Gymnasts benching 350 pounds and inserting static pauses

Many years ago I taught two Canadian national team gymnasts how to bench press. These young men each weighed about 175 pounds and had never performed the exercise before – seriously, they didn’t even know how to load the weights on the bar! Anyway, after just four workouts they both could bench 350 pounds. One of the reasons these gymnasts were so strong is that their sport-specific training is characterized by pauses.

Posted by Charles Poliquin. Interesting piece to say the least:

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article.aspx?ID=269

Enjoy and discuss,

Ido.

Can't argue with that. Poliquin knows his stuff.. in general.

Also, we already knew gymnasts were freakishly strong once they go to barbell work.

In general...

Once you have the same amount of olympic and world title gold medals behind you, I would take that remark seriously.

Ido.

I wonder how long it takes you achieve a double bodyweight bench press though bodyweight training only.

cool article my own strength confirms it, I'm stronger than any of my friends who bench regularily and I'm much lighter. My diet is however more serious but on the other hand I never bench!

braindx said:

Can't argue with that. Poliquin knows his stuff.. in general.

Also, we already knew gymnasts were freakishly strong once they go to barbell work.

I realy suck at bench :roll: So this does not applay to all of us...

Gregor don't you still have a bench max of 120kg or maybe even more?

Razz said:

Gregor don't you still have a bench max of 120kg or maybe even more?

112 with pause on chest...

Ido Portal said:

In general...

Once you have the same amount of olympic and world title gold medals behind you, I would take that remark seriously.

Ido.

I've seen some of his stuff that sounds really shady... but whatever.

Some of his stuff is shady only in the sense that he seems to gloss over the heavy supplementation that is needed to get results from some of his protocols, like his super accumulation program. You're not going to be able to do that without one hell of a supplement budget and possibly designer steroids that are legal on the market. Poliquin himself says in his article on super accumulation that:

Crucial Points

• Use your normal recovery methods: pre-workout drinks, during workout drinks, post-workout Surge, beta alanine, whatever. You'll need it. Take at least 40 grams of BCAA during each workout. Yes, I said 40.

• To combat deep muscle soreness, take 4-5 grams daily of the amino acid lysine. Lysine stores go down when you overtrain.

• During the two weeks of overreaching, if you don't bother to eat two grams of protein per pound of body weight, stay home.

• Don't take Testosterone boosting supplements during the loading weeks. You want to train to the point of depressed Testosterone! Save the T-boosters for the five day off period.

• Consume 30 to 45 grams of fish oil per day during the loading phase. (No need to do this during your five off days because you'll want more calories from carbs and you don't want to slow down the insulin response with the fish oil during this off/rebuilding period.)

5 Day Recovery Period Guidelines

• During this five days off, you'll want to eat something every hour and a half. Alternate solids meals with liquid meals. Always start with solid.

Wake up and have a high protein breakfast — buffalo steak and berries, for example. Ninety minutes later, have the equivalent of 250 grams of Surge or a bunch of whey protein and carbohydrate powder. Add about 20 grams of glutamine into these shakes. That's 80 grams of glutamine per day during your five recovery days.

• Massage and frequency-specific microcurrent acupuncture will accelerate recovery. Ice massage is for dorks, only raises your cortisol, and doesn't do shit.

• Double-dose Alpha Male during this off period. By your third off day, you'll be hornier than a three-balled billy goat because your Testosterone levels will be shooting through the ceiling.

That is straight off of his interview with TMUSCLE.com. You can see that he relies HEAVILY on supplements. This would NOT BE POSSIBLE without them, as well as a massive dietary intake of both supplements and solid food.

I don't have any problem with any of that, I mean that's how the top athletes in nearly every sport are built. I just don't like how, whether it is him or just people in general (I don't know), the massive amount of supplements (some dangerous without proper use) is just glossed over. In a nutshell, most of his training methods won't work if you aren't taking testosterone supplements.

