whole picture. Biology is messy. Your body is not a simple machine that you can feed inputs and expect predictable outputs.

Now, you can have a general idea of what’ll happen. But 1+1 doesn’t always equal 2. Maybe it’ll be 2 most of the time, but sometimes it’ll be 5, and sometimes it’ll be -3. The reason is that your body isn’t in a static state, only being challenged by the workouts you put it through. There are billions of reactions taking place in your body every moment affecting what’ll happen at the systemic level, while dozens of inputs are simultaneously entering the system via your thoughts and your senses (which then affect and modify other thoughts and sensations). 1+1 won’t always equal 2, because your body isn’t dealing with 1+1. It’s dealing with 1+1 plus a million other inputs and moderating factors. The result may be between 1.5 and 2.5 most of the time, but there’s plenty of built-in ambiguity that’s difficult to predict, harder to account for, and impossible to quantify.

Biology is nonlinear. You cannot control it. You can, at best, influence it.

Via trial and error, you can get a pretty good idea of how your body will respond to a certain set of training parameters. However, that response is still context-specific, and is largely mediated by how well your body can respond to stress. When you’re in a comfortable schedule with a 9-to-5, a predictable social life, no large sleep or diet perturbations, etc., you can develop a good idea of how your body will respond to training stress. The more constant the other inputs, the more predictable the result of imposing a particular stressor (training, in this case) will be.

However, increase the overall stress your body is coping with, and your ability to then cope with a given level of training stress is decreased. Although simplistic, Selye’s “General Adaptation Syndrome,” (pictured at the top of the article) is still very useful, even 80 years after its introduction.

Even if your training inputs haven’t changed, the rest of the inputs feeding into the system have changed, so the system with respond differently and perhaps unpredictably.

General Adaptation Syndrome essentially says that your body feeds all of its stress into a generalized pool of “adaptive reserves” that your body can use to elicit the specific adaptations necessary to respond to the stressor and strengthen the body against it in case the same stressor presents itself in the future. In the case of lifting, the strain on the structural and metabolic capabilities of the muscle are the stress, and your body responds by building larger muscles with more ability to resist strain and more of the enzymes necessary to handle exercise metabolically. However, if other stressors (work stress, poor sleep, heavy drinking, marital issues, moving to a new city, etc.) are present, they’re dipping into those adaptive reserves, so your body can’t respond as robustly to exercise.

This is something we all “know,” but which hasn’t gotten much attention in research. In fact, though specific stressors’ (sleep deprivation, food deprivation, high altitude, etc.) influence on exercise and subsequent adaptations have been studied for decades, there was actually only one measly study previously conducted on how general stress affects recovery from strength training, and it lasted less than 24 hours (i.e. not long enough to assess recovery on any meaningful scale).

However, now we have a brand new one which is really really good. It’s not a 12 week training study, but it’s – I think – useful.

Chronic Psychological Stress Impairs Recovery of Muscular Function and Somatic Sensations Over a 96-Hour Period by Stults-Kolehmainen et. Al. (2014)

The researchers sent out a questionnaire to 1200 people to place them on the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Based on their PSS scores, the researchers purposefully sought out people who scored high or low on the scale to make sure there was a significant difference in stress level between the participants.

Participants

All the participants were enrolled in college weight training classes.

Once the subjects were selected, they were given two stress-related questionnaires. One was to place them on the PSS scale again (to see if their scores had changed since they last filled out the questionnaire), and one was the Undergraduate Stress Questionnaire (USQ).

PSS evaluates how stressed you *feel.* USQ evaluates how many stressful events are taking place in your life. This is a useful distinction to make, because some people tend to be able to just let the stress roll off their backs, so to speak. Others respond more negatively to life stressors. The high-stress group in this study both had stressful events in their lives, and felt mentally stressed about those things.

Procedure

The study procedure was pretty freaking brutal. The subjects worked up past a 10rm (i.e. they did sets of 10 until they could no longer complete 10 reps). Then they dropped back to their established 10rm for another set of 10. Then they took 10% off the leg press for another set of 10. If they got all 10 reps with that weight, they stayed with that weight and did 4 more sets to failure. If they didn’t get 10 reps, they took 10% more off and did 4 more sets to failure.

Before the training session, the researchers measured Maximal Isometric Force (using the same leg press – MIF), vertical jump height, and cycling power. They reassessed MIF directly after the workout and 60 minutes post-workout, and they reassessed all 3 performance-related variables at 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours post-workout.

They also assessed soreness, perceived physical energy, and perceived physical fatigue before the workout, directly after, 60 minutes after, and at 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours post-workout by having a number line with a statement like “I have no feelings of soreness” on one end and “strongest feelings of soreness ever felt” on the other end, and telling the subjects to place a mark on the line that corresponded with how sore they felt.

Results

First of all, it should be noted that there were no significant differences in any of the parameters (MIF, 1rm strength, jump height, cycling power, etc.) between groups at the start of the study. Additionally, total workload and cardiovascular response to exercise (max and average heart rate) were similar between the high stress and low stress groups, indicating that the results can’t simply be explained by saying one group worked harder than the other.

Rate of recovery from exercise was strongly correlated with the stress inventories.

