Brain Batcheldor is a European Guru...I've read a few of his article's and found them very informative...
Hardcore Strength
The European steroid gurutalks training (Finally!)
by Brian Batcheldor
You may not know this, but T-mag's European drug guru is also considered to be one of the world's premiere elite strength coaches. For reasons he'll explain, he's always kept his vault of training knowledge tightly sealed and closely guarded. Not any longer. Brian has finally allowed us to peek inside. What we saw surprised us, but it excited us as well. In the next few months, get ready to learn more about some entirely new concepts of strength training.
For the last year, Tim Patterson and TC have been plaguing me about putting my strength training philosophy on paper, employing just about every known tactic in the book in their attempts to persuade me. I've been blackmailed, threatened with the sack, warned about kidnap attempts, and then there was the thing about lacing my Ribose-C with Ex-Lax. The diabolic bastards even threatened to send me naked pictures of Ian King. Yet still, I've remained tight-lipped. Why? The reasons for my silence are varied, but here they are anyhow:
1. I believe that once you've found your niche, you have to stick with it. I've become known as a steroid guru and that's what people want me to talk or write about, as proved by the amount of mail I receive. There's a real need for accurate and honest information on this subject and I feel that I have more practical experience with their use on athletes than anybody outside of Eastern Europe.
2. I'm a strength training purist. This means the area I enjoy working in is improving strength for strength-related performance, e.g., powerlifting, weightlifting and strongman contests. I've worked with, produced or coached some of the strongest people that have ever existed, including multiple world powerlifting champions and World Strongest Man competitors. In honesty, there's a very limited demand for this kind of specialist information.
3. I've no gimmicks to offer or sell. I don't employ any weird, unorthodox training equipment or practices, believing that chains and rubber bands should only be used by those into S&M. Sure, I have my beliefs and some are a little different, but not many of them fly completely in the face of conventional theory. However, all are based on experience!
4. Here's another reason I'm reluctant to write training articles: If you're renowned for helping top athletes, are you really going to pass on the vital, closely guarded secrets that helped put them there? Would this be the responsible and loyal action of someone who really cares about his athletes? Take a look at sports like boxing. Lennox Lewis's coach, Emanuel Steward, is well known for his scientific approach to fight preparation and has produced many of the game's greatest pugilists. If you asked him what he did with Lennox in those last few weeks, do you honestly think he would tell you?
5. Even if I could pass on my beliefs, I don't think that the public could deal with them. There's a huge demand for strength training technology in professional sport; however, the organizations behind these sports have a strong anti-drug agenda. As I'm neither a hypocrite nor someone who keeps their head buried in the sand, I readily accept that drugs and sport go hand in hand. Therefore, I believe that when a strength training routine is presented, drug use needs to be taken into account. However, to do so is highly controversial, no matter how honest it may be. As it stands now, doors are increasingly closing on me, making it very difficult for the relationships between my athletes and myself.
After reading many of the training articles presented in other magazines, my views have now changed slightly. Tim Patterson also pointed out that the day I start writing stuff that isn't controversial, my ass is history! Okay, okay, Tim, anything but the naked Ian King pics!
Let's get started by looking closer at a few important issues.
"A Big Muscle is a Strong Muscle."
This is a phrase that many of you may have seen used by Mike Mentzer over the years and it serves to illustrate the common ground shared by strength training enthusiasts and recreational bodybuilders. A novice powerlifter should initially also attempt to build muscle. Likewise, a novice/intermediate bodybuilder needs to give attention to his poundages if he wants to gain mass.
It may not have dawned on some of you yet, but the majority of the magazine buying, website scanning public (those with the unquenchable thirst for knowledge) slot into the above mentioned group. They're either novices and intermediates. So how do most magazines reward their loyalty? They capitalize on their readers' gullibility by spoon-feeding them bullshit routines, backed up by glossy photos of the pros moving mountains of fake fiberglass weights (yes, really) whilst dressing like the Village People. Can anyone tell me this: Does anybody really walk into Gold's wearing only army boots and twenty dollars of spandex, ten dollars of which is stuck up their crack?
As we have established that, at a certain level, strength athletes and bodybuilders can benefit from the same advice, there's now no need for information that's too specific or advanced. I can live with that! However, there's a real need for some hard-hitting honesty!
Muscle by Numbers
Until a few years ago, most bodybuilders felt as much desire to read strength training articles as they did to run a marathon. Traditional strength training articles and their format were totally unappealing. Then something happened that changed all that. We started seeing articles that spoke of percentages, periodization, restoration and other alien terms. These articles had taken strength training technology that was new to the West and adapted it to bodybuilding.
Ironically, this technology didn't come to us via powerlifting. It was brought to us by East European track and field coaches. Tudor Bompa, the Romanian strength coach (now resident of the US), was perhaps the pioneer of this approach. We were now seeing routines that categorized our training into microcycles, mesocycles and macrocycles. More recently, adaptations from Olympic lifting theory have started popping up in bodybuilding and powerlifting articles.
