"Do you suppose they will choose to make war against lean, solid dogs rather than against fat and tender sheep?"
Part 6 in our series "20 Years of Pavel Tsatsouline." Complete table of contents here. Before Pavel came along, we did not deadlift. By “we” I mean young ironheads who wanted big muscles and got our (mis)information from dime store bodybuilding magazines. "[T]he deadlift is THE exercise of choice for anyone." In 1999 Pavel sounded... Continue Reading →
The second installment in our series on the training doctrines of Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel Tsatsouline changed strength training so much—and so relatively quietly—that unless you are a middle-aged meathead, you probably cannot remember what it was like before "the Evil Russian" subverted our country's established order with his 1999 book Power to the People. It was... Continue Reading →
This is the first installment in our series on the training doctrines of Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel Tsatsouline entered my life through a side door. In 1998, on an internet forum hosted by the first man to squat 1000 lbs., “Dr. Squat” Fred Hatfield, I read a terse post by a polite Russian émigré. He introduced... Continue Reading →
20 Years of Pavel Tsastouline: IntroductionBefore the Russian Revolution: The Ancien Regime of 1999 Strength Is a SkillMinimalism: When All You Have Is a HammerOne Pull, One PressEnter the DeadliftPower to the People!
Rogozhnikov emphasizes that you are allowed to tinker with his plan. He emphasizes that he isn’t teaching a “routine” at all but an approach, and he tolerates much more customizing and fiddling from you, the athlete, than most Eastern European coaches would. And if you are reading this blog, you will probably need to tailor... Continue Reading →
Part 6 of our series on Konstantin Rogozhnikov. On heavy bench day, Rogozhnikov has you choose an exercise that is very competition-specific. You could pick a straightforward competition-style bench press, but you also have a few other options. You could try floor presses or a slight incline press, and if you have experience with chains,... Continue Reading →
Part 5 in our series on the methods of Russian powerlifting coach Konstantin Rogozhnikov. Rogozhnikov designs his medium days as "bodybuilding" days. You “pump the muscles up with blood” with 3 sets of 8 using “a weight that you couldn’t just easily cruise through 8 reps with.” Timur Andreev, a former champion from Rogozhnikov’s stables,... Continue Reading →
The third installment in our series on Russian coach Konstantin Rogozhnikov. “Bodybuilding.” Use that word carefully around ironheads, who can get every bit as prideful and pedantic about nomenclature as any hipster subculture. In particular, if you should chance to call a powerlifter a “bodybuilder,” you commit a faux pas like speaking Japanese to a... Continue Reading →
At last, we've brought back our Alexey Faleev material as a downloadable PDF book! It's available here, for a suggested donation of $5 (or none at all). I am donating proceeds to charitable organizations doing works of lean, solid goodness around the world, so please be generous!
We've edited our Faleev "80/20" power bodybuilding series into a 100-page, for-charity, donation-based e-book now available here. Enjoy!