For Maximal Isometric Force, everyone was gassed after the workout, with strength dropping off almost 50% directly post-workout, recovering substantially at 60 minutes post-exercise, and continuing to improve from there.

However, the low-stress group had already fully recovered by 48 hours post-exercise, whereas it took a full 96 hours for the high stress group to recover pre-exercise MIF.

It should be noted – the researchers found this pattern by simply comparing the high stress and low stress groups. Then, to make sure there weren’t confounding factors, they made adjustments for fitness, training experience, and workload and found the same pattern still held true.

Cycling power and vertical jump height were less affected by the exercise bout, and recovered much faster in both groups – near pre-exercise levels by 24 hours post-exercise. The researchers theorized that this could be explained by specificity. MIF was assessed on the same leg press used as the workout, so that was the movement pattern showing the most fatigue.

Perceptions of energy, fatigue, and soreness were also affected by stress. The higher stress group had less energy, more fatigue, and more soreness for longer than the low stress group.

Takeaways

The results of your training can’t be reduced to how many sets, reps, and exercises you did. Other factors affect how your body will respond to exercise.

Furthermore, you can’t take your exercise performance in the gym today as an indicator of how hard you SHOULD be training, given other stressors. Both groups lifted a similar amount of weight, did a similar amount of volume, and had similar cycling power and vertical jump height.

That’s one factor that makes overtraining/overreaching tricky to manage. We like looking for objective signs – getting fewer reps, being able to lift less weight, etc. However, if this study is any indication, other stressors start interfering with exercise recovery prior to performance taking a major hit.

(Incoming aside)

One of the things that was difficult to adjust to when transitioning from training 90% of my clients in-person to training 90% of them online was that subjective feedback was harder to come by. When an athlete walks into the gym, you can tell from their body language, how they move, etc. whether they’re feeling good or starting to get run down – and you can make adjustments accordingly. You don’t get that if the only feedback you’re getting from your online training clients in objective.

Online, communication is so much more important. The sets, reps, and weights someone can lift only tell so much. You also need to know how they feel, how they’re sleeping, how their appetite is, etc. There were times that someone hit a huge PR one week, then took a nosedive the next week. I saw “this person has acclimated to the workload and is getting awesome results” when, in reality, they had adapted to the stressor as much as they were capable, and their performance peaked right before they started backsliding a bit. Lesson learned.

As hard as it is for people to accept (and trust me, I get a lot of push-back on this), I’ll usually deload someone directly after an unusually good week of training – steady, consistent PRs are one thing, but when an intermediate or advanced lifter hits a 40 pound PR out of nowhere, or gets 7 reps with a weight that was a max triple a month ago, I’ve found they’re usually teetering on the edge of overtraining – right when their results are telling them to push harder to see more big PRs. I don’t have any data to back me up, but it’s a pattern I’ve noticed enough times that I find it has good predictive value. 9 times out of 10, someone will hit a huge PR, I’ll pull back on the reigns for the next week of training, they’ll send me a few emails bellyaching, I’ll put my foot down, and on Tuesday or Wednesday I’ll get an email saying, “on second thought, the deload was a good call. Everything is feeling really freaking heavy this week.”

Physical fatigue often follows psychological fatigue, but the latter is harder to recognize without subjective feedback, meaning the former can creep up on you – or you can inadvertently rush headlong into it by putting your foot on the gas when the purely objective indications mislead you.

(Returning to our regularly scheduled program)

As was previously mentioned, the stressed-out people in this study both had stressful events taking place in their lives, AND they felt stressed about them. You can’t make any statements from this study about someone who has a lot of life stressors but who manages to stay feeling relaxed, or about someone who has fewer stressors but who still lets every little thing stress them out. My hunch is that the perception of stress matters more than the volume of stressors themselves, but this study doesn’t address that distinction. I’d love to see a follow-up study looking as people with high PSS scores, and low USQ scores (feel stressed without many stressors) and people with low PSS scores and high USQ scores (stressful life events, but minimal feelings of stress).

Interestingly, much of the research cited in this article had to do with wound healing. While the connection between muscle repair and wound healing isn’t 1 to 1, there are some notable similarities. Namely, both are mediated by the inflammation pathway to a large extent, and both are inhibited by glucocorticoid dysregulation. Psychological stress screws with cytokine signaling (including IL-6, IL-1b, and TNF-a) and results in a chronic elevation of cortisol.

In non-nerd speak, when your body’s stress response is switched “on” too much, for too long, the pathways that mediate the inflammatory response and tissue repair don’t work quite as well as they should. As a result, wounds heal slower and/or you take longer to recover from training.

Remember, you can’t just draw out a plan on paper, look at the volume, intensity, and frequency, and know how your body will respond to it 100%. What may be low volume and easy to recover from in a situation with minimal life stress may be high volume and crushingly difficult when other stressors in your life rear their heads. Ongoing adjustments need to be made, and some wiggle-room needs to be built in so you can alter your training stress based on what life throws at you.

This isn’t to say there’s no value in having a plan. It just means that plan needs to be interpreted more like a compass than like a road map.

Of course, ambiguity stresses some people out more than others. I love things that have a lot of gray area, while other people hate them, and want everything spelled out. In that case, a training plan with too much wiggle room can, paradoxically, cause more of the psychological stress that it was intended to moderate and account for. I think that’s one reason RPE-based training works so well for some people (people who can handle more gray area) but not-so-well for others (people who agonize about whether something was REALLY an 8RPE or not).

