Is that like Smolov?
How did you manage to maintain your strength in squats/bench?
I just finished a 3 week cycle of Pavel's Russian bear and I thought i would give it a bit of a review.
The program was as follows:
Train Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Every day is the same sets and reps with the same two exercises.
1x5 deadlifts (a weight you can do for 7)
1x5 deadlifts with 10% less
as many sets of 5 as you can do at 10% less again with a max 1 minute between sets.
1x5 press (with a weight you can do for 7)
1x5 press with 10% less
as many sets of 5 as you can do at 10% less again with a max 1 minute between sets
Cycle the weight up either in a wave or linear (or whatever the hell you want). I added weight every second or third session.
For the final weight aim to do between 10 and 25 sets but ten is the absolute minimum.
I ran this for 3 weeks and was pretty wrecked by the end of it. I could have maybe gone slightly longer but not much. There were some days after 15 sets of deadlifts that i had to lie down for 10 minutes before starting the presses.
I wasnt sure how i would cope with recovering from this volume so for the three weeks i ate like a horse and slept at least 9 hours a night.
The results were excellent. So excellent in fact that i am now scheduling 3 weeks of the bear every ten weeks. Both of these lifts were lifts that I had been a bit stuck on and both made huge gains. Prior to starting i didnt test my deadlift 1RM but my best ever lift had been 170kgx2 and today i did 1x200kg (which was my target goal for the year). I also added 10kg to my press. I had previously made 1x72.5kg but had been struggling and prior to starting the bear i tested it again and it had dropped to 1x70kg. I tested it today and made 1x80kg. that is a 12.5% increase in 3 weeks. Astonishing.
As a short term bulking/strengthening program I give the Russian bear 5 out of 5 and advise anyone who's press or DL is stuck (or who just wants to get larger) to give it a go.
Is that like Smolov?
How did you manage to maintain your strength in squats/bench?
i have explained exactly what the routine involves in the OP. I think it is much shorter and less complicated than smolov (but i dont really know smolov)
While i haven't done any bench or squats for 3 weeks I dont think i will have lost any (or very little) strength on them for a few reasons. Firstly, i have become much stronger overall. Secondly, i think there is some carry over between deadlifts and squats and even a little between press and bench. I also read that getting a much stronger upper back (from deadlifts) can also help your bench by making it more stable, at least that is what i read but i dont really understand how. Finally, it has only been 3 weeks, how much strength can you lose in three weeks?
I will find out next week anyway when i go back to (kind of) heavy squatting.
Last edited by Campbell; 07-14-2010 at 04:35 PM.
Outstanding post. I love these "here's what I did, here's what happened" types of posts.
So what kind of BW gains did you experience?
I might be into trying this. Squats are giving me bother with hamstring tendonitis and twisty pain in the knee (have some sort of damaged ligament).
Press is very stuck, but deadlift is making strong progress.
This would give me the opportunity to capitalise on strong deadlifts and also focus high volume on my pathetic press.
This also seems like a great programme to try for those without access to a power/squat rack.
I am tempted to try this but am wondering whether I should learn more about it first? Some of you guys are saying this is a smolov? I thought smolov was a squat thing?
Also, im wondering, if so much deadlift volume is done how is it possible to deadlift the same weights the next day? And then try to increase it a couple days later?
Just seems so tough, impossibly tough.