Robertson Training Systems Newsletter 4.32
In This Issue
- Testimonials
- Nutrition Tip
- Exclusive Interview: Pavel Tsatsouline
- Upcoming Interviews
- New Articles and Blog Posts
- Schedule
Testimonials: Bulletproof Knees
and Inside-Out
"Hi Mike,
Onica and I like the
Inside-Out and the
Bulletproof
Knees products. We operate an acupuncture clinic and most of our
patients are here because of neuro-muscular dysfunction.
We get some patients with an acute injury, but most tend to have chronic
problems due to posture, repetitive movements, or improper lifting in
the gym.
Using acupuncture alone helps tremendously but won't
cure their posture or stop the faulty movement patterns. This is where
your material comes in. It helps to bridge the gap between
rehabilitative treatment for pain into the corrective exercise realm
that corrects faulty movement and dials in correct motor and postural
control.
Keep up the good work. Most of the sports approach I take to acupuncture
comes from you, Eric C. and the other authors on T-Nation."
Sincerely,
Pete
Nutrition Tip
The
Organic Debate
By John Berardi
The average person should consume two
pieces of fruit and three servings of
vegetables per day as a minimum.
Athletes probably need even more.
Experts often spend too much time
arguing about organic vs. regular fruits
and veggies. I agree that raw, organic
fruits and vegetables are best since
they have a higher micronutrient count,
but any fruits and veggies are
better than none! Get sufficient fruits
and vegetables in your diet before
worrying about whether they're organic
or not. Once you've done that, worry on.
If you like this tip and want to learn more about JB and his products,
check out his
Precision
Nutrition website.
Exclusive Interview: Pavel
Tsatsouline
MR: Pavel, I’ve got to admit –
I’m stoked to have you here!
If you don’t mind, please let
everyone know a little bit about you.
PT: I live in Santa Monica,
California with my wife Julie. I came to the US from the former
Soviet Union in the 1990s. It did not occur to me to put my
education in sports science and military experience to use so I
started an unsuccessful import-export business with friends and
did odd jobs like every immigrant. Eventually a friend suggested
that I start personal training and I hade the sense to listen. I
had a gym in an old bank vault in the basement. Nice, no one
could hear my "victims" scream. I started speaking and met my
publisher John Du Cane of Dragon Door Publications in one of my
seminars.
MR: It’s well known that you’ve
worked with the Russian Special Forces in the past. What was
their training like? What specific physical qualities did you
really have to bring up to give them the best chance of success?
PT: The PT standards Russian spec
ops units hold themselves to are very high. For instance, we had
to do 18 neck to the bar dead hang pull-ups with body armour
which weighed 10kg. And that was nothing to write home about. In
addition to various forms of endurance an operator needs leg
strength, relative and absolute. If he does not, the knees get
destroyed from parachuting and rucking. Squats, barbell, or even
partner, are not appropriate because they build the hip
adductors. Chafing thighs is the last thing you need on a long
march. Which is where "pistols", or one-legged squats, came in
handy. We did them in a variety of rep ranges, with and without
added weight. An operator was expected to be able to do 25 per
leg with his bodyweight only. In addition to building leg
strength and strength endurance, pistols were great flexibility
and joint mobility. Which promoted not only greater resilience
but also the ability to get into much better low shooting
positions, more stable, less tiring, and with a smaller
profile. The weight of the kit demanded back and midsection
strength and endurance. Nothing better than kettlebell swings
and snatches to get that job done.
MR: I have several of your
books, but I really enjoyed Relax into Stretch and Super
Joints. What role do you feel stretching and mobility play into
building a better body? And where are most people missing the
boat in this regard?
PT: Being tight is like driving
with the parking brakes on. Tight hip flexors are epidemic and
they zap your performance, be it deadlifting, jumping, running,
or hitting. People miss the boat when they refuse to understand
that stretching is a skill. Regardless of the method chosen, one
must internalize the flexibility practice rather than mindlessly
pull and tug. Patience. If you have it, you can get
exceptionally flexible. I am attaching a photo of Mark Bartley,
RKC who holds the powerlifting world total record in the 275
pound class in a straddle stretch. He has achieved his
flexibility following the Relax into Stretch protocol and
if a guy this big and strong can do it, no reader of yours may
claim the excuse of being "too big".