You are a psychosomatic being.

Psycho = mind

Soma = body

You can’t divorce the two. Mental stress can manifest itself as physical stress, and physical stress can manifest itself as mental stress.

Don’t be fooled into thinking the only thing that matters when it comes to training are the sets and reps you do in the gym.

Don’t be fooled into thinking the time between training sessions, the food you eat, and the sleep you get are the only things that matter when you talk about recovery. Those things matter, but so do the other events in your life, and your perceptions about those events.

Personal Anecdote

Managing stress is key for success in the gym. Here’s my own experience:

I started college as a triple major and double minor (History, Psychology, and Leadership, with minors in Economics and Mathematics). I started lifting again after a few years out of the gym the spring semester of my freshman years.

I got back to my old plateaus pretty quickly, but then progress slowed substantially for about 9 months as I took 19-20 credit hours per semester. At the end of my sophomore year, I decided to go with my heart and switch to Exercise Science. I dropped all my other majors and minors.

That summer, I interned at a gym. I only worked 3 hours per day, had very minimal life stress, slept as much as I wanted, worked out 3-4 hours per day, and generally enjoyed life. I added 100 pounds to my squat and ~175 pounds to my total in 3 months, destroying my old plateaus.

My first semester in the Exercise Science program, I took another 20 hours to get all my pre-reqs out of the way to make sure I’d be able to take all the upper level classes in the program (designed for 4-5 semesters) in my final 3 semesters. Progress = zero.

The next semester, I only took 12 hours, and all of my classes were incredibly easy. Stress was minimal, and I added another 100 pounds to my squats (in wraps this time, so realistically more like 50), 20 to my bench, and 80 to my deadlift.

The work situation in the first half of that next summer was a lot more stressful that I was expecting, and I got married in July, so not much training took place after that (nice long honeymoon, and then only a week before going back to school). I got weaker that summer.

This past year (last August to this August) has also been fairly stressful. My wife and I were angst-y because we didn’t really have a plan for what we wanted to do with our lives. There was some stress about jobs, finances, and grad school that would take way too long to explain in a blog post about training, but suffice it to say that training wasn’t my #1 focus. As a result – very slow progress. Still hovering around where I was strength-wise 15 months ago when I last competed.

I like to look back and see what I was doing training-wise at peaks and valleys in my progress, but the factor that most strongly predicts how much strength I’ll gain at any given point in time – more than training (I totaled 1714 at 220 with a program utilizing daily maxes, and 1885 at 242 for a more kosher upper/lower-ish split) and more than diet (I was drinking the keto Kool-aid for most of my training time leading up to 1714, and had a more standard carb-based diet for 1885) is simply how stressful the rest of my life is outside the gym.

Anyway, just wanted to leave you with that anecdote.

Manage your stress and adapt your training plan to what life throws at you. You can’t separate your time in the gym from the rest of your life.

Interview with Coach Boris Sheiko

Boris Sheiko is the man behind the Juggernaut that is the Russian National Powerlifting Team. He was gracious enough to grant me an interview. If you don’t know who Mr. Sheiko is, you haven’t spent enough time in the powerlifting world. His lifters win European and World Championships in larger numbers and more frequently than those of any other coach in the world that I’m aware of – by a very broad margin.

1. Mr. Sheiko, I think a lot of people are familiar with your training programs, but their knowledge about your background is a little hazy. How did you get into powerlifting, and how did you come to be the coach of the Russian national team?

I was born in Moscow. My family moved to Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine), the native city of my father. After school I entered to the Institute of Physical Culture in Kiev at the Department of Weightlifting. Many of the best coaches in Ukraine studied at this institute. Immediately after graduation I moved to do military service in Kazakhstan for one year.

From 1975 to 1996 I lived and worked in Kazakhstan. In the period from 1975 to 1989 I was a coach in weightlifting. From 1981 to 1989 I was a senior coach of the junior weightlifting team of Kazakhstan. From 1984 to 1986 I worked with the junior weightlifting team of the USSR.

In 1989, my student Alexey Sivokon (two-time weightlifting bronze medalist of the USSR among youths under 18 years old) took part in his first powerlifting competition, which also happened to be Kazakhstan’s first Powerlifting Cup. In 1990 we switched to powerlifting due in part to his outstanding performance. In 1991 I became the head coach of Kazakhstan’s powerlifting teams.

I moved to Russia in January in 1997 at the invitation of the Republic of Bashkortostan’s Powerlifting Federation. In 1998 I was elected as a head coach of the men’s national team of Russia.

Athletes I’ve coached since have won 36 gold, 17 silver and 3 bronze medals at the World Championships of Powerlifting, plus 2 gold medals, 1 silver, and 1 bronze at the World Games.

Since 2002, in parallel with the coaching job, I have been working in the Institute of Physical Culture as a Professor. I currently teach in the Weightlifting and Wrestling Department. I have also written more than 140 articles and 12 books on the topic of powerlifting.

2. Russia manages to consistently churn out some of the best lifters in the world. How are talented lifters identified, and at what age do they typically start training for powerlifting? What other factors do you think contribute to Russia’s dominance in the sport?