Read very carefully: the only ones worth your money are designer steroids. They all convert to steroids in the body. They are "designer" because even though they turn INTO steroids when you take them, chemically speaking they are not steroids at the moment you purchase them. This is by design, hence "designer steroids." What Poliquin recommends is touted as one of the most powerful on the market at the time of the article's writing, and he recommends a DOUBLE DOSE. He also doesn't tell you that to be safe you need to be taking an aromatase inhibitor or a SERM.

My problem is the lack of full disclosure with certain protocols, not the method itself. As Ido says, Poliquin is unparalleled as a strength coach.

Slizzerman,

first, how is this related to the original post? I am sorry, but the forum is full of unrelated posts everywhere. Users trying to find some information are required to browse through huge piles of unrelated data. Lets try to keep it closer to the original post subject.

Second, and I will not say anything more about the subject, most of Charles Poliquin recommendations are just way over the heads of all kind of amateur and internet experts. Or real college degree experts, for that matter... I would not be quick to judge. Let us not forget that this is a man who was recommending paleo diets, fish oil supplementation, creatine, German Volume Training, rotator cuff work, time under tension and tempo principles, etc... before the rest of the industry even heard about it. (I myself started using fish oil back in the mid 1990's, according to his recommendation and when I went to buy them the pharmacists would laugh at me. They dont laugh anymore nowdays, ha?)

Poliquin does not advocate the use of pro-hormones and you can check his own supplement line and see that it is clearly free of such products. You can also check his article archive. The afordmentioned article is part of a commercial website and they have clearly edited his recommendations and plugged their product. (Although I am unfamiliar with this 'Alpha Male' and am not sure if it is pro-hormone or not)

Also, yes, most people nowdays are in great need of heavy supplementation. I do not only believe in that, I am 100% sure of it, after seeing blood work of countless clients over the years and witnessed the success some supplements bring in body composition, health, a sense of well being and of course performance.

People are starting to realize it. More and more experts are recommending essential supplementation protocols such as: essential fatty acids, vit-d, magnesium, zinc, HCL, and more and more. If you want to use your full potential, I recommend you investigate into such matters and get some tests done.

The option of using less intense training methods and 'taking it easy' is not an option for me or my clients. I think you will agree with me on that point.

If further discussion about this interest you, please open a new thread and I would be happy to continue there.

Ido.

I do agree Ido, don't think I'm saying supplements are crap. As for the prohormone issue, there are a bunch of new classes of testosterone supplements designed to take the place of the banned prohormones and prosteroids. They are, in essence, clever chemical engineering, but in the end they turn into similar substances once metabolized. It's pretty interesting, really, there are some brilliantly clever biochemical engineers out there!

I'm not even saying that stuff is bad or wrong, but I stand firm in my opinion that the vital importance of the supplements to the success of many training programs is under-stated. Poliquin's the classic example of a true seeker in his field, and I am not trying to take away from him, because you're right when you say he has always been way ahead of the curve. It has been his life pursuit to find and implement every effective training strategy that he can, and he's done better than anyone else.

As for the alpha male, Biotest claims that one of the main ingredients turns into some steroid. All reviews seem to indicate that there is little to no actual performance gain from the supplement, though it does seem to elevate mood in a number of people. Like most over the counter test supplements, there is a very unattractive ratio of supplement cost to supplement benefits.

I'm not claiming to be a fitness guru, and I'll be the first to admit that when I was at my absolute best I was taking vitamins, creatine, HMB, BCAAs, ZMA, and a few times I tried the 6-OXO style aromatase inhibitors, which do seem to work well. I don't even know what's still on the market anymore, because I don't delve into the hormonal stuff anymore at all, so I'm not exposed to the latest products on the market. I also don't know what Poliquin's specific feelings on various methods of hormonal support are, but I'm willing to bet that while he'd never advocate using anything banned or illegal, he would support safe usage of anything not banned by whatever governing body oversees an athlete's sport(s) so long as it improved performance and didn't damage the athlete. I'm not suggesting that he secretly advocates steroids, prohormones, or anything else, but I am curious as to how he would state his opinion during the time when prohormones were 100% ok, as opposed now.

That's just a guess, so don't take that as fact, but the truth is that anyone who wants to reach the absolute pinnacle of athletic achievement is going to have to use every legal chemical advantage they can in addition to every functional training method and nutritional plan for their sport. Can we agree this last sentence is an accurate statement?