At long last, these routines offered that special something that muscleheads had been longing for: a workout that told them exactly what to do! Sets, reps and weights were clearly laid out and easily calculated; instinctive training was now pass?. Not a bad thing really, considering most novices have the same kind of "instinct" that makes whales swim in Japanese waters.
This new movement toward scientific training led us to two very obvious conclusions:
• The bodybuilding public had been starved of quality training information.
• They also wanted a system that took all the guess work out of achieving their goals. The more intricate the details it gave them, the better it would be (even if it told them how many times to chew their food!)
Intensity for Immensity?
Today, an old argument is beginning to rage again, only this time, both sides are heavily armed with sci-fi info. The debate centers around which training methodology is better for building muscle, high intensity training or periodization (cyclic variation of training intensity and volume). Evidence on both sides is very complex; however, I feel that common sense and empirical evidence lean toward periodization. (Sorry, Mr. Mentzer.)
Major contributions in this area have come from Drs. Tudor Bompa, Yuri Verkhoshansky and Mel Siff, all of whom support the philosophy of mapping out your entire competitive training career. These guys have presented the facts; however, those facts have been open to some pretty varied interpretation.
Scientific facts that have already been identified include mechanisms of muscle growth, mechanisms of catabolism, and factors that lead to increased strength. It's not the intention of this article to go over these facts, as the above-mentioned gentlemen have all produced excellent pieces of work in this department. Also, my experience from coaching and doing many seminars is that when you confront the average athlete with this kind of info, they usually start dribbling, developing nervous ticks, or rolling their eyes in the back of their head.
Simply put, all but the most hardcore or curious of athletes are interested in this kind of information. In fact, it's my observation that often times when you bombard an athlete with high tech information, they tend to miss the more critical points in the whole picture. Occasionally, because of the nature of my articles, it'll still be necessary to back up a recommendation with some science.
I mentioned earlier about how some have chosen to interpret the findings of the experts. In many instances, the motives are commercial. In others, it's through oversimplification of the findings or not making any allowances for variables. Think for a minute about the amount of technology behind motor racing (Nascar or Formula One), the money involved, how long it's been going and the individual expertise in the pits. Yet with all this behind it, it's often just the opinion of the driver that decides what works and what doesn't. Such is often the nature of strength training.
If we could unravel all the mysteries of human performance and adaptation that easily, I feel sure that we would've found the answer to at least one of man's more serious concerns along the way. Consider the known facts as the border pieces of a very large jigsaw puzzle, one that takes a long time to put together. After putting it together several times, all that time amounts to a lot of experience. The combination of known facts (constants) and experience is surely the most accurate way of addressing any challenge, including getting bigger and stronger.
Constants and variables
The term "variables" should lodge firmly in your brain. These are the things for which allowances are seldom made, and thus probably account for the downfalls of most routines that simply "looked good on paper".
Below, I've listed several factors that should be taken into account when we review the evidence presented in various studies:
• Most studies use previously untrained individuals. You don't have to be an Einstein to figure out that, in many instances, these results could be totally irrelevant. Most beginners improve fast, no matter what training regime is employed. Their gains are more closely linked to improved coordination and various other neural factors. A lower percentage of muscle fiber recruitment, due to the previously mentioned neural components, will result in improved recuperation and adaptation.
• The training regimens employed are often inadequate. In fact, they're bloody laughable when compared with the regimens that would be put together by an experienced strength coach.
• Often times, age and gender differences aren't taken into account. In general, men recover faster than women and younger athletes recover faster than older ones.
• Comparisons between high intensity and high volume training regimens, that look at the impact on body-fat levels and hormonal adaptation, are often made using runners as test subjects. Although there's some common ground, this isn't a good base from which to start drawing conclusions on resistance training protocols.
• Those studies that didn't use previously untrained individuals usually use the extreme opposite: elite level competitive strength athletes. This can be as deceptive as using untrained individuals as there are even more variables with this level of athlete. Some of these may not be taken into account; others are simply not mentioned for ethical reasons.
That last point brings us nicely to where my contribution will begin. I'd find it very hard to believe that all of the researchers failed to recognize the influence of drugs and nutrition on the results of their studies. Sure, I readily accept that the majority would fail entirely to make any connection. The problem is that many of the more "involved" researchers work for universities, medical institutions or sports teams. Some hold a position in the governing body of a sport. It goes without saying that these guys would have the career prospects of a blind guide dog if they ever once opened that Pandora's box. Unfortunately, this area needs addressing if we are to come up with the definitive blueprint for success. Ask yourself the following questions:
1. When I first started on steroids, did they make any difference in the results I got from my training routine?
2. Do different steroids, dosages or patterns of use influence my results in different ways?
3. Would my post-steroid training routine (i.e. between cycles) be exactly the same as that of someone who's never used steroids?
4. Are steroids likely to have any effect on my recuperative abilities?
5. As many experts mention hormonal adaptation, are steroids likely to alter this process?
In reality, the list could go on and on, but I think I've already demonstrated my point. The subject of nutrition also needs to be addressed, this being as much a hot bed of contention as training theory. These areas, of course, are interrelated. Consider, for example, the implications of improved protein synthesis on recuperation.