In Russia there are many children’s sports schools (“ДЮСШ”) which have several sport sections, including one for powerlifting. Powerlifting coaches gather children 10-13 years old into a group under their supervision. Students are screened and placed into appropriate groups. Groups of beginners should consist of at least 12 students, otherwise the coach will not get a salary. At higher skill levels the group size decreases. For example, in a group of more developed students (“ГСС”) there should be six athletes for 1^st class and three for CMS. In groups with high sports skill (“ГВСМ”) the groups consist of two students (MS or MSIC). The coach (“ДЮСШ”) expects this advancement to take place over 4-6 years, having started as a beginner.

In Russia all sports are divided into the Olympic and non-Olympic sports. In Olympic sports the financing is several times higher than in non-Olympic sports. Currently, the world champions of powerlifting don’t get any salary or compensation from the Ministry of Sports of Russia. It does, however, sponsor the trip to the world and European championships for the men’s team.

Despite financial difficulties and some very harsh training conditions, Russian athletes are leaders at the world and European championships because we have many talented trainers. The coaches apply the best training systems in the world, which they have often created themselves. It is almost impossible to get to the Russian national team without a coach. We have lifters without coaches but in most cases their technical and physical levels are much lower than the levels of athletes who train with coaches.

A coach in Russia is also more than just a coach. The coach deals with the training process, finances, even the private lives of their athletes as well as their psychology, academic habits, and many others fields. Sometimes the athlete consults with coaches more often than with their parents.

3. Since I know it’s a question on everyone’s mind, let’s get it out of the way early: Steroids. Several high-profile Russian lifters have tested positive for performance enhancing drug use in the IPF. It’s no secret that lifters use drugs at all levels of drug tested competition. In your experience, how many top lifters in IPF affiliates around the world are truly drug free, and how many just manage to pass drug tests?

It is necessary to note that in all European and world championships, Russian athletes pass doping control tests more often than athletes from other countries simply because they are the leaders at the world and European championships and are, therefore, tested in larger numbers. In my experience, this creates hope in others that they will not be caught if they use steroids. So I applaud the decision by the IPF to check not only champions and record holders, but also others as well. Yet even when a doping test is “positive” the athlete and coach will assure you that it is not true; that he’s as clean as a baby’s tear. They might blame a rival who put steroids in the bottle or in his food. There is another popular excuse – steroids were in the sports supplements.

So what percentage of IPF athletes from around the world are actually clean and how many use steroids and excrete them before the competition? Nobody can answer this question. We can only go by the results of the doping tests and I think it’s a good thing to have more widespread testing.

4. Who is the best lifter you’ve ever coached? What up and coming lifters are you training now who we should watch for in the upcoming years?

My best student was Alexey Sivokon. Not because he’s my first world champion and Asia champion, but because he was industrious, disciplined, and at the competition he was an absolute fighter. He also had an amazing ability to recover. For example, during one workout, Alexey squatted for 5 sets of 3 reps at 80%. I noticed that he didn’t break parallel. I told him that if missed another rep he would repeat all sets again. Alexey did 12 sets. After that he had no problem with depth at any world or Asia championship again.

So far, my biggest student was Maxim Podtynny who weighed 120 kg. So when the general manager of the Battle of Champions, Andrey Fedoseyev, asked me to work with Kirill Sarychev, I gladly accepted his proposal. Currently Kirill is the heaviest athlete in Russia and for me, I gain invaluable experience. It is also a pleasure to work with Kirill because he is smart athlete.

Boris and Kirill

5. A lot of Western lifters look at your training programs and immediately say it’s too much volume for most lifters to handle, whereas others – myself included – have used them and had great success in doing so. What do you have to say to the people who say that your training programs are too hard for the average drug free lifter with a job and a life outside of the gym?

It seems that western athletes are used to training a little and pumping a lot. For those athletes who are able to get through the first several weeks, it will become a lot easier going forward.

I am surprised as well by some programs I see from professionals in the USA. The volume at and above 85% is just too much. With confidence I can say that my athletes could never do such loads. Perhaps our approach to taking 1RM differs. Some young Russian coaches are trying to follow these recommendations though.

6. How did you go about developing your training philosophy? If you had to boil it down into a few simple bullet points, what is “Sheiko-style” training all about?

There are thousands of powerlifters training in the world but few of them become world champions. Only the most persistent, hard-working and fanatical athletes can reach the top of the mountain. Those lifters train with full dedication.

My student Sergey Mor was world champion in 1997 and 1998. In 1999 he lost to Ricks Dave by body weight. They both totaled 857.5 kg, but Sergei was 0.4kg heavier than Ricks. Sergei then trained the entire year with one thought: to beat Ricks. When he tired during a workout, I told him that I read on the Internet that Ricks was doing very well and setting new records in the gym. His fatigue immediately passed.

At the World Championships in 2001 we met Ricks Dave again. Their body weights were the same as the year before but this time Sergei won by a margin of 40kg, beating him in all three exercises.

My philosophy as a coach is to do no less than this for my athletes. The higher the skills of the athlete, the higher level of knowledge a coach should have. Once an athlete becomes more skilled and has more knowledge than the coach, results stop growing. Therefore, the coach is doomed to learn and follow all the novelties of powerlifting in the literature, magazines, and the Internet. As soon as a coach says: “I am great, I know everything,” – it is the end of his professionalism.

