1. Over trained or Under trained?

   Very interesting article I came across about over training and being “under trained”. Kind if reached out to my inner “I want to train every day no matter what” self.

   T NATION | Max Out on Squats Every Day

   “If you got a job as a garbage man and had to pick up heavy cans all day long, the first day would probably be very difficult, possibly almost impossible for some to complete. So what do you do, take three days off and possibly lose your job?”

   You tell ’em I’m coming, and Hell’s coming with me.

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2. Sorry, but there is so much wrong with that article from what I can see. I’ll go in order.

   Firstly, don’t listen to your body? That’s crap. Sure, if you have DOMS, then there’s an extent that you can push through it and continue as you were. But if the pain is from excessive muscle breakdown or if you’re becoming overly fatigued even before training, then your body is doing its job and telling you that something’s wrong and that you need to slow down.

   As for there being no such thing as overtraining, there are no end to the sources (anecdotal and scientific) that emphasize the importance of recovery. Without proper rest, your body will spend more time in a catabolic state rather than an anabolic one, and you’ll end up breaking muscle tissue faster than it can build back up, resulting in fewer gains. Overtraining can also tax your hormonal system (ie: lower testosterone) as well as give your immune system a huge blow.

   Also, that garbage man metaphor is invalid. No job should require you to be doing maximal load exercises on a daily basis, (heavy loads, of course, but maximal loads are not common in daily life), so you can’t draw a connection between training and work.

   And that last section about this guy’s additional “gems” just hurts me on the inside. A lot of those points are more or less true, but others are either bull or only apply to a small percentage of people.
   -I’ve never seen elite Olympic lifters use straps (and I work out and go to school at a national training institution, so I see a lot of them).
   -Lunges and deadlifts are only bad or overly taxing if you do them improperly.
   -Failing to train daily will NOT increase risk of injury. Nothing I know about physiology and injury management would suggest this.
   -Supplemental exercises aren’t just for injury management. They’re for injury prevention. (Dependant on the person.)
   -Plyos not pairing well with Olympic lifting is…debatable.
   -The lifter that endures pain does not necessarily mean he will be the most successful. It might just mean he gets hurt first.
   -Never train in a fatigued state, especially if you’re Olympic lifting. It’s a sport that requires full energy stores to achieve in, so if you’re taxed while training, you’re not going to get the quality workout you need.

   To wrap up, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do something every day. I accept that there’s never a day that you should do nothing. However, don’t go doing maximal loads every day if you want actual gains. (This is why I don’t read T-Nation.)

   Dip. Exercise and Wellness | BSc Athletic/Exercise Therapy Student | CSEP-CPT | BCRPA Group Fitness Instructor | Blog: http://alive-kicking-health-wellness.blogspot.ca/

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3. I over train constantly, to the extent I am still aching from woork I did on Friday, and will still be running and doing squats today. This is due to a love of the activities, not dedication and commitment to maximum gains.
   I know that I would run faster, lift more and look better if I allowed proper recovery, I even know what recovery stage I am at based on how I feel and still don’t wait for the optimum point before training again. This is because I am doing this for me not for competition or to prove myself to anyone else.
   Denying the existance of over training shows a distinct lack of knowledge or chosen ignorance of something we have so much proof for. For max gains allow yourself adequate recovery, if you don’t care and just do it for fun ignore this and enjoy.

   Phycologically it’s hard not to train daily but I know from experience that commiting to a training plan that incorporates proper recovery works better than the more mindless, aproach I use now. This has been true when chasing aesthetic and performance, regardless of type, consider I have competed at climbing, marathon, boxing and power-lifting, the variety means I know and obviously that I was well out of my comfort zone on a number of occasions (that means I lost).

   If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re probably right – Henry Ford

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4. Upon reading more about what’s called “The Bulgarian Method”, it was pointed out 9 of 12 Bulgarian lifters withdrew from the 2009 Olympics for testing positive for steroids.

   I couldn’t max out on squats every day anyway. I would be miserable. Now, I could probably put 225 lbs on the bar and do a set of 5×5 every morning and be fine. Biggest problem, besides time constraints, would be when it actually came time to have a leg day, I don’t know if I could handle squatting twice in a day.

   You tell ’em I’m coming, and Hell’s coming with me.

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5. Squats everyday sounds like an injury waiting to happen. Muscles need to be exposed to an overload stimuli and then given sufficient rest for strength gains to occur. The HIT principle states that one set to muscular failure will be tax the muscles and create this overload stimulus. When failure is reached in a set every muscle fiber has been recruited thus ensuring an overload and in turn creating strength gains.

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6. Haven’t actually read the article, and I’m going to the gym in 15min so I won’t bother reading it before commenting, making what I’m about to say potentially a moot point.

   Anyway, there are a few parameters that need to be recognised when talking about the Bulgarian method.

