Lessons in Strength and Muscle Building from Russian Weightlifting and Powerlifting Methods Ever since I wrote my essay The Bulgarian Way back in May of this year, I have had what you are now reading in my mind. That article—I recommend reading it if you haven’t already—was on the lessons bodybuilders and lifters can learn from the methods of the Bulgarian weightlifters. When I first started training back in the ‘80s, Bulgarian training was an almost mythical form of training. We had heard about it, or read a little about it, but we actually knew very little. When the “Serious Growth” manuals started appearing in advertisements in various bodybuilding magazines—particularly “Serious Growth 3: Big Beyond Belief”—purporting to explain how bodybuilders could use the methods of Bulgarian strength training in pursuit of hypertrophy, a willing and gullible bodybuilding public gobbled it up. For those who are/were actually “in the kn...
Gain Size and Strength Using a Modified Russian Powerlifting Program Question: After reading some of your articles, I’m interested in using a “Russian style” powerlifting program—high volume with sub-maximal effort training—for increasing my powerlifts but also gaining muscle mass. You wrote that the “problem” with Sheiko training was that you had to stop because you were gaining too much muscle without trying to. That’s a “problem” I would like to have. But my question is this: Because of work and other obligations, I have trouble making it to the gym more than 3 days a week. Can I make significant progress in both size and strength by training just 3 days weekly? I noticed that there is a 3-day Sheiko program, for example, and I wondered if you would recommend it or if you have another 3-day program that you think would be good instead? I received the above question a few days ago from a reader. After sending h...