The most defining aspect of “Sheiko-style” is probably doing two squat, bench press, or deadlift sessions in one workout with different numbers of lifts and intensities. This has proved to work very well. For a long time I was also the only coach in Russia who did a complete analysis of every week, month and year of training. I have in my archives Alexey Sivokon’s training diaries covering his whole seven-year training period. At any specific time you can see exactly what he was doing. So thorough analysis is probably another defining characteristic of “Sheiko-style.”

7. In your experience, what common mistakes do you see lifters make in their training?

I have said many times that lifters don’t pay appropriate attention to technique. Another is cutting too much weight. It is especially unacceptable for a young athlete as it interferes with normal development. And the most common mistake is to train without a coach. If you have a coach you can reach the same results in one year that would take you 4-5 years without a coach.

8. What is the state of powerlifting in Russian like today?

There are many talented coaches in Russia which are fans of powerlfiting, and despite all the difficulties in raising high-level athletes, Russian powerlifters will continue to be leaders at the world and European championships.

If you want to learn more about Mr. Sheiko and his style of training, check out his forum here.

Speed kills: 2x the intended bar speed yields ~2x the bench press gains

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If you want to get stronger, training volume and intensity are the two most important variables, right? Well, a recent (May 2014) study published in the European Journal of Sports Science sheds some light on another crucial factor – bar speed.

Now, if you’re like me, you’ve always heard that you’re supposed to lift the bar (concentric) as fast as possible, and that doing so would recruit more fast twitch fibers since you’re producing more force, and more muscle fibers activated = more gains.

However, I’ve never heard anyone pinpoint how much of a difference maximum rep speed actually made – at least not with any credible sources backing them.

Well, this recent study – Maximal intended velocity training induces greater gains in bench press performance than deliberately slower half-velocity training – suggests that it makes a huge difference:

Approximately double the strength gains by lifting the bar with maximum speed each rep, as opposed to a slower cadence, even when equating training volume and intensity. VERY cool. Personally, I would have expected a difference, but not anything THAT dramatic.

Let’s dive in.

Background

As I previously touched on, the thinking behind lifting the bar as fast as you possibly can is this:

1. To produce more force, your body uses more muscle fibers (as opposed to each fiber just contracting harder to produce more force)

2. The first fibers your body uses are the smallest, slow-twitch fibers. To produce more and more force, it recruits progressively larger and stronger fibers, with your largest, strongest fast twitch fibers being the last ones integrated into the movement. (This is called Henneman’s Size Principle)

3. Recruiting these fibers isn’t based on the weight you’re using per se, but rather the amount of force you produce. Force = mass x acceleration, so all other things being equal, lifting a bar faster means you produced more force to lift it.

4. Therefore, lifting the bar faster recruits more muscle fibers.

5. The fast twitch muscle fibers – the last ones you recruit – are the ones most prone to hypertrophy, so lifting faster = more fast twitch fibers used = more strength and size gains.

Sounds great in theory, right? Except…

The bulk of the previous research looking at the effects of lifting velocity on strength gains showed that there was no significant difference between lifting as fast as possible and lifting at a slower cadence.

Oops. That theory sounded so appealing and straightforward a moment ago.

But wait a second – as the authors in this current study point out, much of the past research on the subject was methodologically flawed.

1. Many of the stuides didn’t equate load and volume. This was a problem with the studies that HAD shown intentionally lifting fast was better than intentionally lifting slower. If you’re intentionally lifting the bar slower, you’re not going to be able to handle as much weight or volume, so of COURSE the protocol lifting at maximum speed would yield better results – but you have no idea whether it was the bar speed itself that mattered, or whether it was simply the difference in intensity and volume.

2. In the bulk of the studies showing no difference in lifting fast vs. lifting slow, they were doing sets taken to failure, or close to failure. Going back to Henneman’s size principle, another application of it is that as the first fibers you recruit start fatiguing, you recruit larger and stronger fibers to take their place to keep producing force. Also, many of those studies weren’t volume-equated either. Additionally, regardless of what the cadence was SUPPOSED to be, when taking sets to failure, all your reps eventually end up being slow! So with these studies, the differences in ACTUAL bar speed weren’t substantial, and the real takeaway is that if you push yourself to failure, rep speed doesn’t matter as much.

But what if you don’t WANT to train to failure for all your sets, all the time (i.e. most of us)? Well, that’s where this study fills in some gaps.

Subjects:

24 men were recruited (4 dropped out), mostly in their early to mid 20s, and of normal height and weight (1.77 ± 0.08m, 70.9 ± 8.0kg). They were healthy and physically active, with 2-4 years “recreational” experience with the bench press. “Recreational” is a slippery term. Their 1rms averaged around 75kg to begin with – slightly more than 1x body weight. So it wasn’t the first time these guys had picked up a barbell, but they also weren’t elite athletes.

Protocol:

The subjects maxed at the beginning and end of the program to assess strength gains. Also, bar speed of all of their warmup sets was recorded (both groups were instructed to lift the bar as fast as they possibly could on all of their warmup sets) to see whether training fast or slow affected their force production capabilities.

