Re: Russian Bench Pressing

[Guest guest]

Im adding some comments here, not of pro or against nature, but

specting to see list members comments...

> <In the most gyms you can see some regularly and hard training

people with

> long time experience of training, but without a visible result. The

reason

> why is that they want to get the muscle mass of champions, but work

out with

> weights that my 90 years old grandmother can afford. Such

champions as

> Dorian Yates, Lee Haney, and Nasser El Sonbaty have results in the

bench

> press in the range of 220 kg. They know the major secret of

training: the

> stronger the muscle, that bigger the mass of that muscle.

QUESTIONS:

So how different should be the training of a powerlifter from that of

a bodybuilder ? During off season for both athletes, should this

training be any different at all ?

Does the building of muscle mass help a powerliting getting stronger

or are big muscles just a consequence of training to get strong ?

>I do bench press on Monday, on Wednesday †" military press; and

> on Friday †" French Press. Due to that I can spend all my energy

on each for

> 100%. There is no sense to train each muscle group more often than

once a

> week, otherwise, during working out in power regime you can involve

yourself

> in overtraining and get injured.

COMMENT: Im surprised to see a Russian " Strength " athlete, as

opposed to a bodybuilder which trains to build muscle mass using many

exercises for each muscle group, doing a competitive lift just once a

week. Guess most of us here were specting to see workouts in that 3x3

model or at even greater frequencies as 3 to 4 times a week per lift.

The training he does, in some way resembles that popularized in the

90's by bodybuilders like Mentzer, Yates and many others.

Denilson Costa

rio de Janeiro, Brasil

[Guest guest]

Denilson Costa wrote:

Original article by Sergey Popov (as posted by Mel Siff) said:

" I do bench press on Monday, on Wednesday military press; and on Friday

french press. Due to that I can spend all my energy on each for 100%. There

is no sense to train each muscle group more often than

once a week, otherwise, during working out in power regime you can involve

yourself in overtraining and get injured. "

Denilson commented,

>Im surprised to see a Russian " Strength " athlete, as

>opposed to a bodybuilder which trains to build muscle mass using many

>exercises for each muscle group, doing a competitive lift just once a

>week. Guess most of us here were specting to see workouts in that 3x3

>model or at even greater frequencies as 3 to 4 times a week per lift.

I read that in a much different way than you did.

First, he is not talking about 100% intensiveness, but merely using 100% to

mean 'focus completely on'.

Second, he spends one day a week doing bench presses, but spends two days a

week doing exclusive bench press assistance. The military press works

very similiarly to the bench press and would focus on starting power in

the bench. The French Press focuses more on triceps, which of course

finishes the bench press group. So really he works his bench three times per

week.

And it is a sparse training program - three exercises for the bench. Pretty

typical of the Russian approach.

Second, I think he is a little confused about adaptation and overtraining.

For example he is strongly stressing the triceps three times per week, then

says you should only train a muscle group once per week. Personally I think

Popov has found a routine that works for him, but his understanding of why

it works is poor.

Hobman

Saskatoon, Canada