Interesting Podcast w/ Pavel Tsatsouline

I thought I'd share this.  I think it has some good information for people trying to break through plateaus, such as grease the groove and time under tension.  

Its a Tim Ferris podcast with Pavel Tsatsouline.  Here is his bio from the website:

"In the 1980s, he was a physical-training instructor for Spetnaz, the elite Soviet special-forces units. Pavel is now a subject matter expert to the US Marine Corps, the US Secret Service, and the US Navy SEALs. He is widely credited with introducing the now ubiquitous kettlebell to the United States."

And the Link:

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/01/15/pavel-tsatsouline/

I'd love to be a fly on the wall as Coach Summer and Pavel discuss training over shots of vodka.

It's definitely an interesting one, but I think there are definitely some contradictions between some of Pavel's advice (at least in his earlier stretching books) and Coach Sommer's advice, specifically what I felt was an undue fear about forward bends. Not sure if he has since evolved his view, but I find Coach's advice makes my body feel a lot better (high reps on basic exercises prior to progression, not being afraid of moving "out of alignment", etc).

Your obviously more familiar with more of Pavel's material than I am.  This was my first exposure to him.  I thought his recommendations in a lot of what was discussed echoed recommendations in the course and things I've read here. 

What clicked specifically with me was it made me realize why Coach recommends to keep working in block 2 striving for perfect form before going to Block 3.  Why you stop when form breaks.  Why if you feel your working to failure on week two of a cycle you've progressed to fast.  Why greasing the groove can be a strategy to break plateaus.

When I started over a year ago, I read the course material watched the videos and started at block 1 on everything.  12 weeks in the course material hadn't sunk in in too shy to post a form check and I'm flailing around doing high reps way before I should have been.  My ego and impatience left me repeating block 3 for two or three cycles not seeing progress struggling with each workout, burning out.  I guess sometimes I have to do things the wrong way before good advise will sink in.

Finally I made some videos went back to block 2 on all the elements (block 1 for sPL) with imperfect form and stayed there and progress was much better and I wasn't beating myself up for struggling.  I also felt excited to go to the gym and do the work.

I watch some of the form check video's and I can see plain as day the people making the same mistake I did.  I thought Pavel explained well why Block 1 and 2 are there to build our strength and Block 3 is endurance, two different beasts.

Thanks for the heads up about the podcast, I was listening to it last night.

Ryan Reynolds said:

Your obviously more familiar with more of Pavel's material than I am.  This was my first exposure to him.  I thought his recommendations in a lot of what was discussed echoed recommendations in the course and things I've read here. 

 

What clicked specifically with me was it made me realize why Coach recommends to keep working in block 2 striving for perfect form before going to Block 3.  Why you stop when form breaks.  Why if you feel your working to failure on week two of a cycle you've progressed to fast.  Why greasing the groove can be a strategy to break plateaus.

 

Absolutely, I think there are way more similarities than differences, and their philosophy and approach to training ("practice") is very similar. I like Pavel, I followed his ETK program prior to this one, I was just commenting on a few specific differences. I do feel that the Foundations course is more "complete" than the courses in Pavel's books, although I have the book from his days at Dragondoor, and anything from that company tends to be incomplete because it is routine practice for them to plug their other books in the book you are reading.

Pavel is the source of one of my favorite quotes ever:

"Any idiot can smoke an athlete- but can you make him win?"