Don’t take my word for it- just listen to Pyrros Dimas

If you read this blog or any weightlifting blog or new site, you probably know who Pyrros Dimas is. He is the most decorated Olympic weightlifter of all time, having won 3 Olympic gold Medals and one bronze.

Recently, it was pointed out to me that there is an excellent docu-series on Pyrros Dimas, that supports a lot of what I write about on weightlifting theory and science.   Pyrros did an amazingly well done interview with the two doctors ( or , the “two bakers” as we affectionately call them at Risto Sports* ) Dave Boffa and Jonas  Westbrook along with Nat Arem of hookgrip.  I actually watched it through posts on ATG.  Ok, honestly, I’m not sure why I haven’t watched it sooner, I was probably too busy translating Russian or improving my French.

The interview is great as it takes you form how he first got into lifting through how he trained in his Olympic Medal winning days.  The team does a great job narrating - the writing is entertaining and keeps you interested.

Anyhow, this interview supports what I have written about on the Soviet , Chinese, Kazak, and Bulgarian systems either in my book, articles, or this blog.  Which, my dear friends of the internet, really should come as no surprise, as my information is based on having trained in all these places or trained with someone who is an expert in a place’s system.  

First, I would like to encourage you to watch both part 1 and part 2 of the series and read the rest of this article. It is very easy to watch, and, of course, who wouldn’t want to hear Pyrros Dimas- the man, the myth, the legend- speak for himself.

Key points Dimas makes in this documentary:

-          Always start in the Soviet system to get a solid base
-          Use the “right system at the right time”
-          Used a “Bulgarian system” at his elite level, the video references Abadjiev
-          Took him  4 years to acclimate to the Bulgarian system
-          He is pretty clear that he did not max out everyday***
o   He max-xed out 3 times a week-- ie planned max out points as part of his program
o   His subsequent training days were based on the max’s hit on prior days

As I wrote in the Kazakhstan Weightlifting System book – just like Pyrros Dimas reports-- the Kazakh team uses the Soviet system, then after a certain age and level of sport mastery, uses a different system.  Usually this is around 18years old and Master of the sport level must be achieved.  The Kazakhstan book contains a program that shows the flavor of that system.  And, on top of that the national team has a system  developed with Enver Turkileri (Enver Turkileri famously worked with 3 time Olympic Champion Naim Suleymonglu in Turkey, with whom Suleymonglu won 3 Olympic gold Medals**). The Kazakhstan coaches actually elaborated on how this system differed from the soviet system when they attended Risto Sports’ seminar in 2013 in Eliot, Maine, USA.   Like the system Dimas described, its fewer reps with more intensity, and again not the same as Abadjiev’s system.  This very much echos what Dimas says about using the right system at the right time.

Also, Dimas’s description of the Abadjiev Bulgarian system aligns with what I have written about. As I mentioned in previous posts, they do not max out everyday. They have planned max out points.  In Pyrros’s case, he describes maxxing out a planned 3 times a week.  Think about it though- your max is the max of that day.  In other words, everytime a lifter maxes out on their planned max day, they might not hit 100% or more, they might hit, say 95% or 99%.   Certainly, one would guess, over some period of time, their personal record would have to increase to stay on the team. 

 Here is a sample graphics to describe what the above might look like. Again, this data is just illustrative and not actual data (ie not every training session or training day is shown).

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
100kg (max for the day)	85kg (max of previous day)	95kg (max of the day)	81kg (85%of previous days max)	102kg (max for the day

 

From the above table, you can get the idea of the rhythm described.

Secondly,  there are Bulgarians who did not use this specific system. Again, I had trained in Bulgaria to prepare for the  2008 US OLYmpic Trials.  The Bulgarians I trained with didn’t use this exact system, they had their own variation which was slightly more soviet; lifters who showed-up to train and were not doing an Abadjiev-style system at that time included: Olympic Champion and Multi-time Olympic medalist Nikolai Peschalov, and world champion Stefan Georgiev. They were being coached by European champion Drazco Stoichkov  (Stoichkov who would have probably won the 1984 Olympics had Bulgaria not boycotted it).