I'm just putting this here to catch your attention, I know it's off topic. I'm starting a new thread in the nutrition forum, "The importance of supplementation for athletes."

Poliquin is clearly light years ahead of many experts in the the world of sports conditioning but like many people he has set his ideas into an ideological framework which can lead to unusual ideas.

I think Robb Wolf said that he went to a Biosig seminar where Poliquin claimed right hamstring strains were caused by magnesium deficiencies and left hamstring strains were caused by potasium deficiencies, this smacks of quackery to me. But then again Einstein rejected quantum theory for many years. Ideological frameworks can be both brilliant and leave us with blind spots.

Poliquin is clearly light years ahead of many experts in the the world of sports conditioning but like many people he has set his ideas into an ideological framework which can lead to unusual ideas.

I think Robb Wolf said that he went to a Biosig seminar where Poliquin claimed right hamstring strains were caused by magnesium deficiencies and left hamstring strains were caused by potasium deficiencies, this smacks of quackery to me. But then again Einstein rejected quantum theory for many years. Ideological frameworks can be both brilliant and leave us with blind spots.

What ideological framework is that? Have you met coach Poliquin? Have you ever been to one of his seminars? What kind of experience do you have with his framework?

Please enlighten me, because I have never witnessed such a thing.

What I did witness:

Coach Charles Poliquin relies heavily on research.

Coach Charles Poliquin relies heavily on his professional experience.

Coach Charles Poliquin has documented a lot of data in his practice over the last 20 years. (Biosig, for one, comes from this data, and nowdays it is being proven by research, how is that for use of experience instead of waiting for the science to sign the bottom line?)

Coach Charles Poliquin is not afraid to publish his thoughts, conclusions or understanding of things even if it is derived from his own body of knowledge. You can choose to accept it, try it and see if it works, or you can wait for science to prove or disprove it.

And the most important thing for me of all: Poliquin admits his mistakes. Over the years he have done so quite a few times. That is when he is wrong, which is not so often.

Ido.

Someone please explain to me how one gymnast can build large muscles and another gymnast, like the freakish planche guy video Coach just sent, appears to have only an slightly above average build but yet incredible strength? I don't get it.

I have stated before and forgive my redundancy but give me 18 inch arms, a ripped midsection from bodyweight training, and I could care less if I do a planche or anything else. Why do the athletes on this website appear to have much better bodies than others?

Mark

The guy in the planche video isn't as hypertrophied as a rings specialist because what they do is more strength oriented than the planche skills displayed in the video.

Ido - I have never met the man personally but I'm just reporting what a guy who I respect says about him. I believe that Robb Wolf said his opinions on Hamstring strains were informed by YinYang theory.

I also likened Poliquin to Einstein. Hardly a damning indictment I think you'll agree.

marktb68 said:

[G]ive me 18 inch arms, a ripped midsection from bodyweight training, and I could care less if I do a planche or anything else. Why do the athletes on this website appear to have much better bodies than others?

Mark,

If you are just looking for 18-inch arms and abzz, you should try bodybuilding. There are doubtless many resources for that, and I imagine they have time-tested strategies for meeting those goals.

If you want to look like a gymnast, though, you will need to train like one, which means you will need gymnastic-based goals.

You have to enjoy the process of training for those goals.

best,

jason

DUDE I WANT ABZZZZZZZZZZ, not ABZZ! What do I do!?!?

Also, incidentally, my arms have gotten back up to around 18" from the bodyweight stuff. You can certainly do quite a lot of bodybuilding work with your bodyweight, you'll just be doing that at the expense of gymnastic skills.

BW bicep curls are quite hard. Get some rope, rings, or something else and try them out. They'll grow your bicepZZZZZ in a hurry.

As for ABZZ, tempo inverted sit ups, body levers, and FL windshield wipers will all help you quite a bit, as will a clean diet and some interval training.

slizzardman said:

You can certainly do quite a lot of bodybuilding work with your bodyweight, you'll just be doing that at the expense of gymnastic skills.

Word