Ivan Abadjiev and the Bulgarians
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In continuing this series on high frequency training, I am going to refer to three sources that have found success with high frequency training. I would have to think that one of the most well-known proponents of high frequency training is Ivan Abadjiev who coached many of the most dominating Bulgarian lifters in the world during the 1970-1990’s. Abadjiev had little problem throwing out the notion of doing an exercise only two or three times per week. His lifters did variations of the clean and jerk, squats, and snatches on a daily basis, often three or more times per day, (not per week).
An American coach was invited to get a glimpse of how the Bulgarians trained in the 1980’s and jumped at the chance since they were dominating the weight lifting scene at that time. He wondered what their secrets were and was astonished at their training methods. They broke all of the rules of American training methods. When he found out how often and how heavy they trained, he wondered if what he had learned there could possibility work, so he came home and tried their methods on himself and found that they did work.
The Bulgarians did not do set after set of an exercise, and they did not do long workouts. They did short simple, very heavy workouts. Even though their workouts were fairly brief, they did several of them per day, and lots and lots of workouts per week. Their methodology is not popular because most lifters and most athletes don’t have time to work out that often; plus they worked out so heavy that many people disintegrate from such heavy lifting. While I recommend high frequency, Abadjiev advocated a rather extreme form of high frequency for most people, and I personally would never work out as heavy as his lifters did on a regular basis. Even so, his lifters experienced great success.
Pavel Tsatsouline
Another source that recommends high frequency training is Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel is from Russia and was taught that high frequency training is an effective way to train. He teaches Americans that it’s ok to train a body part more than two or three times per week. However, his method of training is fairly specific. One of the workouts he recommends is to do a basic exercise for twelve sets of three reps. The workout should be fairly heavy, but should not severely fatigue your muscles. The book, Easy Strength
Jim Williams
I’ll give you just one more lifter in this article who successfully used high frequency training. In the late 1960’s and early 70’s there was a hugely strong powerlifter by the name of Jim Williams. He often included bench presses five times per week in his workouts. The bench portion of his workouts varied from being moderate in length to short in length. No one could touch him in the bench press in his day as he could lift 700 pounds without a bench shirt. Even in our day, the huge bench press records that you hear about are done with the help of bench shirts, and there are very, very, few top lifters who can bench over 700 pounds without a bench shirt. You can see an article that gives an example of Jim Williams training by clicking on the aricle: “How Powerlifting Legend Big Jim Williams Trained.”
In the next article, I will discuss some other old time bodybuilders and lifters who used high frequency training and the type of training they combined it with. Until then, best of training to you.