As I have probably alluded to in previous posts,  at Risto Sports,  we do not use the “Bulgarian system”- the specific Abadjiev-style with frequent max outs--because of  the low volume and high intensity is not optimal for clean athletes. Long term, it has super human recovery demands that most clean athletes will not do well on. The whole point of the Soviet system is to use high volume to naturally increase hormone levels.  We had worked closely with Dr Hererra who was part of the Soviet system development in the 70s-80s, and he is incredibly against-doping/ for natural sport because of the ravages he saw on athletes, and he was able to produce clean champion.   Again,  I’m sure there are people who have done the Abadjiev style “Bulgarian system” clean; I am only saying that at least one expert believed that it is less optimal for producing a clean champion than a high volume soviet based system. And, max-xing out multiple times per week is something you certainly would not want to do with novice youth athletes.

 Side bar—on an overall intensity an volume view – Are the Bulgarian System and Soviet System much different?

In the Soviet System booklet published by Risto Sports, there is actual data from the late 1990’s comparing the training of Bulgarian, Russian, and Chinese lifters. 

Two sentence, incomplete summary: work in the highest intensity zones wasn’t as drastically different between Bulgarian and Soviet based systems –  likely because Soviet system goes up in intensity towards the end of the cycle.  The Chinese did the most volume of the 3 and, likewise, won the most gold medals at the World Championships.  I am working on a full soviet system book project, and, hence, you can read more on this in a few months. So, yes, if you want the full picture- including volume and intensity break down by lift  by System and analysis-- then check out the Soviet System book in a few months.

One last summary and recommendations

My recommendation for American lifters—especially anyone who has been training in a strength sport less than 7-10 years (the 10,000 rule)---should be using a soviet style system. And high performance lifters (people who can make a World team)  in the USA may want to vary their program, and a fully "Bulgarian System" is not recommended unless you have incredible Natural recovery methods and resources.
-OR-
What Pyrros said--> get a "base" in the Soviet System, use the "right system at the right time"

 Footnotes:

*I say this with admiration and affection -based on the two doctors having visited Risto Sports for a work out and used so much chalk it looked like a bakery . It was cute=)

** the documentary credits the “Bulgarian system" with Suleymonglu's success. He won all his Olympic  gold medals under Turkish flag. His coach Enver Turkileri was an ethnic Turk form Bulgaria as well.

***Note-Internet folklore says Bulgarians max out every day this is something I have personally tried to dispel and taken undue flack for by faux-expert internet trolls.

**** again, there’s other Bulgarian coaches out there doing different things. Yes, I am going through much pains to articulate this point. For example, there are Bulgarian coaches in Colombia; there are also Cuban coaches there (more Soviet school). The Colombian training is not identical to what Mr Dimas describes.

Other side note-- the documentary uses Russian and Soviet system interchangeably. I am using the term "Soviet System" for simplicity.

Who doesn't love Pyrros Dimas

Some more references:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/4756849/Weightlifting-Pocket-Hercules-feels-the-weight-of-history.html

http://gwenweightlifting.blogspot.com/2013/03/part-2-kazakhstan-superstars-of.html

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/five-more-gold-medals-for-turkey.aspx?pageID=438&n=five-more-gold-medals-for-turkey-2005-04-25

Kazakhstan Weightlifting- Part 4 training and food

 When I think of the food in Kazakhstan, i think "no wonder why these athletes are so strong".  (Reference www.ristosports.com )

If you eat with a Kazakh family or even at a Kazakh restaurant, you can find a diet high in protein. There is usually an appetizer of some sort of meat like chicken or horse meat cold cuts, and a final course centered around another meat like horse meat.  I , personally , don't eat horse meat; so, in Kazakhstan, I wound up eating a lot of easier lamb or beef , which are much easier to find than chicken.  

In my personal opinion, I really enjoyed the Kazakh food the most (that excluded horse meat) It's weightlifter food - grilled meat. Home cooked Kazakh food was also very good, including the desserts and salads.

