The Bulgarian Weighlifting System Part 2

     Previously I gave an introduction to the Bulgarian training system. You can find that article here. Today we’re going to go over how to actually design a program based on the Bulgarian methods.

Georgi Gardev

     The first thing you need to know is that this program is very specific. If you want your training to be well rounded and include some hypertrophy training, some endurance training and some strength training, then this is not the program for you. This program is for one thing: maximal strength on a few core lifts. You might be able to throw in some supplementary exercises, but not many.

     Next, you should know that this routine can be very time consuming. This isn’t some HIT program where you just walk in to the gym, warm up, do one balls-to-the-wall set and leave. Depending on your goal, you may be able to organize your workouts in a way that you can be in and out of the gym in an hour. But when I used this program, most of my workouts were 2.5-3.5 hours.
 
     Now, on to the meat of the program. When I first read about this program, sites on the internet were saying that the Bulgarians “work up to a heavy single every workout”.  I (wrongly) interpreted that to mean 1 heavy single. Thus I would try to set a PR (personal record) every time I was in the gym. I tried to work up to my top weight by doing the fewest number of sets possible. So if my PR was 100kg, I knew that today I would attempt 102.5kg. I would work up like this:

        50x3, 70x2-3, 80x1, 87.5x1, 92.5x1, 97.5x1, 102.5x1.

   

     I made good progress with this program. But then the gains ceased. I was stubborn and for years refused to try anything different. I barely made any progress during those years. Eventually I went on a 5x5 type program. I learned a lot on 5x5 and those lessons helped me improve my “Bulgarian” training.

     The most important lesson I learned was that intensity (whether you define that as a percentage of your 1RM max or perceived exertion.) is not the end all be all of training. Volume is a powerful aspect of training. Volume is at least as important as intensity. Most of the time, your training should be a balance between volume and intensity. 10 sets x 1 rep @ 90% is better than 1 set @ 100%. I mean honestly, just look at it. Assuming a max of 100kg, 10x1@90% means that you lifted 90kg ten times. That’s a total tonnage of 900kg. The other method gives you a tonnage of 100kg. So, who do you think is going to make more progress, the guy who lifts 900kg or the guy who lifts 100kg?
   
     There is nothing wrong with using 1 max set. If you are new to this type of training, then feel free to give it a try. You’ll make good progress…for a while. When progress stalls, consider increasing your volume.
 

Milen Dobrev

     One way to increase the volume is do more sets during your warm up. I would get to 90% in as few sets as possible. Weight increases for sets above 90% would be small, 1-2.5kg. Assuming a 100kg max, I might try something like:

        50x3, 70x2-3, 80x1, 85x1, 90x1, 92.5x1, 95x1, 97.5x1, 100x1, 102.5x1.
 
     If I you set a new PR, then adjust your weights in your next session.

 

     Another way of adding volume is to wave load. Basically you work up to a max multiple times in a single session. You can do it in such a way that the top set in each wave is heavier that the top set in the previous wave. So after a warm up wave 1 might be:

        90x1, 95x1, 100x1

        Wave 2:
        92.5x1, 97.5x1, 102.5

     Or you could try to set a new PR on your first wave, with each subsequent wave being lighter.

        Wave 1:
        92.5x1, 97.5x1, 102.5

        Wave 2:
        90x1, 95x1, 100x1

     You could also just work up to a new PR, and then drop to 90% of your new PR and do 3-5 singles. Or after hitting your top weight for the day, you could decrease the weight and try to set a new 3RM. Or you could completely forgo trying to hit a max and instead try to do a lot of sets at 90%. Completing a predetermined number of sets within a predetermined time frame would be a signal to increase your weight in the next session, similar to Charles Staley's Escalating Density Training (by using this affiliate link, you help support this site.) The main theme here is to increase your volume with weights above 90% of your 1 rep maximum,

     If you're looking to increase just max strength, a heavy single program such as this is definitely worth trying. You'll probably set several new PR's. Give it a try and let me know how it works.