MR: Another quality text is
your “Bulletproof Abs” book – what are most trainees doing wrong
with regards to their core training?
PT: This is very simple. Train your
midsection heavy for strength. No more high rep nonsense;
triples and fives rule. And pick the right exercises. We have
tested some of the exercises from Bullet-Proof Abs at
Prof. Stuart McGill's lab and they were winners. Among other
things, we have discovered that they recruit the internal
obliques very intensely, which is very important to a
powerlifter. It was great to confirm that the Ab Pavelizer TM,
the device for modified Janda sit-ups I have patented, does
enhance the abdominal recruitment, and so does the "power
breathing" technique. In addition to the book, I have a free
e-course on hanging leg raises, an exercise Russian powerlifters
and fighters swear by, and Americans do incorrectly. Go to the www.dragondoor.com
home page and download your free PDF of the Super-Strong
Abs the Naked Warrior Way
course.
MR: I think you and I are very
similar in our approach to building a better overall athlete,
and movement quality is a huge component of that.
Let’s switch gears for a second
and talk about kettlebells – why are kettlebells such a great
training medium?
PT: I could talk about the subject
for hours so I will focus on the most unique aspect of RKC
kettlebell training, the over speed eccentric in swings and
snatches. It provides an additional or even alternative modality
to plyometrics and offers unique body composition benefits, both
muscle building and fat burning.
I will cite Siff: “One
may produce the same force by moving a heavy load with a small
acceleration or a light load with a large acceleration, but the
training effect is very different. Explosive, low inertia
training targets involuntary, neuromuscular and central nervous
processes more strongly than high inertia training which has a
greater effect on static strength development and muscle
hypertrophy.” With
depth jumps you can reduce your inertia only as far as you can
reduce your bodyweight. And one has be content with the
acceleration of 1G. Not so with kettlebell swings and snatches.
You can go as light as you want and you can throw the kettlebell
down as fast as you want for an incredible preload for the next
rep. Dr. Mel Siff
coined a term for this type of training -actively accelerated
ballistics. “Here you… rely solely on your muscles. Instead
of lowering the [weight] slowly or allowing it to drop under
gravitational acceleration, deliberately pull the [weight]
downwards as fast as you can, stop the downward motion at a
suitable point before the end of the movement and as rapidly as
you can, try to accelerate the [weight] upwards into a powerful
concentric movement.”
It
works. Senior RKC instructor Kenneth Jay who is the strength
coach for several Danish Olympic teams and a researcher at
the University of Copenhagen conducted an experiment in
which untrained subjects added 3-8cm to their standing
vertical jump in just two weeks of explosively snatching
light kettlebells. At the same time, at the same university,
another group of untrained subjects added only an average of
2cm to their SVJ from doing depth jumps.
Not
only the gains were greater in the kettlebell group, the
training was much safer.
No matter how perfect your landing mechanics are -and I will
venture a guess that they are not -with every landing you
are stacking the odds against yourself. You have no landings
to worry about when you snatch your kettlebell. Of course,
you will still have to master the jumping technique, but RKC
kettlebell snatches will go a long way here as well. While
you will need to practice the foot and ankle action
separately (Verkhoshansky
recommends jumping rope), the hips, knee, and back extensors
work the same way in kettlebell snatches and vertical jumps,
and you also will learn what Supertraining refers to
as "pneumatic shock absorption", or how to pressurize your
intra-abdominal cavity before the amortization. So you get
to practice essential elements of jumping many times over
safer than it was ever possible.
It is interesting that one must use a light kettlebell
to get the most benefits. Dr. Siff reminds, "The
important thing to remember is that this form of
training, according to Newton’s Second Law, focuses on
force being increased by means of acceleration and not
added mass..." When I met Brett Jones, today is
a Master RKC instructor, he could parallel squat with a
belt only two times his bodyweight which many sources
agree is a prerequisite to jumping well. Yet 5'9" Jones
could not dunk a basketball until he started explosively
snatching a 24kg kettlebell. Later he progressed to much
heavier kettlebells and significantly increased his
relative squat strength, from 2.0 to 2.64, yet he could
not fly as high any more. Now he is back to snatching
his 24, the standard issue in the Russian military by
the way, to reclaim his impressive vertical.
