Russian Bodybuilding Articles

[Guest guest]

Dr Siff wrote:

<Note that the last book -SUPERTRAINING - is attributed to Mentzer.

Now, unless Mike Mentzer also wrote a book called " Supertraining " , it looks like

there may have been some

major imitation or borrowing of ideas from my book by " Vadim-Pro " - or at least

some gross re-appropriation of the name

of my book and site.>

Dear Dr Siff,

Mike Mentzer's book " Heavy Duty II: Mind & Body " was translated into

Russian and for some reason it is called " Supertraining " in Russian.

I think the publishing house wanted to attract more attention by

using a more " loud " word. Your fear that someone used the name of

your book is ungrounded as nowdays in Russia your book is virtually

unknown while " Supertraining " by Mike Mentzer is at the peak of its

popularity now.

[The name " Supertraining " as our book name was copyrighted way back in

1993 in the field of sport and fitness. Mel Siff]

By the way, Mc's book " Brawn " was translated into Russian and

they called it " Think! " .

You can't get good scientific books on the subject of weightlifing

now in Russia, even our Russian authors (e.g. Verkhoshansky) are hard

to get, let alone foreign authors.

Sincerely,

Hugin

Russia

NAME PLEASE!

[Guest guest]

risch ...... <ironmine@...> wrote:

<<Dear Supertraining members,

If there are any of you who can read and understand Russian, please check

these sites out:

<http://www.ironmine.narod.ru/articles/vadim-pro/dumai1.htm>

<http://www.ironmine.narod.ru/articles/vadim-pro/dumai2.htm>

I would like to know what you think of these articles.>>

*** Using some of my rather inadequate software and a few hours of guided

guesswork, I have produced a crude translation of the 30 pages or so of these

two articles and placed them under the Files section of Supertraining, under

the headings " Russian Bodybuilding1 " and " Russian Bodybuilding2 " . To download

these files, go to:

Supertraining/files

Remember that an acceptable translation can take several days and my version

is there simply to allow you to obtain some overview of what is being written

in Russia about Mike Mentzer's alleged training ideas (which, as one of his

colleagues who trained with him said on another listserv that Mike did not

even follow when he was at his peak!). Interestingly, the author of the

articles stressed that Mentzer did not rely on physiology to deduce his

methods, but rather relied on " philosophy and logic " . What was not pointed

out was that Mentzer did not rely on " philosophy and logic " , but almost

entirely on the supposed objectivism of only one style of " philosophy and

logic " as expounded by Ayn Rand (in texts such as " Atlas Shrugged " ), who very

rapidly, viciously and illogically shed all of her " objectivism " when her

lover followed her advice and chose to obectively become involved with yet

another lover!

Anyway, here is some of the Introduction to the Russian articles - for the

remainder, which is mainly a lengthy review of very familiar muscle

physiology and biomechanics that does not really validate Mentzer's reputed

methods to any degree of acceptability, go to our Files section. Curiously,

those articles did not even begin by summarising clearly exactly which of

Mentzer's ideas were being supported.

------------------------

THINK! OR " SUPERTRAINING " WITHOUT ERRORS

Vadim Protasenko

--------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTION

Reflecting above the name of a future article, I did not casually stop my

choice on that version that is written above - the reader will easily learn

it in the titles of two of, arguably, the most popular books about

bodybuilding, namely " Think! Bodybuilding without Steroids " by Stuart

Mc and " Supertraining " by Mentzer, who have stirred up the world of

amateur sports and apparently have overturned established concepts about

the theory of training.

It would be more precise to say that Mentzer for the first time has tried to

create a real theory, since before he came along, the majority of

well-accepted books and articles about bodybuilding were just collections of

every possible and frequently controversial principles of training sessions,

or catalogues of known exercises with weights.

Mentzer has called on us to consider bodybuilding as a science, but, for

some reason, has chosen as a basis not physiology, but philosophy and logic.

As back in history Euclid has created geometry, leaning on a number of

axioms about the properties of space, so Mentzer has created " Supertraining "

by leaning on an axiom about the role of the last recurrences in the

mechanism of starting growth of muscles, but not having worked to offer any

physiological explanation to his hypothesis. But, as we know, besides the

geometry of Euclid also exists the geometry of Lobachevskogo and

Minkovskogo, based on other axioms, but not quite as controversial and

logical. Inspired by the style and unshakeable confidence of the author of

" Supertraining " of its correctness, I became a great supporter of the ideas

of Mentzer after having increased 10 kg of " natural " muscles in a year by

using his advice.

Having decided to find physiological verification of the axioms of my

" teacher " , I have plunged headlong into an area of knowledge new to

physiology and biochemistry of the person. The result appeared for me

unexpectedly, but more about it later. I shall first pay attention readers

to that monstrous position involving the current theory of the iron sports.