     Till next time, gents.

Petty Machiavellianism for the Modern World

     Psychologists are full of crap. Not completely full of crap, but largely full of crap. I think that the problem originates with the fact that most psychologists are leftists. And to be a leftist you must necessarily ignore the existence  of reality. This group then seeks to influence the lives of others. Also, leftism is a utopian ideology. That is, it is concerned not with what is, but what should be.

      These foundational problems lead the field of psychology to get behind some really stupid ideas. One stupid idea posited by the field is that passive aggressiveness is bad. They even have a diagnosis for people who frequently engage in passive aggressive behavior...as if it is a disease. The entry on Wikipedia states that passive aggressive behavior "is damaging". Really? It "is damaging"? As if that is a fundamental characteristic of passive aggressiveness. So if it is not damaging, is it not passive aggressive?

     Really, passive aggressiveness isn't good or bad. Its just a strategy, a way of handling things. I don't know where psychologists get the idea that things are always best handled in a direct manner. Frequently in life, dealing with things in an indirect manner is preferable to more direct means. In fact, when in doubt, use indirect methods. It is true when dealing with loved ones, for whom you have the best of intentions. It is even more true when dealing with your enemies.

     For the last 15 or so years, my wife has worked with a particularly horrible woman. When everyone else has to take on extra work, she is always able to get out of it. When the employees were given the more flexible shift options, this woman tried (and almost succeeded) in having the option taken away from everyone, because she didn't want to participate. She constantly makes life harder for others. For some reason, despite several changes in management, no one was willing to do anything about this problematic employee.

     But this woman has a weakness. She is obsessive compulsive and she hates change. Everything on her desk has a place and she can't stand to have people touch her stuff. Instead of waiting 15 years, hoping that management would some day do something about this woman, my wife & her coworkers could have taken matters into their own hands. Using passive aggressive methods they could have driven this woman into quitting.

     Since she is so particular about her work space, the other employees should have moved her stuff every time she left her desk. I'm not saying they should trash everything. That would have been too overt. But little things like moving a pen to the middle of her desk, slightly askew, would have bothered her. Or moving her horse figurine to the other side of the desk, moving her lunch to a different spot in the fridge, or turn her keyboard face down. These are childish things that wouldn't bother most adults, but they would have driven this woman crazy.  If she ever asked who was doing it, the whole office could then gaslight her by saying "No one went near your desk." After about a week of this type of behavior, this woman would have started looking for another job.

     Of course this does rise to the level of Cesare Borgia. But we live in crazy times and going around annexing neighboring cities isn't held in as high esteem as it once was. The fact is that this is the type of thing most people face in their daily lives. It may seem petty, but it is perfectly reasonable to handle a situation when management is unwilling. The methods above would have been effective in this instance and would have been deniable by the participants. That makes them doubly good. Another person in my wife's office who was willing to play petty office politics was able to screw my wife out of a major promotion and about a $20,000.00 per year pay raise. This person didn't gain anything by do so. Like the say, you either play or you get played. Who cares if someone thinks that being passive aggressive is bad. I'm sure Machiavelli would have approved.

Dose of Testosterone Part 5: Martial Arts

     

Impressive flexibility.

Remember kids, keep your hands up.

That was cool.

Aright gents, that's it for this post. Til next time.

Pre Debate Analysis

     Next Thursday, January 14, 2016 Fox Business will host a debate of the GOP Presidential Candidates. As of this writing, Fox Business has yet to announce the candidates who will be on the main stage. It doesn't really matter. Most of the candidates never really had a chance anyway.

     Let me first start by saying that nothing in this article is an endorsemet of either party, any political affiliation, political belief, or any candidate. I don't have a political science degree, or anyother degree for that matter. Also this post is largely inspired by Scott Adams's (the guy who writes Dilbert) writings on this election cycle on his blog (http://blog.dilbert.com/).  He has mostly focused on Trump's superior pursuasion tactics. Robert Greene's now defunct blog (http://powerseductionandwar.com/), has also been very influential.