I did also try Uuygur food. It was delicate stir fries in thick sauces . This was also extremely good. I did like the Russian food, slightly less than the Kaakh food.

Uuygur dishes- beef on noodles, beef empanada like dish, greek salad (no lettuce, ie real Greek salad) . They only had 2 chicken dishes and probably 15 beef or lamb dishes. In America, we'd probably see this as a goid thing.

Russian chicken dish with cheese sauce, only place that had pork on the menu

The Kazakhs meat diet is a reflection of the fact that most Kazakhs are Muslims. Horse meat is considered a "clean" meat because horses graze in pastures and drink clean water. On the other hand, pork is not eaten as pigs are considered dirty animals; for example, they do not eat as clean as horses and are known to roll in their own feces.  Pork, consequently, is very hard to find in Kazakhstan. You can find it in Russian restaurants , whereas most of the Russian population are Russian Orthodox Christians. I, again, stress that there is great sense of religious tolerance in Kazakhstan, just don't expect to order bacon at a Kazakh restaurant.

The ethnic Kazakhs also drink copious amounts of unpasteurized animal milks.  If you go a little bit off the grid, you can find Kumis, horse milk, and camel milk in flea market like bazaars. These milks taste salty with a bit of a fermented taste. The consistency is more like whey than creamy cow milk.These milks vary greatly from bottle to bottle. It indicates that these animals have a more natural diet as the consistency between flavor is all over the place ( eg maybe some of the lactating mares ate more grass than hay, etc).

Bottled Kumis

It is important to note that the Kazakhs love and respect horses so much that they eat them, which is pretty much the opposite reaction that an American horse lover would have.  I get the impression that it is similar to the relationship between Native Americans and buffalo.

The food is very natural. I don't think they have genetically modified Monsanto wheat, thank God. I found I could eat wheat and dairy products with far less negative effects than in the USA. This was a good thing as mist of their carbs came from wheat or potato products. It was difficult to find rice, corn, or other gluten free complex carb sources. 

What is also interesting is the lack of coffee. An average restaurant will not have coffee. The population relies on tea--- and its not fancy bubble tea or diffused loose leaf tea, most of the tea is simply bagged tea, like you'd see in the UK or America.  The tea was average strength, not like something you'd drink in Taiwan or China. The best tea I had was at the Peking palace, a Chinese 5 star luxury restaurant. 

You can find coffee though. There are western style cafes in the city. Most of them can be found in the large malls , which are something of an architectural achievement, specifically, the Khan Shatyr ( pictured)

 Some of the Russian restaurants will have Expresso drinks.

If you consider powdered coffee to be coffee , you can find powdered coffee in supermarkets and some non-Russian restaurants will serve powdered cafe.

When I think of Kazakhstan training, the first thing that comes to mind-- 

I have never seen such a variety of assistance exercises used at the beginner level.  More than any other system I studied, I saw youth and junior athletes doing deficit cleans, snatch grip deadlifts, bench press, back extensions, and modified pulls.  Again, I stress that these were beginners and not elite Olympic level athletes. There  is a focus on getting athletes strong , building their fundamental strength , in preparation to take heavy Olympic lifting training at the upper levels. Check out my youtube channel , to the right , for videos.

Much like the USA of 5 years ago, there is zero influence of Crossfit in the Kazakh weightlifting community.  None of the lifters have even heard of it(sure, except for , maybe, the one athlete who has been giving seminar tours in the USA ).  The sport grows in Kazakhstan because participating in sports is considered a fundamental right of the public, hence all training centers are free and staffed by paid coaches, paid by the government. 

This is almost the complete opposite of the U.S. System , where athletes promote themselves for practically unpaid sponsorships. In Kazakhstan, Weightlifting makes no money for the federation, unlike sports such as boxing. In effect, the federation has to pay out a lot of money on the sport. For example, the youth nationals LG competed at was normally a 5 day event; it was squeezed to 3 days, in part, due to venue costs. Good thing the Kazakh weightlifting team is widely successful on the international stage.