   1) “Max” loads are defined as what you can do without psyching yourself up. Basically, if you can calmly walk up to the bar after an appropriate rest period and do the rep, that’s what they’re looking for. If you spend three minutes withdrawing from the world, going deep inside of yourself, conjuring up some empty void of deep-seeded rage, then take a lung-full of norse torque and scream as you get under the bar, you’ve gone far beyond what’s normally recommended in the Bulgarian method. The training 1RM is often only about 85% of a real 1RM.
   2) “Max” loads are usually defined as what you can do without assistive equipment, such as a belt. For me, that would basically mean never really going past warm up weights.
   3) It’s not expected that what you can do one day is what you’ll be able to do the next day. Most Bulgarian method programs I’ve seen alternate between front squats and back squats every time you train, and accept as much as a 20% drop-off in loads used from day to day.

   Combining those three points, if my true 1RM squat is 150kg, without a belt that might be only 120-130kg, and without psyching myself up that might be taken down even further to about 100kg. And I’m not expected to actually get 100kg every time I squat. I might get 100kg on Monday, after resting all weekend, then front squat 90kg on Tuesday, then squat 90kg on Wednesday, then front squat 85kg on Thursday, then squat 95kg on Friday. The effect here is that the training is actually a whole lot less intense and hardcore than it’s made out to be, because on my good days I’m only doing about 80% of 80% of what can actually do, and on my bad days I’m only doing about 80% of that. With regards to the point about injuries, and the claim that the Bulgarian method is safer than other methods (a highly questionable claim), this might be a part of the rationale — when you address the details you’re actually doing much lower intensity than “daily max squats” suggests, and the volume actually isn’t that high, either. When we train, we always need to trade off between intensity, volume and frequency. Most people seem to think that the Bulgarian method is some insane high dose of all of these, but it generally appears to be low-to-moderate intensity, low-to-moderate volume and high frequency, from all that I have read about it. Because of the relatively low intensity and volume, there’s really not much to recover from when compared to my powerlifting training or more conventional bodybuilding training.

   It’s worth noting that, like many strength programs, the Bulgarian method is not designed to put heaps of muscle on you. It’s designed to use your white muscle fibres, most likely without turning them into pink muscle fibres (which generally happens with hypertrophy training) and acquire so much practice that technique rapidly becomes second-nature. The Bulgarian method was not intended for bodybuilding, so holding it up against bodybuilding standards of effectiveness and efficiency, which appears to be the thoughts going on in some of the replies here, is missing the point of the method. Of course, sites like T Nation will try and market this stuff to bodybuilders, and honestly it’s through bodybuilding culture that strength guys like me even have access to this information, so in one sense I’m glad they market it to bodybuilders so that I get to know about it, but bodybuilders aren’t the guys who should be considering doing this.

   WRT the point about Bulgarian lifters and steroids, I’ll just say that I have some rather jaded views on how clean the Olympics are. Officially, the Olympics represent clean sport. However, professional athletes have scheduled drug testing rather than random drug testing (even random drug testing gives them 24 hours to actually do the test, which can be enough time to destroy the evidence of PED’s in your system), and access to “sports scientists” who concoct PED’s that pass tests or other drugs that aren’t screened for and that cover up evidence of PED’s. I won’t go as far as to say that all who compete are taking some special supplements, however, if the sport is popular in a country and thus has a lot of funding, or if the individual athlete feels that they can make a name for themselves by cheating, then there’s going to be a big push towards it. I wouldn’t necessarily say that top level athletes using PED’s indicates that their training methods are either ineffective or actually detrimental to those who aren’t on the same PED’s, although that certainly might be the case. At the lower levels (where I can say that if people are using PED’s, they’re not working), I look at Nick Horton and his lifters, who subscribe to the Bulgarian method, and notice that they all snatch, clean and jerk more than me, so something’s going right, but as far as squatting goes, they don’t appear to be doing any better than I am on one heavy and one light squat session each week.

   There’s a lot to consider on these issues, and I generally find that both those who are for and those who are against the Bulgarian method seem to overreach their arguments. Without having done it myself, all I know is my gut says maybe.

   Ryan – D.Fitness. SQ 2×147.5kg – BP 2×92.5kg – DL 2x175kg – OHP 1x60kg

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7. I agree. What I would use it for wouldn’t be for body building, it would be for the second nature aspect of doing the lift.

   You tell ’em I’m coming, and Hell’s coming with me.

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8. I’m about to shed light on the severity of my insanity, but I actually think that Bulgarian style training would be great for absolute beginners, with a couple caveats:

   1) We define excessively dodgy technique as failure. Obviously, the first time you do it, your technique will be bad, and that’ll need plenty of work, but when the things you’re getting right start going wrong, you’ve failed your rep and need to rack or dump the bar. I’ll extend this and say that you should aim to progress technique each session.
   2) The trainee actually has the time and willingness to spend an hour each day squatting and pressing or squatting and pulling.
   3) There aren’t any health/injury-related contraindications to it. I may be insane, but that doesn’t mean I’m reckless about it.
   4) No true 1RM’s for the first 3-6 months.

   Ryan – D.Fitness. SQ 2×147.5kg – BP 2×92.5kg – DL 2x175kg – OHP 1x60kg

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9. I bet squatting every morning on top of your normal routine would do wonders for a cut as well.

   You tell ’em I’m coming, and Hell’s coming with me.

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