They split the subjects into two groups. Half of them trained at max velocity (MaxV – controlled eccentric, and explosive concentric), and half of them trained at half velocity (HalfV – controlled eccentric, and 1/2 maximum bar speed for the concentric). They benched 3x per week for 6 weeks, then assessed results.

The way they made their weight selections for each day was *very* interesting. Prior research had found that average concentric bar velocity (how fast you can push the bar up) correlated very strongly with given 1rm percentages for bench press.

An average maximum bar speed of 0.79m/sec means you’re lifting about 60% of your 1rm, 0.70 m/sec is about 65%, 0.62m/sec is about 70%, 0.55m/sec is about 75%, and 0.47m/sec is about 80%.

Average concentric velocity (m/sec)	Percentage of 1rm
0.79	60
0.7	65
0.62	70
0.55	75
0.47	80

To make sure they were using, say, 75% of a subject’s ACTUAL 1rm for the day, rather than 75% of their initial 1rm (which would become outdated as they got stronger over 6 weeks), the researcher would have the subject lift each warmup rep as fast as possible, until their average concentric bar speed was 0.55m/sec. That would be their working weight for the day.

(As an aside, a common knock against percentage-based programs is that you have a harder time accommodating good days and bad days. As your strength fluctuates, 80% of your all-time PR may not actually be 80% of your actual strength for the day. Using bar speed as a way to approximate percentage of 1rm may be a smart way to account for daily fluctuations in a percentage-based program)

So, on 75% day, the people in the MaxV group would warm up, find the heaviest weight they could lift at .55m/sec, and do the assigned reps for the day. The HalfV group would warm up, find the heaviest weight they could lift at .55m/sec, and do the assigned reps for the day, but with an average concentric velocity of ~0.27m/sec, with visual and auditory feedback from a screen in front of them letting them know if their cadence was too fast or too slow.

There were 48-72 hours between training sessions.

On week 1, they did 3 sets of 6-8 with 60% each day, eventually progressing to (decreasing volume, increasing intensity – kosher linear periodization) 3-4 sets of 3-4 reps on week 6.

The study was impressively well-controlled. Here’s a great little line: “Sessions took place under supervision of the investigators, at the same time of day (±1 h) for each participant and under constant environmental conditions (20°C, 60% humidity).”

Time of day matters because circadian fluctuations in hormones like testosterone and cortisol may affect the training outcomes. Additionally, heat and humidity can affect performance – if it’s too hot and humid you’re more apt to fatigue because of thermal stress or dehydration, and if it’s too cold you can have a harder time getting warm and performing well. Studies like that are *supposed* to control for environmental factors, but many don’t (or at least they don’t explicitly stay that they did).

Along with the training study, the researchers did another study with different subjects to assess metabolic effects of lifting with different bar speeds. In this study, subjects came in, had their blood drawn, performed one of 6 routines (3×8 @60% with MaxV or HalfV, 3×6 @70% with MaxV or HalfV, and 3×3 @80% with MaxV or HalfV), and had their blood drawn again to assess lactate and ammonia concentrations.

Additionally, fatigue was assessed based on changes in the heaviest load the subjects could move at an average velocity of 1.0 m/sec pre-workout vs. post-workout

Results:

Before the training, there were no significant differences between the MaxV and HalfV groups.

Average concentric speed WAS faster for MaxV, as you’d expect (0.58 ± 0.06 vs. 0.32 ± 0.03 m/sec)

HalfV spent more concentric time under tension (360.9 ± 19.2 vs. 222.8 ± 21.4 sec)

In every single category, MaxV saw basically twice the gains of HalfV

1rm bench press: +18.2% vs. +9.7%

Average velocity with weights they could move faster than 0.8 m/sec at both the beginning and end of the study: +11.5% vs. +4.5%

Average velocity with weights they could move slower than 0.8 m/sec at both the beginning and end of the study: +36.2% vs. 17.3%

Notice – right around 2x the gains across the board

In the metabolic study, there was actually a larger rise in lactate in the MaxV protocol vs. the HalfV protocol for both the 60% and 70% workouts, and fatigue (as assessed by the heaviest load they could move at a set speed) was greater in MaxV than HalfV on the 60% workout (7.6% vs. 1.4%), with a trend (that didn’t reach significance) toward more fatigue with the 70% workout as well (7.1% vs. 3.9%).

Now, take the lactate and fatigue data with a grain of salt – both protocols reached pretty moderate levels of lactate (we’re not talking about the metabolic difference of a heavy triple vs. a max set of 20 reps) that may not make a meaningful difference, and the standard deviations for fatigue were pretty large. They’re interesting trends to see, but any tentative conclusions drawn from them need to be even more tentative than usual.

There were no ammonia differences for any of the protocols.

Breaking is all down:

So, lifting the bar faster means more gains, and it makes you more explosive with lighter weights too? Sweet.

Not so fast.

Remember the issues with past research? This showed that when you equate for training volume and intensity and when you’re not training to failure, lifting faster may produce superior gains in maximal strength.

Additionally, the improvements in bar velocities with concrete loads doesn’t necessarily mean faster training makes you faster. If you’ll notice, the degree of improvement in bar velocity was pretty similar to the degree of improvement in 1rm strength.