Senior RKC Mark Reifkind has been the most vocal
proponent of going lighter and faster in kettlebell
snatches. He has been doing most of his with a 16kg
kettlebell, only occasionally going to a 24. Although
his goal was cardiopulmonary conditioning and health, to
his surprise Rif has experienced an absolute strength
increase and visible hypertrophy of the back and
shoulders. This would not have been unexpected in an
untrained person, but consider that Mark is a former
elite gymnast, a powerlifter who has held California
bench press records, and a bodybuilder... Then of course
there is Donnie Thompson, RKC who gained 26 pounds of
muscle on a routine that emphasized kettlebell quick
lifts with light kettlebells in just three months. His
coach, Mr. Haney, RKC a 51-year-old former college
champion shot putter, added 15 pounds of muscles
following the same training plan. When I asked Louie
Simmons what he thought about Don's progress, the
Westside mastermind answered that kettlebell quick
lifts, unlike the plyos, do not just rely on the stored
elastic energy but work the muscles as well. Read up
on Lisa Ericson’s SMART exercise methodology in Supertraining and
look up Chad Waterbury's references on fast eccentrics
for more ideas on why such training promotes hypertrophy.
Of course, Donnie did not just gain useless bodybuilder
meat, he gained strength. Nine
months after dropping deadlifts from his training and
replacing them with kettlebell pulls Donnie Thompson,
RKC, took his deadlift from 766 to 832. He also credits
kettlebells with adding 100 pounds to his bench press.
The rest, as they say, is history.
I would like to add that Dragon Door kettlebells are
specially designed for explosive training. Some
companies' kettlebells are made for kettlebell endurance
competitions, others for juggling, and most are made
with no rhyme or reason at all. Our kettlebells are
customized for over speed eccentric snatches. The weight
distribution and the handle height are just right for
explosively tossing the kettlebell over your fist in a
perfect groove.
MR: Tell me a little bit about
the RKC program; I’m fascinated by it, but haven’t yet been able
to attend.
Who is the RKC geared towards?
And what will they get out of it?
PT: After I taught a kettlebell
workshop at Westside Louie Simmons told me that what I had done
was "reverse engineering of what the strongest people do
naturally." At the RKC we don't treat the kettlebell as the end
all but a tool. And what we teach is not just how to use the
kettlebell but how to move in a variety of contexts -powerlifting,
martial arts, tactical, etc. Our graduates include top
powerlifters like Donnie Thompson, Mark Bartley, and Amy
Weisberger, renown strength coaches like Dan John, NFL strength
coaches like Chip Morton and Tony Spinosa, special operators (I
teach in-house RKC courses to the US Secret Service, the US Navy
SEALs, etc.), fighters, scientists, medical professionals,
personal trainers, and regular hard comrades.
In addition to the kettlebell
snatch test you will be tested on your technique, teaching
ability, and good judgment. The course is very physical, you
will be practicing drills a lot and doing several intense
workouts a day for three days, plus a killer grad
workout. Although most students come well prepared, we typically
have a 20-30% failure rate. I promise that you will take your
athletic performance to the next level once you have taken the
RKC course. Here is the schedule:
http://www.dragondoor.com/author_workshops.html
MR: While many want to pigeon
hole you as a “kettlebell guy” (just like I’m the “mobility
guy!), you know a ton about strength as well. Could you talk a
little bit about the Smolov squat routine? I actually first
learned about you from an old Powerlifting USA article, ya know!
PT: Getting pigeon holed as the "kettlebell
guy" does not bother me. The kettlebell will teach you a lot
more than just using kettlebells.
As for powerlifting, I hope your
readers will enjoy an excerpt from my Power to the People
Monthly Newsletter which is aimed at experienced PLers.