Yes, buy the F%&king shoes already

I get this question a lot. I've posted about it several times, including on the www.ristosports.com blog. So,  I'm going to present this in a completely different way to help my colleagues in weightlifting, crossfit, bodybuilding, strongman, anyone who squats... to understand why weightlifting shoes are the first thing you should buy when you start lifting.

About once a month I get this question:
" Do I really need weightlifting shoes?" 
"Should I buy nano's , first, then some lifting shoes if I decide I really like crossfit"

What I want to reply:
"Really? Really? Didn't you just spend $200 on an outfit from Lululemon, and you can't pony-up $130 -$200 for a pair of shoes that will fit your feet long after your quads outgrow those $200 yoga pants."

So, let's get our priorities straight.

Weightlifting is a cheap sport, therefore buy the damn weightlifting shoes

Your sport is super cheap. How much gear do you need to lift weights. Hmmm.... weight lifting shoes, a belt, wrist wraps, knee wraps, pulling straps, and a singlet.- maybe compression pants .  What is that like a whopping $300-$400, and most of that equipment will last over a year. A whopping $150 amortized cost. And, if you are a crossfitter, you probably already have a pair of sneakers and some work out clothes, so you can hold off on buying a $60 sports bra and $120 nanos.

Weightlifting shoes /gear is affordable, especially compared to other sports. At least, from Risto Sports .

The Chart indicates basic personal gear needed to participate in a sport at a sporting facility

Look, to compete in horseback riding, you may need over $5000 of basic equipment - boots, jacket, shirt, gloves, crop, breeches, helmet, saddle, bridle, show pads.   Hockey will cost you a couple grand in skates , pads, etc.  A set of decent skis, poles, boots (imagine the pro-level gear).  In weightlifting, you can buy all new ,professional grade gear for under $500 or less than 1/10th the cost of competing in riding in ok gear.

Weightlifting is safe when you do the right thing, so buy the weightlifting shoes already.

You need weightlifting shoes to protect your joints.  Weightlifting shoes provide a stable base and minimize lateral motion. Lateral motion on the joints wears your joints down faster. For example, when you lift in nanos or barefoot, your ankles will roll much more than in weight lifting shoes. This will cause your knees to wobble as well; even slight wobbling will put undue stress on your knees. 

Finally, your spine is under great compression when squatting, and great torque when snatching or clean and jerking.  Most sneakers are designed to be cushy an unstable , for ergonomic reasons, which is good if you are standing all day long or walking around all day like a nurse.  For lifting, this is exactly the opposite of what you want.  You need a shoe that will allow you to position and control the weight in relation to your center of gravity -- good luck doing that with foam , EVA, and other soft soles.

Here's a video from Kazakhstan, I just took, showing girls lifting in sneakers and girls lifting in weightlifting shoes.  The girls lifting in sneakers do so because they cannot afford weightlifting shoes.  Their decision to wear sneakers is not one based on whether they buy the latest outfit form Lulu. 

Even incredible athletes and highly flexible people need weightlifting shoes.

Yeah, yeah, you probably saw a photo of Akakhi Khakiasvillis (3 time Olympic Champion) training in sandals before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics (Ironmind photo?).  Do you really think he lifted in sandals, everyday?  And what percentage was he lifting up to in that photo anyhow?  If you look at his training videos, they are in proper shoes.  And, He still holds world record at a 188kg snatch-- that he snatched in wood heel weightlifting shoes.

A good, recent example is Dmitry Klokov. He posts many photos showing feats of strength; for example, lifting on the beach in sandals, etc.   Again, look at the percentages of his best that he is lifting.  He recently snatched 200kg in the warm-up room at the 2014 world championships in weightlifting shoes (my coach, Ivan Rojas, witnessed it first hand. Afterall,  Risto Sports hosted Klokov's brand Team Winner at our booth at Worlds)

In summary, yeah, it looks cool to show off lifting in abysmal shoes like nanos -- AND, when it comes time for the real performance-- the record breaking , the lifting your max-- weightlifting shoes are required.

Just to illustrate, here's an example of me squatting in weightlifting shoes vs nanos.