Essentially, let’s say you bench 300. 50% of your 1rm is 150. If you get your bench up to 400, you’ll almost certainly be able to move 150 faster than you could when you benched 300. But will you move 200 faster than you used to move 150? Maybe, maybe not, but this study at least seems to indicate that it wouldn’t have to do much with whether you were training fast or slow – the larger gains seen in the MaxV group were with absolute loads, not loads relative to their new 1rms. The biggest takeaway is that being able to pick up heavier things makes it easier for you to move lighter things faster.

Another interesting thing about the improvements in velocity: For both groups, larger gains were seen in bar speed for heavier weights (ones they moved slower than 0.8 m/sec; 17.3-36.2% improvement) vs. gains in bar speed for lighter weights (ones they moved faster than 0.8 m/sec; 4.5-11.5% improvement). This has implications for pure power athletes. Getting stronger DOES help you produce more power, but it’s not highly specific. Lifting heavy things has a much higher carryover for lifting heavy things fast than it does for lifting light things fast.

So will you be able to throw a shot put further by increasing your bench, or be able to jump higher by increasing you squat?

Absolutely! To a point… After that time, training specificity becomes a bigger concern, and the carryover you get from producing force against something really heavy (training for an 800 pound squat or an 600 pound bench press) becomes increasingly less if your goal is to be able to produce a lot of force against something relatively light (your body or a 16 pound ball). This is an aspect of training specificity people don’t talk about quite as much. Training is specific to the muscles and movements you train, sure, but it’s also specific to the velocity you train with.

Going back to fatigue and lactate for a moment – more fatigue and lactate accumulation with the MaxV protocols may indirectly indicate a larger reliance on fast twitch fibers (as Henneman’s Size Principle would lead you to expect). Fast twitch fibers are more fatiguable than slow twitch fibers, and they rely more on glycolytic energy systems. However, the differences between the two protocols were really pretty minor in both these regards, so an indirect conclusion based on shaky foundations shouldn’t be something you put TOO much confidence in to account for the difference in training effects.

One thing I really loved about this study was that it actually recorded average velocities and concentric time under tension. TUT has been preached by some as a driving force in strength and hypertrophy gains. However, the HalfV protocol had substantially more TUT than the MaxV protocol, but it produced substantially worse results. Perhaps TUT should be amended from “time under tension” to “time under maximal tension” – how much time you spend actually moving the weight with as much force as possible.

Of course, that runs counter to the pretty little 4 number notations people like to use (3-1-3-0 would mean 3 second eccentric, 1 second pause at the bottom of the rep, 3 second concentric, and 0 second pause at the top before the next rep). This study seems to suggest that for maximum strength gains, you may dictate a certain cadence for the eccentric, and time at the top and bottom, but the concentric should be completed as fast as possible.

Now, before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, there is a time and place for controlled concentrics – learning. If someone has poor awareness or is trying to fix a technique flaw, slowing down the concentric while focusing on appropriate cues can help reinforce proper technique. If someone can’t perform a movement properly slowly (weightlifting aside), they probably aren’t going to be able to perform it properly at maximal velocity. You can also use controlled concentrics if you want to practice a movement for the day, but want to employ a means of naturally limiting how much weight you can use for the exercise. However, for most lifts, most of the time, it’s probably most beneficial to lift the move the load as fast as possible.

One last thing to point out from this study: you DON’T constantly have to train to failure or close to failure if you want to get strong. Sets of 3 at 80% (an ~8rm weight) or sets of 6 at 60% (a ~12-15rm weight) aren’t going to be incredibly difficult. But the MaxV group averaged gains of about 30 pounds on their bench in 6 weeks – not too shabby! The frequency in this study (benching 3x per week) was fairly high, and the weekly volume (36-60 reps between 60-80%) was fairly high too considering the strength and experience of the trainees. However, I’d wager than none of their sets pushed them within a rep or two of failure. Total training volume is more important than running yourself into the ground every set.

Wrap-up

When not training to failure, moving the bar as fast as possible probably produces better gains than intentionally slowing your rep speed.

When you’re constantly training to failure, it may not matter quite as much. However, you DON’T constantly have to train to failure to get stronger.

Moving heavy things as fast as possible improves your ability to move heavy things fast much more than it improves your ability to move light things fast.

You can use bar speed as an indicator of your strength day-to-day. You can use this knowledge to adapt a percentage-based program to fluctuations in strength day-to-day and (hopefully) improvements in strength over time without having to max in the gym regularly.

Making your novice strength training routine more effective – Two quick tips

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This is something all new lifters need to read when they’re doing Starting Strength, Stronglifts 5×5, Greyskull LP, or any of the other beginner programs out there.

From a practical standpoint, it’ll help them get the most out of their first couple of years under the bar. Taking the long view, it’ll also be a good introduction to some basic principles of program design.

1. Periodize

Periodization is a massive subject, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the minutia. However, in the simplest terms, periodization simply means “having defined times in your training where you emphasize different goals.” The application can get really hairy, but the easiest way to periodize your training without an in-depth knowledge of the theory behind it – changing set and rep schemes.

Yep, it can be that simple.

So, should you periodize your training? In a word: “YES!”

A 2004 meta-analysis essentially showed that periodized training is almost always better than non-periodized training. To quote the authors, “As a result of this statistical review of the literature, it is concluded that periodized training is more effective than non-periodized training for men and women, individuals of varying training backgrounds, and for all age groups.” That’s about the most conclusive statement you’ll hear from an exercise scientist.