Since you have asked about Smolov, a coach who has had great
influence on Russian powerlifting, I have picked a section of
the newsletter which deals with his radical recommendations on
the DL technique:
“At any given
moment the projection of the common center of mass must be
made through the point of stable equilibrium, otherwise, the
[righting] reflexes cause additional muscle tensions aimed
at regaining a stable position. They, of course, are
completely unnecessary from the point of view of rational
athletic technique.” (The sidebar in Power to the People
Monthly explains why this statement does not apply to
the American DL technique.)
Thus Smolov’s
goal is a perfect balance from front to back. He achieves it
by keeping the weight over the natural balance point of the
foot, by aligning the bar and the body’s center of mass
exactly over that spot, and by lifting straight up.
According to
Gurfinkel & Kots (1965), one’s center of mass is projected
over the ground exactly halfway between the heel bone and
the first knuckle of the big toe. In other words, the middle
of the foot if you chopped of the big toe while leaving its
first metatarsal alone. That puts the bar projection roughly
between the third and the fourth, if you count from the top,
shoelace holes on your Chucks, slightly in front of the
middle of an “uncut” foot.
To get your
own center of mass over that sweet spot Smolov directs to
bring your shoulders slightly in front of the bar as an
Olympic lifter. IPF world champ Victor Furazhkin has taught
me an easy way to hit the sweet spot -keep your sternum over
the bar for the first half of the pull.
This
is the kind of information you can expect from Power to
the People Monthly. Subscribe at
www.powertothepeoplemonthly.com
MR: One of your tricks to
squatting better is to engage the hip flexors; what does this
mean, and how does this improve your squat?
PT: You need to literally pull
yourself into the hole, as if you are doing a sit-up. The psoas
originate on your lumbar spine so contracting them helps you
keep your arch. Also, you will maintain a better anterior pelvic
tilt, which means your glutes will be stronger. There are some
other benefits as well, but the bottom line is you will squat
more and safer.
On the other hand, stretching
the hip flexors will up your deadlift. For instance, after
practicing the hip flexor stretch I an teaching on my DVD
Strength Stretching (http://www.dragondoor.com/dv024.html)
Louie Simmons added 50 pounds to his rack pull.
MR: If you don’t mind, give the
readers three simple things they can do to improve the quality
of their workouts.
PT: Strength is a skill, so
approach your strength training as a practice, not as a
"workout". Study various reflexes and neurological phenomena and
use them to get stronger. Read and reread the chapter on "superstiffness"
in Prof. Stuart McGill's Ultimate
Back Fitness and Performance (www.backfitpro.com).
MR: Okay Pavel, last question
and I pose this to everyone!
As coaches, we’ve all made
mistakes in the past – what was one mistake you made, and how
have you since gone on to correct it?
PT: Coaching myself the way I
would never coach a client. For some reason you get the idea
that the laws of adaptation do not apply to you. Remember, you
are not special, treat yourself the same way you would treat any
other athlete.
MR: Pavel, I can’t thank you
enough for being here today. Please let my readers know where
they can find out more about you and your products.
PT:
www.PowerbyPavel.com.
Stop by and say hello on our forum and don't forget to subscribe
to my free e-newsletter. Or else. Power to you, Comrades!
Upcoming Interviews
August 11th - Buddy
Morris, head strength and conditioning coach at the University of
Pittsburgh (http://pittsburghpanthers.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/morris_buddy01.html)
August 18th - Mark
Rippetoe, author of Starting Strength and Practical Periodization (http://www.wfac-gym.com/)
August 25th - Frank Zane,
former Mr. Olympia (www.frankzane.com)
September 1st - Leigh
Peele, fat loss expert and author of the Fat Loss Troubleshoot (www.avidityfitness.net)
If you would like to submit a question for
one of our upcoming interviewees:
1) Please send an e-mail to
info@robertsontrainingsystems.com
2) In the subject heading, please list the person your question is directed
towards (i.e. Mike Boyle)
3) In the body of the text, list one or two questions you'd like to have
answered.
We can't promise that our interviewees can
answer all questions, but we'll do our best to get a nice mix of questions.
Thanks for your support!
Stay Strong
MR
www.RobertsonTrainingSystems.com
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