Pavels take on training to failure?????

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Combatant, Sep 10, 2005.

  1. Combatant

    Combatant Monsiour Fitness himself.

    This goes out to any Pavel Tsatsouline fans out there, and anyone who has read his books. Can any of you please give me HIS scientific reasons for not training to failure? I refuse to buy his books because I think they are overpriced pamphlets lol ;) :D
     
  2. firecoins

    firecoins Armchair General

  3. Combatant

    Combatant Monsiour Fitness himself.

    Because I am a member of this forum and have no wish to be associated with his site other then reading articles. To be honest I have very little regard for pavel and rate him on the same level as Matt Furrey because of his super slick sales tecniques and all that rubbish! Hense why I have no wish to give him any of my money. :rolleyes:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 11, 2005
  4. firecoins

    firecoins Armchair General

    Thats fine. Matt Furey & Pavel are indeed too sales oriented but it seems you have a opinion already and just want it confirmed. I don't own any of Pavel's books but I do work out with kettlebells so I read the free articles.
     
  5. Combatant

    Combatant Monsiour Fitness himself.

    When it comes to the fitness industry usually the best places for info are the free ones- simple as that. Dont get me wrong I like a lot of his theories and find his work interesting, but because I dont have his books I do not have the inside story so to speak- this is how he makes his money.
     
  6. Colucci

    Colucci My buddies call me Chris.

    Give me a day or so to find my copy of Power To The People, and I'll see if I can't get that section up here. I'd do it know, but I was doing some re-arranging and all the things that used to be on "that shelf over there" are now...somewhere, probably.

    If I recall correctly, it has to do with some type of limit threshold. When you fail, your muscles "remember it" and "fear" that weight next session. But I'm not positive, so I'll check the book.
     
  7. fixationdarknes

    fixationdarknes Valued Member

    lol. That's weird. I've never head of anything like that before.
     
  8. Ad McG

    Ad McG Troll-killer Supporter

    Dude, TOS...

    I have PMed this young man a more preferable solution :D
     
  9. flaming

    flaming Valued Member

    So i should listen to budhist psalms while i do my 1RM so my body is relaxed when dealing with the high amount of tension. Similiar to stretching but instead of detensing.

    I read that everyone can do the splits if the muscle are sedated.
     
  10. Colucci

    Colucci My buddies call me Chris.

    Just to be clear, I did not intend to distribute any copyrighted info, or anything similar. :eek: I simply meant that I would refer to the book in order to give a more accurate answer. ;)
     
  11. Ad McG

    Ad McG Troll-killer Supporter

    You're not banned then :D
     
  12. Combatant

    Combatant Monsiour Fitness himself.

    Much appreciated bewater, his books are so thin that I am sure all the information could be copied on the back of a fag packet anyway :D

    (For all US residents, a fag means a cigarette, just to clarify). ;)
     
  13. UGFighter

    UGFighter Valued Member

    Been a while since I've read it, but IIRC:

    Going to failure means you are training your CNS to fail. Makes reference to power lifters and other guys who lift heavy weights and the training methods they used to get there without training to failure.
     
  14. flaming

    flaming Valued Member

    I thought lack of creatine phosphate, build up of lactic acid, lack of oxygen. Wouldnt the CNS only be trained to failure on low 1-5 rep sessions.
     
  15. Colucci

    Colucci My buddies call me Chris.

    From "Power To The People" by Pavel Tsatsouline (pg. 17):

    "Research on both sides of what used to be the Iron Curtain clearly points to muscular tension, or weight, rather than fatigue, or reps, as the key that unlocks the strength puzzle (e.g., Roman, 1962; Goldberg et al., 1975; Atha, 1981)! In other words, you must push your limits of weight/tension, and not reps/exhaustion if you want to get stronger...

    ...Muscle failure is more than unnecessary-it is counterproductive! Neuroscientists have known for half a century that if you stimulate a neural pathway, say the bench press groove, and the outcome is positive, future benching will be easier, thanks to the so called Hebbian rule. The groove has been 'greased'. Next time the same amount of mental effort will result in a heavier bench. This is training to success!

    The opposite is also true. If your body fails to perform your brain's command, the groove will get "rusty". You are pushing as hard as usual, but the muscles contract weaker than before!"


    Just to further define the fancy-shmancy brain stuff that Pavel's talking about: The Hebbian Rule is a common way to calculate changes in connection strengths in a neural network (when neuron A repeatedly participates in firing neuron B, the strength of the action of A onto B increases). Super-basically, the more often a task is successfully performed, the easier that task will eventually become. This is essentially the backbone of "greasing the groove". Hope that helped in the least, littlest bit.
     
  16. flaming

    flaming Valued Member

    So i should only do my 1RM's when i feel like i can rip a door off, and then leave the weights room alone until i get that feeling again? and do all the other training stuff.

    Eg,rest day, 3 sets of 1RM Snatch, rest day , and then do all other aspects of MMA training the other 5 days.
     
    Last edited: Sep 13, 2005
  17. Colucci

    Colucci My buddies call me Chris.

    Bro, I don't know where you're getting that from. He's talking about consistency, actually. According to Pavel, regular, consistent "practice" with heavy weight will promote an solid increase in strength. Training to failure would de-rail this practice.
     
  18. flaming

    flaming Valued Member

    Hmm yeh ive got all his books, and i read in naked warrior about training every hour, and i realy disliked the idea.

    Wouldnt this wear out the CNS?
     
  19. Colucci

    Colucci My buddies call me Chris.

    It's all about achieving a balance between intensity, load, and frequency. I haven't read Naked Warrior. But I've seen various programs by different coaches (Waterbury and Mahler off the top of my head) which use multiple training sessions throughout the day. Generally, the key to these are to monitor the intensity, usually through spreading sub-maximal sets throughout the day (not using extremely heavy weights, and not going near muscular failure).

    However, as Pavel has suggested, you probably could "grease your groove" throughout the day with heavier weights. The key in this case would be to use minimal reps, in order to keep working fatigue to a minimum. This is actually a method I played around with at the last gym I worked at. Since I was there for 6-8 hours anyway, I'd do a set of 3-4 "comfortably heavy, but not easy" reps every hour-and-a-half or so. I put 20 pounds on my flat bench, added 3 pull-ups to my max, and 15 pounds to my clean within about 2 months. So, there may just be something to it. ;)
     
  20. wrydolphin

    wrydolphin Pirates... yaarrrr Supporter

    Clarification, please...
    Am I reading your post wrong, or is he saying that the nueral pathways in the brain are triggered by the motion of doing, say, bench presses. And that any bench press will be an improvement because you have made a "bench press path" in your brain already?
    That sounds like tripe to me, but I may be misunderstanding you.
     

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