Pavel Tsatsouline Barbell Program

[Beatrix Gerke]

Hewrote the below article, outlining the simple routine of Russian Master of Sports, Alexander Faleev, for Built magazine, which folded before publication. Pavel contacted me to publish the piece here, and I am pleased to offer it to you as an exclusive.

Comrade Faleev dabbled with powerlifting for seven or eight years, then took a few years off. He poured over years of his training logs looking for what worked and came back to the barbell with a vengeance. In just six months, he reached the coveted Master of Sports level in powerlifting.

For beginners, Faleev offers a straightforward progressive overload workout with 5 sets of 8 reps. Eventually you are supposed to advance to 5 x 5. In my opinion, you should go straight to 5 x 5. Sets of five are the meat and potatoes of strength training.

Start with a conservative weight. If you manage five reps in all five sets, next time add 10 pounds and start over. Not 5 pounds, and definitely not 2, but 10. For reasons that are outside of the scope of this article, Malibu Ken and Barbie jumps with tiny plates are a waste of time.

Do a couple warm-up sets if you must, then feel free to take 5 min. and even more between your work sets. Top power dogs take longer; 30 min. is not unheard of. Power loves rest and does not tolerate rushing. You may feel that you are completely recovered in 2 min. but take a full 5 anyway. According to Faleev, an hour is a good number to shoot for in your workout length.

As the meet approaches, cut back from 5 x 5 to 4 x 4, 3 x 3, and finally, a couple of weeks before the competition, 2 x 2. Up the poundages accordingly. After the meet, take a week off, then start over with 5 x 5.

Faleev stresses that maxing in the gym is dangerous. Maxing out tests your strength but does not build it. A max workout in the gym amounts to missing a productive 5 x 5 day that you will never get back.

Faleev offers a formula that will help you estimate your max from your 5 x 5: multiply that weight by 1.2. This is not exact science, but it is much better than those ridiculous charts that claim to calculate your 1 rep max (1RM) from your 10RM.

Since he dropped all the assistance exercises his progress has been nothing but spectacular. Ironically, his gym buddies who sweat for hours wasting time on meaningless exercises consider him a slacker. He does not care, the wily Russkie has the last laugh with his strength and his mass.

The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.

It makes total sense to me that he could apply this principle to powerlifting so effectively. I was able to use the 80/20 principle for both the creation of my muse and in applying the same principle to P90x (my current experiment). Great article.

Also, Horacio Goday at La Viruta in Buenos Aires says hello. It was a fantastic Tango Lesson (and great mini retirement)! He wound up doing the opening of the BsAs video that we shot at La Viruta. Lots of fun had by all.

I think that a variety of full-body exercises should be employed, not just the PLers core 3. Pull-ups, rows, and overhead movements are 3 exercises I would include to achieve full-body strength. But I have to say, I agree with Pavel, throw out the leg extensions and bicep curls. You will never see me throw a client on a machine like that. Great application of 80/20.

Stay tuned when I use the approach of 80/20 and take my first mini-retirement to Greece and run my first marathon, the Classic Marathon from Marathon to Athens on an extremely low mileage training plan, inspired by Pareto.

Being a rock climber myself for part of my life, I had to replicate the pull ups for years. Being able to do a decent amount of pullups will allow you to pull everything you need much better. If you need to climb, if you need to carry heavy stuff, if you need to row, you are basically pulling.

Just my 2 cents but in general, this article is great and today I spent just 15 minutes at the gym doing JUST the dead lift. I have to say I feel fresh and awesome. I will track this and definitely use the concept (not the same exercises) in my weight training.

Everyone needs to do some weight training for overall health and performance. Powerlifting gets a bad wrap, but the principles are sound. Nothing more basic than picking up weight. I do think most folks would benefit more from a standing press than a bench press.

I alternate standing press with bench press. Seems to get balanced pressing development and practical strength. Also prepares the shoulders and core for heavier weights when I start doing olympic lifts such as jerk and snatch.

