Transfer of Training Vol. 2

Expert Discussion Recovery and Regeneration
1

Just finished reading this book by Dr. Bondarchuk and it is an amazing read. There is a great description of CNS stress in this book.

I found a good section of this book that I would be interested in hearing the opinions of Charlie and forum members.

On the topic of alternating high intensity stimulus with low to moderate Dr. Bondarchuk observes that after training days of high intensity high volume an optimal correlation between loads of weak, moderate and maximum intensity, where the portion of the latter(high intensity) is not greater than 10-15%, is a great way to deal with the depressed state of the organism. He mentions that this still allows for work to be done on “recovery” days but does not further depress the athlete.

Has anyone worked with this format before? I am assuming that 10-15% of a volume would be something along the lines of a couple of accels perhaps.

2

I’ve experience with Dr Bs stuff for throwers - where it works great. I don’t think it really works for sprinters because of the issues with hamstring injury if you run when fatigued.

The key thing you can take from him is that changing the training stimulus is a key method of breaking through plateaus or maintaining sports form. Again when doing this with sprinters you must be careful with adaptive stiffness but you can try things like switching from Longer Special Endurance runs (say 2x200m or something) to split run speed endurance (2x3x70m etc).

3

This could also mean some weightlifting yes? Upper body lifts could be performed on recovery days to allow the legs to recover whilst also providing a small stimulus.

4

syrus

Thanks for the quick review. Could you go further in-depth? I have the first volume…is this just a “new edition” with some extra information, or an entirely new work? If it’s new, I’ll be ordering it soon…

Thanks!

5

He does specifically mention that sprinters and middle distance runners will do low intensity activities until the CNS is back at strength. The 10-15% being high intensity CNS type activities but could perhaps not involve running.

As Sam S mentioned maybe upper body or medball throws could be used as this stimulus. The effect on the musculature of the hamstring, glutes and low back might be too much if specifically targeted as TopCat mentioned.

In terms of the CNS recovery this sort of reminds me of the 10-day Taper in some fashion. But is this safe practice during regular training?

I really liked Dr. Bondarchuk’s description of CNS fatigue. He further justified ideas and practices on training the CNS in great detail.

Definitely an intriguing topic for discussion.

6

Hey Devil, this book is the continuation of Dr. Bondarchuk’s Transfer of Training. The content starts off right where he left off in the original book.

The first book was on the transfer of specific exercises while this book covers more the periodization aspects of training and adaptation. He goes into great biological detail on stress and adaptation. He covers the topic of defense mechanisms of the body to adaptation and how training influences these responses.

This book is a must have and is a much more indepth book then his last. Although as usual, the translation is a little rough at times. Check out the ultimate concepts website for a proper index of the chapter’s covered in the book.

7

Transfer of Training 1 sucked, a total piece of crap. Unreadable and said nothing.

Vol II was better. hard to read but better. At least the little charts showed what all of the different periodization ‘types’ were supposed to represent.

To the OP’s qusetion: at least 50 years ago, lifters and throwers talked about doing tonic workouts in between high intensity work. Basically lower volume, lower intensity work to recharge things. Charlie’s extensive tempo serves a similar purpose. so yes it works but it’s nothing new.

8

Here’s the review I wrote on my forum

Two books from Ultimate Athlete Concepts, publishers of much Russki nonsense. One comment ,their customer service is excellent. Yosef is a good bro.

Ok, and I’m pissed that the forum ate my other post.

Transfer of Training Vol 1: Piece of utter shit. Says nothing, mostly charts showing statistical relationships of pits of a movement to the full movement (e.g. in MSCI, 60m run has a such and such statistically relationship with 100m performance). I’ve read it twice now and while the words are in English, it failed to leave any sort of lasting idea in my mind about anything. Don’t bother.

Volume 2: Better by degrees. There are some charts that, if nothing else, help to explain what the fuck he was talking about in Volume 1 with different approaches to periodization. Block, complex variable vs. complex block variable make no sense in words, the charts helped.

Beyond that, it’s an ok book. I’d mention that you have to sort of know what it’s talking about to know what it’s talking about; without a very full background in this stuff, it won’t mean anytihng to you.