Here’s the easiest way to periodize one of the common beginner training programs: instead of sticking with the kosher 3-5 sets of 5 reps for everything, proceed thusly:

Start with 3×8 for your lifts, adding weight each session until you’re unable to do so. Once you can’t add weight every session anymore…

Switch to 5×5. Repeat the process.

Then 5×3.

You don’t have to switch all your lifts over to the new rep scheme all at once. If you plateau on your bench or OHP before your squat or deadlift, go ahead to switch the stalled lift to the new rep scheme, and continue as you were with the others.

This setup allows you to stick with the basic progressive overload you would usually get from a beginner’s program, while also implementing some basic periodization, which will almost certainly make the program more effective for you. You’ll be able to linearly add weight for a longer period of time, and odds are very good that you’ll end up with bigger maxes than if you stuck with 3-5×5 for the entire program.

2. When you finally plateau, add volume

Something I’ve never understood is the stock advice of “when you stall with your linear gains, take 10% off the bar, and build back up using the same progression.”

What’s supposed to happen in the couple of weeks while you build back to your old plateau? Is that when the gains fairy visits to defy the basic principle of progressive overload, thereby granting you a substantially improved response to the exact same stimulus?

Pictured: Gainz Fairy

Instead, if you decide to stick with the same program, deload a little more than you otherwise would, and build back up with 1-2 more sets per exercise. So if you were doing 3 sets, do 5 sets. If you were doing 5 sets, do 6 or 7 sets. The scientific literature agrees almost unanimously that more volume is better for both strength and hypertrophy. Some studies don’t reach significance, but this is mainly due to lack of statistical power due to small sample sizes (a common problem in this field).

If you want to combine these two pieces of advice, deload to about 10% below where you switched from 3×8 to 5×5. Build back up by proceeding from 5×8 to 6×5 to 7×3. This will more reliably keep your progress going than sticking with 3-5×5, deloading a bit, and building back up with the same sets and reps.

I’m sure if you’re a regular Strength & Science reader, none of this is new to you, BUT it will be new and helpful to a lot of novice lifters. Share it around so they can see better results in their first few months under the bar, and perhaps get their first exposure to the practical application of periodization.

Fixing the good-morning squat

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This is a common problem, and one I get asked about frequently enough that it was worth explaining what’s happening and how to fix it in a blog post.

For those of you who don’t know, a good-morning squat is ostensibly a squat, but when the lifter starts coming out of the hole, their butt shoots straight up, so instead of squatting the weight up, they end up using their hamstrings, glutes, and back primarily, effectively taking the quads out of the movement.

A good-morning squat = when your “squats” end up looking like this.

When you squat like this, odds are you’re going to wind up missing the lift when the weight rounds your back over and folds you forward. Consequently, the common prescription is to strengthen your back or hip extensors (glutes and hamstrings) to keep you from getting folded forward. Makes sense, right?

Nope.

You see, your body is pretty good at optimizing movement. Do something enough times, and your body is pretty good at finding the most efficient way for you to accomplish the pattern, given your strengths and weaknesses. So, when you find yourself GM squatting, you’re in that position in the first place BECAUSE your back and hip extensors are strong. Strengthening them further MAY help you lift more weight, but it only furthers the imbalance that already exists.

Instead, you need to strengthen your quads. When your quads are weak, your butt will shoot right up out of the hole without your shoulders moving much – getting knee extension out of the way without much of a change in center of gravity – taking your quads out of the equation and shifting the load to the muscles that are already strong, and putting you in a GM position. Strengthen your quads, and they can pull their own weight, allowing you to stay a little more upright so you won’t have such a tendency to round forward with heavy weight.

Training your quads will also increase your max more for the amount of effort you invest into the training. If you strengthen what’s already strong, you’ll probably be able to move more weight, but it’s a matter of diminishing returns. If you bring up the weakest link, you get a much much better return on investment.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat for implying that training the “posterior chain” isn’t the be-all-end-all of lower body training, I do absolutely think it’s important. Most new lifters need more work on their posterior chains, and it should be prioritized to a point. However, once you develop a GM squat problem, that’s a good indicator that the posterior chain is definitely up to snuff and no longer the limiting factor of performance. Also, I understand that mobility problems, especially poor ankle dorsiflexion, can cause this problem is the absence of any strength imbalances; however, in my experience, most lifters can get around that just by getting some weightlifting shoes with a raised heel.

And, just for social proof and all that (as an aside, it’s a little funny I feel like I need to justify a recommendation to train the quads. They’re big, strong muscles that need to be well developed for powerful knee extension – which is one of the basic tasks involved in squatting. But the strength world has been so enamored with the “posterior chain” lately, I feel like I’m being slightly rebellious by suggesting that people should directly train their quads!), consider that Dan Green shares my opinion with his 865 squat, and the study on elite powerlifters I wrote up for Bret Contreras’s blog basically said that the hallmark of elite squatting was *minimizing* GM-ing the squat.

So, if you end up looking like Miley Cyrus on Robin Thicke at the VMAs every time you squat heavy weights, train your freaking quads. Your back, and your squat numbers, will reap the benefits.