The Non-Contenders

     First I want to discus the field of non-contenders. Guys like Gilmore, Huckabee, Walker, Jindal, Graham. On the DNC side, Webb, Chafee & O'Malley. Every Presidential election, non-contenders throw their hat in the ring. And I don't mean obscure nobodies complaining about rent being too high. I mean political insiders who should be aware of their non-contender status. If you are like me you probably dismissed them as vain and detached from reality. But now I wonder if that is really why they run. Just humor me.

He had to know that he never had a chance.

     Currently we live in a 24/7 news cycle. The nesw media has over a year's worth of programming that needs to be filled. And the time that the stations will dedicate to the election is largely inelastic. No matter what happens, election coverage is #1. Floods in Texas, "How will this effect Rubio's stance on global warming?" Terrorist Shootings, "What is Hillary's plan for gun control?" In this environment, a candidates biggest enemy is time. More time means increased chances for something to go wrong.

     So could the entrance of these non-contenders into a race that they can't hope to win have an alternate strategy? I wonder if maybe the non-contenders are there to act as blockers for the real contenders until just before or after the early primaries. To spread the election coverage across as many candidates as possible. Under this theory, Jindal and Graham never were suppose to win the primary, they were there to abosrb bad press. Every minute the media spent talking about Graham, meant they weren't giving negative press to the Party's real contenders. Maybe the non-contenders were aware of the role they were to play, maybe not. From a strategic perspective, I'm not sure it matters. What matters is that every time the press makes fun of O'Malley for trying to rap, means they aren't hanging a stone around Hillary's neck by talking about Benghazi.

The Trump Problem

     The GOP insiders may or may not have problem with Trump. I suspect that they do. I think they see him as a threat to business as usual. But Trump is his own nuclear deterrent. He doesn't need the GOP. If they piss him off he can run third party, split the GOP vote and thereby hand the election to the Democrats. Internet writers tend to think that candidates are affraid of crossing Trump because he will crush their campaign. I don't think so. Some of the candidates at the bottom of the polls would most likely be willing to jump on that grenade for the good of the party if it would guarantee success for the establishment. But with the aforementioned nuclear deterrent, such actions would only make matters worse.

Say what you will, this man knows how to fight.

     David Horowitz has said "Politics is war with different weapons." The GOP doesn't get this. They are the stupid party. The first thing that I think the GOP candidates should do is stay in the race. Second they should steal Trump's stategies, henceforth referred to as weapons. Third the weapons should be employed in any and every way except against direct attacks on Trump. The goal is not to directly take down Trump which would result in him claiming that he wasn't treated fairly and use the treatment as justification for running third party. Instead the goal is to increase each candidates' appeal to the voters. They should try to out-do Trump at his own game. Those at the bottom should say things that are at least as outlandish as things Trump has said. Those outlandish comments would then get coverage that would have otherwise went to Trump. The goal is to drown Trump out.

Undecended Testicles

     As for the serious contenders (Rubio and Cruz) and could have beens (Bush and Paul), they have made a major miscalculation. I wonder if this is due to influence from political consultants. Or if they are really detached from the body politic and too blue blooded. Or because of a lack of real understanding of the American psyche. They are all too good, too perfect. Americans don't like this. Least of all conservatives in fly-over country. G.W. Bush, B. Clinton, G.H.W. Bush, R. Reagan and J. Carter all had an unpolished "man of the people" image. All had hick accents. And they didn't try to be too clean or too polished.

See that rounding in his upper back? It's because he doesn't have spine.