Basically he looks at the issue of transfer of training in sport, how doe work that isn’t competition work (e.g. general physical prep, specific prep) translate to teh full movement and a bunch of things related to it. How do different manners of sequencing impact on it (e.g. 3 months of general prep + specific prep with final competition ta the end vs. other patterns) and I’ll sum up his conclusions with this: Charlie Francis is right.

Basically, work everything at once in some degree. That gives better transfer. Note that he’s talking primarily about strength/power sports like the throws and such where there are limited biomotor requirements (strength/power/technique). For something in the mixed sports genre or pure endurance athletes, what he’s discussing isn’t appropriate. Issurin’s block training is probably superior sice you have to develop other stuff.

But basically rather than the old idea where you spend 3 months on general prep and some specific stuff finishin with a month where you try to ‘transmogrify it’ into specific stuff, work it all at once. If you’ve seen his thrower’s programs, that’s what he does.

Or see how the Chinese Ol’er currently train (find the thread)
Full competition movement
Specific assistance to bring up weak points
Specific movements for parts of the movement
General prep (bodybuilding).

There is more, he theorizes about why the body becomes ‘resistant’ to transfer and some other stuff.

There’s more to it, ad far too much of “In some athletes, you see this, in others this. Play with it play with it.”

But it’s at least readable and brings something to the table. Which Volume 1 did not.

9

Or what Charlie was doing in 1980 with vertical integration: work everything at once simply in differing degrees (and noting that even the 100m sprint has more required capacities than throwing the hammer).

10

I know it’s hard to read and I’m lucky enough to have got the info from the horses mouth so don’t have to rely on a poor translation but if you think carefully about what Volume 1 shows it basically backs up what Charlie has been saying about how training should progress from year to year. It shows that across all events when you are a developing athlete all types of training lead to improvement but once you are elite then it is improvements in CE (Speed, Speed End and Special End in a sprinting context) that lead to improved performance. It also shows that once you have developed certain levels of strength (SPE) then going for more won’t necessarily lead to better performance if you are a high level athlete - again Charlie’s note on Ben’s 600lb squat.

This on it’s own is valuable information given the fact that it actually has some statistics to back up what people have been saying anecdotally for years. If you want to fully understand Dr B’s ideas you should talk to Scott Saunders of the CACC as he used to train under him and has the ability to explain what he observed.

11

I checked out the info on these books and guess who the translator is - none other than Michael Yessis. Perhaps Bondarchuk is a genius and, once again, Yessis fu**ed up the translation. Would not be the first time.

Pretty hard to mess up the translation of graphs, hence a little more info can be gleaned from the graphics.

12

I have both books. I liked the first one for the charts (some of which had blatant errors however). The second one…I can’t really remember one practical thing from it. “Sports form…sportsmen…the development of sports form…physical preparation…”. A different translator probably wouldn’t hurt.

13

Mortac - that doesn’t sound good. I seem to be getting one of two reviews on these publications - either it was “fantastic” or it was “ho hum”. I assume that those people who have experience with Charlie’s approach figure that the Transfer of Training books provide “nothing new”. Am I correct.

Let me put it this way. Have these books changed the way you conduct your coaching?

14

I started reading Transfer of Training 1, but quit… it’s unreadable. Issurin on the other hand is straight to the point and very clear IMO. Both of his books are awesome. And, yes, they have changed some of my training philosophy. Highly recommended.

15

These books, the new one specifically, have not changed anything in terms of coaching for me. They have only validated them from a different point of view.

They are very much in sink with Charlie’s views. Even though there is definitely a poor translation, Bondarchuk is a master. I thought the book had some decent explanations of some good concepts. If only they were better translated.

16

Issurin on the other hand I believe writes his books in english himself. They are great reads as well.

17

I really did like the charts in the first book (correlations for ‘testing marks’ and the different events in track&field). Other than that, I vote ‘ho hum’.

18

Apart from the poor translation, the correlations among general exercise and competition events could be condensed in one table instead of one hundred. I still believe that Bondarchuk is a top coach, but as far as statistics, he is far away from reasonable knowledge.

19

How would it all fit into one table?

20

I read the first volume and enjoyed going through some of the correlations. Like everyone else has mentioned though, it’s mainly a book of correlations with some text. Bondarchuks priciples are very interesting though, you can’t argue with someone who has consistently produced gold medalists.