Power to the People Professional_ How to Add 100s of Pounds to Your Squat, Bench,and Deadlift with Advanced Russian Techniques ( PDFDrive )

CHAPTER
I: TOTAL
What Dikul does reveal about his training is worth its weight in gold and can be applied by any
intelligent and experienced powerlifter.
"I train five times a week, dedicating two of the workouts to small muscle groups. I isolate the
base, large muscle groups and work the small, assisting muscles. Thus I not only grow the main
large muscles but also the small, supporting ones. Many athletes don't like them and say, "They
don't help any!" It is a mistake. These exercises give me reserve strength. Yes, these exercises are
hard because the appropriate muscles are poorly developed. Of course here you will not pull a
large weight, and everyone of course wants a big weight at once. No need to be embarrassed
about training with small weights. These exercises enable me to build this 'reserve strength' by
blocking the main muscles."
Dikul's 'split' is not unusual for Russian athletes. "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)
The above arrangement is possible due to the phenomenon of fatigue specificity. Say, you have
trained back extensions hard. The day after, your back may not be up for more hypers but it will
do alright with deadlifts or good mornings. The same muscles may be worked, but because the
exercise is different you will be able to do it almost—not quite, but close—as if you were totally
fresh. Endurance athletes get it. A triathlete ran hard yesterday. Today his legs are shot. Way too
shot to run, but tolerable for biking. A leg exercise again but a different one. Understanding the
phenomenon of fatigue specificity enables one to progress faster because you can train more often
and still recover.
Louie Simmons knows. He loves telling the story of an NFL strength coach who asked a Soviet
coach from another team sport what he had his players do the day after the game. "Work their
legs," was the answer. "And the day after that?"—"Work their legs." What about the next day?"
The answer did not change and the coach explained that you could train daily as long as you used
different exercises. This is 'fatigue specificity', Comrade!
The WSB approach to isolation exercises is not that different from Dikul's. Simmons recommends
training a lagging muscle group the day after practicing the primary lift, "...first decide
which muscle group is failing you. Then work that group and only that group on the day after
your regular workout. For example, if your delts are lagging, do delt raises only, not pressing.
Pressing of any kind requires other muscle groups, such as the triceps and pecs, to be worked, and
these may be receiving too much work already."
"This will not overtrain you," promises the Westside mastermind. "Rather it will bring up the
weak link in line with your other muscle groups." Louie adds that these workouts will also aid in
restoration and building work capacity. "One can mix and match two or three special exercises in
a short, intense workout lasting no more than 30min." In the WSB template, that adds up to two
such workouts a week for the upper body and two for the lower body. But you don't have to train
Westside to take advantage of this approach.