I'm really digging the Broz/Bulgarian style of lifting, but I'm really starting to get burned out on it mentally. After 10 weeks of it, I think I can benefit from shifting gears to something more intensity-focused. I've been reading a lot of old threads on the P&B and it's got me thinking about cutting back my frequency and doing some kind of simple linear progress.
I still like the hell out of my autoregulation and daily maxes though, so I've got a few ideas on pairing it up with what I'm doing now.
Train three days a week, M/W/F
Work up to daily max as usual, then:
1. Heavy day: Take a percentage and do max reps, see below
2. Light days: Back off to usual -20kg and do doubles/triples like normal
So the heavy days might go:
Wk1 - 70% of daily 1RM
Wk2 - 80% of daily 1RM
Wk3 - 90% of daily 1RM
and maybe throw in the option of doing a second adjusted set depending on how that set goes, so if the percentage is too light or too heavy, I can adjust up or down for the second set.
So the heavy day would go: work up to daily max, take % for max reps (probably a 9 or so), adjust weight +/- then max reps (RPE~9 again).
Light day: work up to daily max, drop 20kg and do doubles/triples by feel.
The schedule might be
Mon - Bench Heavy, Squat light
Weds - Front SQ/Push Press (heavy), Pull (alternate heavy/light)
Fri - Squat heavy, Bench light
I like what I'm doing, but I also feel like I could benefit from going a little harder and adding in some higher reps again.
Have you read the thread on RTS about Bulgarian training? MT has some good things to say. I'm always tempted to sign up for that TRAC shit. There's also apparently a former OL who spent time with the Bulgarians in their training halls who has some interesting input.
Yeah I had a look at it, wasn't all that keen on it though -- seemed like a lot of chickens pecking at corn and a lot of the same tired criticisms being made.
The TRAC thing appeals to my inner nerd, but these days I'm not nearly as convinced that kind of physiological testing means anything. The last two months have made me wonder if the physical values we're measuring are just indicators of "homeostasis disruption" vs. how these guys are pushing it as "readiness to train".
Glenn and Michael Hartman both told me they'd had guys come in with totally trashed hormonal status, feeling like crap, and still setting PRs after 5 squat sessions. I've noticed similar trends myself - feel like complete ass but come in for a good session at the end of the week and still able to turn it on.
After that experience I'm just not sure what good it's going to do to tell me that my resting HR is elevated or whatever. The physical stress symptoms (which include mood) don't seem to couple well to actual performance, which is what I'm trying to use as a real indicator these days.
I'd tried using an online tap test to keep records for a few weeks, but I got sick of it pretty quick. It wasn't telling me anything I couldn't already see -- if I felt bad and had a bad workout, the tap test just reflected it. It wasn't any new information that I couldn't tell from how I felt.
I know this is just a n=1 and as such doesn't have much value. I was trained by Mike (great results btw) and was not convinced on TRAC. Three times it gave me severe stress and I said screw that and went in anyway. Horrible horrible training days. It is useful for me and at 15 dollars a month i think it is worth a shot. Cheers all.
BTW Pman, haven't been around much, how's the Broz stuff working for you?
I really haven't been Brozing (or training at all, beyond a few maintenance sessions) for about six weeks now. I don't want to say I'm burned out, more like uninterested in training right now.
The thing I noticed about Brozing is that it worked amazingly to develop peaked strength. My tolerance to heavy loads became almost casual, to the point I could walk in and squat 90% cold without any nerves. Rep strength seemed to suffer, but that's expected when you're doing nothing but singles. Even when I stopped doing it, strength was still trending upwards and gave me no signs that it was going to stop.
The cons: I noticed a big hit to my mood outside the gym. Looking back on it, I was constantly feeling a low-level soreness and noticed a few minor things, like being irritable, tired, etc. Nothing unexpected from training that way, mind you, and the strength was always trending up no matter how shitty some of the workouts could be.
As far as my current burn-out, I think if anything it might have contributed to that, just in the sense that I feel physically fine to lift. It's more that I'm sick of being at the gym that much, would rather be doing other things, and so on.
My verdict: I like the idea as something to keep in the toolkit and do from time to time, and I'll definitely go back to it at some stage. The daily max + autoregulated backoffs idea is pure gold, which I think would work very well on a "low frequency" schedule of three days a week.
I'd also take more care to be liberal with down-time, as far as skipping days if you feel really shitty and most likely forcing a down week for every 2-3 hard-out weeks. Broz says you can and should train through that; if I was lifting with Broz as a coach, I'd probably agree with him. For me, and I think for most aimless armchair lifters like myself, taking the down time will almost surely do more good.
So are you doing the low(er) frequency, higher intensity stuff now? it should work since you seem physically and mentally primed to respond to it right now.
Cheers
(Thanks for all the comments on brozing, really helps to add one more thing to the toolkit)
I'm lucky to get to the gym twice a week now, three on a hot week. I don't have any real reason to push me in at the moment, so the lure is gone. The little training I am doing at the moment is more like the reverse pyramid stuff that Martin has talked about on the Leangains site, and a little APRE auto-regging for good measure. Nothing fancy, get in and hit a few work sets, then go home. I don't have the patience for much else.
I've also got this nagging nerve issue in my upper/middle back on the left side, which is making the left arm weak and unstable. It's hard to grip things, chins are asymmetric towards the right side, etc. That seems to be clearing up now with daily soft tissue work, but anything upper body is tricky right now.
But you're right, I've always found the HIT-like methods to work best when I'm time-constrained and coming off a high-volume phase.