In shoes, I am able to keep my back flat. I also maintain a straight line from the tip of the bar over my shoulders, hips, and mid foot.   This means that I am effectively keeping the bar in the optimal position for power output.  I am getting the most out of my muscle groups in my legs, while minimizing stress on the back.  In sneakers, I am much more forward. The bar is over my toes, and in the mid squat position, I am way more pitched forward. I'm losing engagement of my hamstrings and glutes; the use of those muscles in suboptimized. Further, way more stress is on myback and abs for no reason.  The bar is further form my center of gravity making it heavier to lift.

By the way, I am super flexible and mobile.  I can lift in sneakers, flip flops, barefoot, high heels-- you name it.  I choose not to , because I consider doing so useless showing off.  I consider it putting my body in danger, for no reason, and killing my GAINZ for no reason.
   

Reviews in shoes:

Risto weightlifting shoes , www.ristosports.com , were ranked #1 by breaking muscle and were the only weightlifting shoes that Muscle and Fitness even featured in their April magazinr. All these reviews are independent. Be weary of sites that review shoes and have links to sell you shoes at the same time.

You an buy the only ethically made in the Americas lifting shoe at www.ristosports.com .

breakingmuscle.com


 

Live from Kazakhstan Part 2

IWow, where do I start . There is so much to learn.  I'm so happy and grateful my contingent from Risto Sports is a guest of the federation and training in Kazakhstan. 

I only wish my elbows were ready to take a real training load. Though, perhaps, because of my injury, I am able to focus more on learning from the training of others than myself while on this trip.  So, yeah , I'm happy ; the universe is taking care of me.

The goods :

We are posting tons of videos live from Kazakhstan on Instagram , YouTube , Facebook on the following accounts :

@ristosports ( same for all 3 sites)

@ristoweightlifting

@gwensisto ( same handle for all 3sites)

@lgoffficial 

 Learning from the Kazakhstan Youth Nationals 

My Risto Sports teammate and daughter, Gwendolyn Rojas , had the honor of competing as a special guest lifter at the Kazakhstan Youth Nationals.

Unlike in the USA, the Kaz youth nationals go by IWF age groups, which means there is only one age division - under 17. The weight classes are also all by the IWF youth classes.  This is actually how USAW was organized when I was a youth - there was 1 17&under division- whereas , today , there are 13&under,14-15 and 16-17 age groups at the uSAW youth nationals .

There were 220 lifters with entries finalized at the technical meeting . It is normally a 5 day event with 2 sessions each day. Because of the venue availability and pricing , the competition was condensed to 3 days - Sat-Monday.

Lg lifted day 1 in the 48kg category. She weighed in very light 46.6kgs .  She was the youngest and lightest in her class. The oldest competitor would be 16 this year.  For Kazakh standards , LG is very competitive . Here she is getting a special award for her competition exhibition;

 Below are the declared staring attempts for the combined 44kg and 48kg session which shows LG , the 2014 US youth champion , in a very competitive position at these nationals .

The attempt board was simple penciled in attempts that were then traced over in market to denote successful or unsuccessful lift.

The percentage of made lifts are very high, probably around 80+% . The level of technique was very good . Even lifters who could not afford good weightlifting shoes managed to have good technique. The youngest lifter was probably 8 yr old Anya of Karragunda- even her technique was great and better than 90% of the lifters at the last U.S. Youth nationals. Here's 8 yr old Anya who requested this selfie with me in the training hall ( the only English word every kid knew was "selfie" )

The class was won with 110kg.  See LGs lifting on our Instagram page.  

Every class was drug tested with the top 3 and a random selected from each class to be tested.

Many of us westerners would expect that the competition would be stacked with Chinshanlos and  Ilya Ilyin s. That was not the case. In reality, all the winning lifters are at a level similar to the USA youth nationals winning results( yes with some classes much more competitive in the US, some more competitive in Kazakhstan  ), except that their technique is much better than at US nationals. It seems the vision is more long term and that top youth lifters in Kazakhstan have a better transition to the Jr and senior levels. There is much more emphasis on getting to the senior national team, whereas some of our youth lifters just want to make a youth world team and quit. The trajectory is totally different .