All sports magazines are full of articles with new ultrafashionable systems

of training. " Movement should be powerful and explosive " , states one. " Only

slow under inspection movement " , say others, contradicting them. " You Want

to increase weight - work with big weights " . " Light weights have no value -

the main thing is engineering and sensation of work of a muscle " . " Train

six times a week in the morning " , while Arnold Schwartzenegger advises in

the evening. It is forbidden to appear in the training hall more often than

twice a week to disciples of Mike Mentzer. The pro paints with complexes

from six exercises for a biceps. Mc calls to not train at all using

any hand isolated exercises. Powerlifting during all cycles almost never

work over a prolonged period.

Mentzer assures us that work not all the way down in spent time. The pro

from team Dzho Vejdera advises us to go much further towards failure with

the help of forced reps and " stripping " . This discussion can be continued

indefinitely, but it amazes one to see an abundance of mutually exclusive

principles of training, and that each of them has its own supporters, who

have all managed to achieve results. This fact has allowed it to be widely

stated that no best system is present. I state, that the system is! And the

patient reader soon itself can make sure of this.

The weak point of any procedure of a training is the absence at the outset of

a clear-cut concept about the causes of muscle growth. Some do not even

think at all about this question, while others are limited to some abstract

ideas about training stress. Believing, what is it a problem only in the

popular sports literature, I hoped to find the answer in serious scientific

research in the field of physiology of muscle activity, but was

disappointed. Precise insights into what occurs in a muscle in response to

maximum loads, present science, anyway, does not hurry to share with the

broad audience of readers. It is connected, in my opinion, first of all with

the subject matter which decrees that the basic research was always directed

to meet the demands of certain " classical " sports whose basis to a great

extent involves training of endurance capacity.

I managed to deduce that most of this research is drawn from structural

variations in the muscles of rats after half an hour of intensive

navigation or running in a wheel. Clearly, on the basis of these data it is

hard to judge the reaction of muscles of the athlete to greater stresses

which muscles can maintain for only a few seconds. Having got rid of any

illusions to find ready answers, I decided independently to analyse all

known facts relating to the processes proceeding in muscles at limiting

loads. The pattern of influence of training developed by me on the muscle

structure of the person seem able to describe practically all known

empirical facts and for the first time has allowed us to find answers to some

questions not answered up to the present time by any reasonable

explanation on the part of sports physiologists.

For example, it was possible for me to identify in general at a molecular

level the mechanism of occurrence of microtraumas of a muscle fibre (sources

of a post-training pain and the general stressful influence on the body) to

specify precise conditions of their occurrence and as to find the causes of

adaptation of muscles to a load and to explain a phenomenon of action of a

post-training pain at regular training sessions.

Familiarity with this information by the reader can in the second part of

article in which actually and the essence of my theory is stated on the

basis of which articles in the third part I have tried to explain why the

" Supertraining " of Mentzer works, using training sessions which are limited

only to one approach in exercise and for what are intended and as work

interval training sessions in what the secret lifters or shtangistkogo a

power/force cycle and than is determined by influence of the majority of

other training procedures.

For the unprepared reader the material appears, most likely, too complex for

understanding, therefore, from the outset, I strongly recommend to study

the first part of this article which presents in accessible form the basic

facts about the structure and principles of muscles functioning which to me

managed to be collected from special-purpose proceedings of Soviet and

Russian scientists. One should notice, that those insights which up to this

point in time were stated in the well-accepted literature (magazines, works

of Hatfield or Tunneman and Hartmann etc), and even in textbooks on

physiology of muscle activity for sports high schools with which I managed to

familiarize, do not offer much.

As a rule, processes of synthesis of fibre by a cell in the given literature

are not considered at all, with the result that many athletes consorting with

experts in area of " chemistry " , argue on receptors of steroid hormone,

" increase of sensitivity " etc., not realizing at all that the effect of

steroid hormones is realized through influence on the genetic apparatus

manufactured in the nucleus of the cell, and that the nucleus is a final

testosterone receptor, cortisol and of some other hormones. They do not

realize this or what to do to increase the quantity of testosterone

receptors it is possible only having increased quantity of cell nuclei.

Yes, the nucleus of muscle cells, as well as muscle cells, are not capable of

division and duplication, but sports physiologists ignore information on the

availability in the muscle fibre of cells -in the satellite cells (the not

generated muscle cells) which retain the capacity to divide during all

human life due to what the increase of quantity of muscle nucleus and

regeneration of muscle fibres is provided at mechanical damage of a cell

material. The fact that this can affect the growth of volume and force of

muscles the reader will learn from part two of this article.

And so, I managed to create a more or less integral theory of training at a

physiological level explaining the influence of training on the muscle

apparatus of the person and allowing us to find answers to the majority of

the questions of interest to the reader.

I expect doubts from skeptics - the person without specialized education who

climbs into the jungle of a new science with typical impudence to proclaim

widely in public their own theories. Well, if scientists do not have a

concern with problems of bodybuilding, then rescue that is necessary by

relying on our own forces. And so, if you are ready, let's proceed ........

----------------------

Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

Supertraining/