Lyle, Thanks for explaining. I get you.
My mistake; as you said Poliquin’s model focuses mainly on bodybuilders and athletes who focus on one biomotor quality.
Saying that, he has worked with many other athletes in track and field, speedskating etc so it would be interesting to see how he sets up his periodization for them. Simplified, maybe something like: Accumulaiton/Intensification/Power
before tapering for competition. Who knows. As you said, this is a shorter version of Bompa’s, so detraining of qualities for example in accumulation aren’t lost as time goes on since acc and intensification are rotated.
One interesting point I picked up when I did his level 1 was that volume should be unloading (40%) every third workout in order to allow supercompensation and regeneration. This is something I have seen Bompa recommend and I guess this is also an old concept used by many authors in the field. As you know, Charlie wrote about this in CFTS.
When you put it like that I can see how Poliquin and Issurin’s model is similar in layout to Bompa’s but there’s a far more frequent return to a particular block so detraining doesn’t occur.
“The volume builds performance potential and the intensity realizes it through sports specific means”
If this is true would doing high rep bodyweight squats, push ups, sit ups, and lots of hills, jumping rope, and fitness based stuff over a long period of time (like Alan Wells or Herschel Walker) potentiate better performances once this work was tapered?
I know Herschel ran 10.2 in the 100m I believe, maybe his odd training regime helped him.
Bobsanchez, Here are a few thoughts for discussion:
The general work you mention may indeed increase the height of the competitve result, however, to what degree does this take place with higher level athletes? From Charlie’s model, we know that as training age increases, time spent on GPP decreases, so it becomes less emphasised. The GPP done as a beginner may allow skills to be more easily learnt and developed, decrease muscle imbalances etc along with many other benefits, but does GPP help to the same degree as an advanced athlete?
Regarding higher volume, I guess this is like when people in the gym ask “is doing more sets better?” Well yes, it has been documented that multiple sets are often superior to single sets, however, training gains are likely to increase up until a point and then you will eventually hit diminishing returns. So yes more volume of GPP may be appropriate for some athletes, however this is up to a point.
Sorry I can’t specifically answer your question, I’m not an expert but I’ve tried to provide some points for discussion.
Well, so he says anyhow. I know folks who have worked perosnally with him. What he says he does and what he does…
One interesting point I picked up when I did his level 1 was that volume should be unloading (40%) every third workout in order to allow supercompensation and regeneration. This is something I have seen Bompa recommend and I guess this is also an old concept used by many authors in the field. As you know, Charlie wrote about this in CFTS.
Old a the hills.
When you put it like that I can see how Poliquin and Issurin’s model is similar in layout to Bompa’s but there’s a far more frequent return to a particular block so detraining doesn’t occur.
Poliqin’s stuff is nothing like Issurins’. Wait til you get his texts and this will all make more sense.
Don’t read things into what I said that I did not say.
The old Russian model was sort of what your’e last sentence was. Hammer them for 6 months until they are all overtrained and then taper and pray they hit their peak. It works when you have thousands of throwaway athletes and lots of drugs.
Do’nt take this to a stupid extreme.
AS to your other post, there has to be some degree of specifiity and it’s not pointless volume for the sake of pointless volume.
As well, most (e.g. modern OL’ing) has moved to a much more intensity based regime. Working at 75% in the OL’s simoply doesn’t prepar you to work at 90%
Same reason that jogging doesn’t prepare you for sprinting even though it’s high volume/lower intensity.
To put this in more concrete terms, beyond a certain point, there is an intensity threshold that has to be crossed to have a training effect. Endless pushups or whatever probably don’t do that.
But consider a powerlifter with two options
doing 10 sets of 3 (30 reps) at 80-85% of maximum. A challenging but doable workout
doing 6 sets of 1-2 (6-12 reps) as 90%
The first is triple the volume above the required intensity threhsold to stimulate gains. But it wo’nt prepare him for competitino per se. The singles at 90%+ will prepar him for competition but may be too hard on his body, CNS do do regularly.
So he might do 4-6 weeks of volume oriented work waving around 80-85% with the occaaional single at 90% and then move to more 90% work for 2-3 weeks before tapering to a peak.