     Not only do these candidates try to be too perfect, they also lack what Trump has in spades...thumos...spiritedness. They could get by with their other failures if they had fire in their belly. Not raging like a madman. But a determined and focused intensity. With that they could inspire more confidence from voters. Paul and Bush are particularly bad about this. Paul needs to turn up the passion and spend less time making long drawn out arguments and more time working developing
short emotionally charged statements. He should attempt to stir up voters' emotions first and then give them arguments to rationalize their emotions. But stirring up emotions is the more important part of the equation.

I'm not sure there is any hope for Bush.

The President Who Could Have Been

     When I look at his politics, Rand Paul, could be winning this election easily. His stance on the issues should give him appeal to grass roots concervatives in the primaries and he could even have significant appeal to Democratic voters in November. But as the old song goes, "it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it." His political beliefs could appeal to a broad range of Americans...if he had framed them the right way. But he didn't and left the door open for his opponents to frame them for him. He framed military cuts as "real financial concervatism". The problem is that to the hard right, no number is too high for military spending. This argument should have been framed more like this:

      "Our men and women in uniform deserve better than the rampant misuse of funds that has been the norm in this monsterous buearacy known as the Department of Defence. The DOD hasn't passed one audit as mandated by law in the last 20 years. Every dollar that is misused or mispent is a dollar that can't be used to develop new technologies, upgrade old equipment, provide additional training or fund VA hospitals."

So close, yet so far, Senator.

     This way he frames himself in favor of the troops and against waste. This would make it hard for them to paint him as against the troops or soft on defense.

     He has also brought out his anti-interventionist leanings too early. Saying that he wouldn't have toppled the regimes that Hillary and Obama had. He needs to back off. Its too early for him to try to fight Hillary. He needs to defeat the other Republicans before he starts worrying about Hillary. And even if he did manange to damage Hillary's reputation who's going to remember it come November? He needs to focus on differetiating himself from the rest of the GOP. He can do that by being more consice in how he would handle ISIS compared to how other candidates have been. When other candidates blather on with vague notions of "desimating ISIS", "destroying ISIS" or "carpet bombing ISIS", Paul could be a little more precise. He could try to frame it like this:

        "I see the war with ISIS as an just a small isolated part of the broader War on Terror. The war on terror isn't a conventional war. It isn't like going to war with another Nation. We should not treat this like WWII, The Gulf War or the wars after 9/11. It is a long protracted, unconventional war against small groups spread all over the globe, that may not even have connections to one another. As such I am very concerned about candidtates who fall back on conventional tactics just so they can appear   to be strong on defense. This war, in my estimation, is best fought by using the men from our Special Operations and Intelligence Communities. We can't afford to get into long, protracted and expensive conventional wars. We should get in, get the job done, get out and start preparing for the next engagemet. No occupying territory. No nation building. No prolonged boots on the ground. Get in. Get the job done. Get out."

     I also think that Paul thinks that by setting himself up as a non-interventionist as opposed to Hillary's hawkishness he will gain votes from the anti-war left. Which I agree, he will. But by the same logic wouldn't he risk loosing some votes from hawkish Republicans who are soft on other issues. I'm not sure that this play of his will be a net gain, even if makes it past the primary.

Well that's it for this post. I may have an analysis of the debate if there is anything worth analyzing.

See ya next time.

Dose of Testosterone Part 4: Hot Rods

There are some things that men just love. Hot Rods and classic cars are two of those things. I've never met a man who didn't like them. This seems to baffle my wife. And she's not alone. Hot rods are just one of those things that lots of women just don't get. 

I don't know if it is the craftsmanship, the beauty or maybe nostalgia, but something about these beautiful machines from the days of yore, just resonates with me. 

Maybe its not a hot rod, but it does look nice.

This is awesome. Probably completely uncomfortable...but still...awesome.

I know I'm old, because I look at this beautiful machine and think, "I'm not climbing in anything that is that low to the ground."

 

If I had a daughter, I would totally buy this for her.

That's it for this installment. Catch you guys back here next time.