I have been a similar strength program at only 4 days a week for a few months now, and I have never been stronger. At age 35 I thought I was already over the hill but now I have reason to believe I will be my strongest when I approach age 40 based on linear progression.

As a Titleist Performance Institute Instructor, this sort of stuff is right in my wheel house. I think it very important that before anyone does these types of workouts, they need to be physically screened to determine if their body has the stability/mobility to perform correct squats, dead lifts, etc.

It really comes down to what results you want. Power lifters focus on being able to recruit large amounts of fast twitch fibres in order to lift large amounts of weight. The way they grow and look is much different from a bodybuilder or anyone who focuses on hypertrophy.

Your book was the first time I had the 80/20 rule put in proper context for me. Everyone always referred to it but I was too embarrassed to ask for a full explanation. I am not sure most people that cite it, truly grasp it. Asking the question, where else can I apply this rule has become addicting!

As an avid gym rat I am going to try the above. However, I am also scheduled to start one on one lessons with a UFC fighter and wondered if you think this workout would should be modified for aspiring fighters.

Great job on the article. I agree and have experienced many of the points Pavel made in the post. I had a 14 year football career with a power mentality (it was taught to us by our strength coaches) to become a better football player. Then transitioned into a drug free for life professional body building career in the WNBF for the last 13 years. I have competed alongside of some of the best truly drug free bodybuilders in the world. Dave Gooden, Francis Gay, Jim Cordova etc.

At this point of my career and at the age of 43 I have learned that it is never one thing or one mindset that gets results. It is always a combination to proven strategies that works best. With that being said I believe for the avergage person, with average goals that a program with some powerlifing moves, with some body building moves, some athletic functional plyometric moves, and stretching is the best approach.

In my trademarked FatLoss Lifestyle 12 Week body transformation program we use a wide variety of techniques. But for the base philosophy we try to make light weights feel heavy by going slow (a 3.1.3 rep tempo) and isometrically squeezing target muscles.

But, (not to blow smoke at you) if there is anyone on the face of this earth that can figure out how to create the best, most time efficient program that produces desired results, it is you Tim. And I know you are on a mission with this. Please let me know if there is anyway I can help you out. thanks for the backward link.

Jeremiah, true, but this applies only to bigger, fatter guys. According to the statistics by Belskiy (2000) middleweight and light heavyweight powerlifters were good for 22.5 pullups. I am sure Inzer and Kutcher could do even better.

I think the thing that may have not been clear in the article is why squats, dead lifts, and bench. These three exercises recruit the largest amount of muscle in the body. They use all your stabilizers and therefore cause a larger response by your body. They dump more testosterone (to over simplify). They are intense.

Interesting read. Static stretching, however beneficial for general mobility and recovery, does not increase strength and has been shown in studies to decrease strength by significant amounts (more than 10% for sure). That part jumped out to me.

Chris, the dumbbell press will not cut it. You can bench safely inside a power rack with the safety pins set just beneath your chest level. If you miss a rep, just sink the chest slightly. Ideally, you should never miss a rep though.

Nestor, find a powerlifter in your area (you may need to go online as there are not many out there) and hire him for a few sessions. PLers are great people, very helpful and humble, as all truly strong people are. Those who give you grief are wannabes.

I have a question though, i am a student looking to lose some weight and tone up, i go to the gym regularly (over a year on and off) and practise (though a little less now) martial arts. My question is, is there anyway to follow this exercise regime without the competing part? I am not a weightlifter and would not really like to compete i just want to get fit and healthy.

These are students I trained every week for several years and there was never any evidence of the much feared, and often spoken of, imbalance in appearance, strength or any other athletic ability. I still see these students occasionally after eight years, and the results of this type of training still hold. The dancers really loved these sessions, they had a reputation at our gym as superwomen and they used to brag about being powerlifters.

It says a lot in that when it comes to areas of your life as diverse as economics and strength training you choose to seek knowledge only from the most respected experts in the world like Warren Buffett and Pavel, respectively.

3a8082e126