If steroids improve protein synthesis, then surely this will allow us to make adjustments to our training workloads that could, for example, dramatically influence the supercompensation process. However, this will still depend on us consuming adequate quality protein in the first place. So you see, there's a definite synergy between training, nutrition and drugs. Although, as I've mentioned, there've been some major contributions to training technology, the degree to which the researchers have touched on the other two factors has been quite shallow and noncommittal. Because of this synergy, it stands to reason that drug and nutritional strategies should also be cycled for optimum results.
Trilateral Periodization
By now, many of you have become familiar with my views on steroid cycling (refer back to my S-Files articles on cycle construction). The cycles that I develop are based on scientific constants combined with my observations and health considerations. This last point is critical, as impaired health leads to impaired results.
Over the years, I've developed a system that I employ with all of my lifters. I call this system Trilateral Periodization, in recognition of the need for a three sided, inter-relational approach to cycling. My training and nutritional protocols are based on the same three factors as my drug cycles.
I'm both an "ergogenic engineer" and a strength coach, but I admit that I'm not a scientist. I wouldn't insult the intelligence of those who've put themselves through years of study in subjects like exercise physiology by claiming to be one. Indeed, I'd often put into practice the theories of experts like Tom Fahey, who I viewed as being way ahead of his time due to his "real world" ideas. I do, however, consider myself scientific and I believe that, in order for a coach to be responsible, it's imperative that he maintain an open minded attitude by keeping his finger on the pulse.
Unfortunately, I've encountered many coaches who can't handle this challenge to their egos. It's also fair to point out that performance enhancement is a science in itself, one that encompasses the principles of several sciences. Expertise in any one field won't be enough to address the whole challenge.
Over the next few articles, I'll detail the principles behind Trilateral Periodization, in much the same format used in my articles on cycle construction. I'll also put forward my beliefs and observations on subjects like exercise selection, protein requirements, the use of negatives and restoration. Where necessary, I'll cover the variables, thereby enabling you to make your own adaptations.
Then I won't have to worry about finding pictures of Ian's hairy Australian ass in my mailbox!
Hardcore Strength
The European steroid gurutalks training (Finally!)
by Brian Batcheldor
You may not know this, but T-mag's European drug guru is also considered to be one of the world's premiere elite strength coaches. For reasons he'll explain, he's always kept his vault of training knowledge tightly sealed and closely guarded. Not any longer. Brian has finally allowed us to peek inside. What we saw surprised us, but it excited us as well. In the next few months, get ready to learn more about some entirely new concepts of strength training.
For the last year, Tim Patterson and TC have been plaguing me about putting my strength training philosophy on paper, employing just about every known tactic in the book in their attempts to persuade me. I've been blackmailed, threatened with the sack, warned about kidnap attempts, and then there was the thing about lacing my Ribose-C with Ex-Lax. The diabolic bastards even threatened to send me naked pictures of Ian King. Yet still, I've remained tight-lipped. Why? The reasons for my silence are varied, but here they are anyhow:
1. I believe that once you've found your niche, you have to stick with it. I've become known as a steroid guru and that's what people want me to talk or write about, as proved by the amount of mail I receive. There's a real need for accurate and honest information on this subject and I feel that I have more practical experience with their use on athletes than anybody outside of Eastern Europe.
2. I'm a strength training purist. This means the area I enjoy working in is improving strength for strength-related performance, e.g., powerlifting, weightlifting and strongman contests. I've worked with, produced or coached some of the strongest people that have ever existed, including multiple world powerlifting champions and World Strongest Man competitors. In honesty, there's a very limited demand for this kind of specialist information.
3. I've no gimmicks to offer or sell. I don't employ any weird, unorthodox training equipment or practices, believing that chains and rubber bands should only be used by those into S&M. Sure, I have my beliefs and some are a little different, but not many of them fly completely in the face of conventional theory. However, all are based on experience!
4. Here's another reason I'm reluctant to write training articles: If you're renowned for helping top athletes, are you really going to pass on the vital, closely guarded secrets that helped put them there? Would this be the responsible and loyal action of someone who really cares about his athletes? Take a look at sports like boxing. Lennox Lewis's coach, Emanuel Steward, is well known for his scientific approach to fight preparation and has produced many of the game's greatest pugilists. If you asked him what he did with Lennox in those last few weeks, do you honestly think he would tell you?
5. Even if I could pass on my beliefs, I don't think that the public could deal with them. There's a huge demand for strength training technology in professional sport; however, the organizations behind these sports have a strong anti-drug agenda. As I'm neither a hypocrite nor someone who keeps their head buried in the sand, I readily accept that drugs and sport go hand in hand. Therefore, I believe that when a strength training routine is presented, drug use needs to be taken into account. However, to do so is highly controversial, no matter how honest it may be. As it stands now, doors are increasingly closing on me, making it very difficult for the relationships between my athletes and myself.
After reading many of the training articles presented in other magazines, my views have now changed slightly. Tim Patterson also pointed out that the day I start writing stuff that isn't controversial, my ass is history! Okay, okay, Tim, anything but the naked Ian King pics!
Let's get started by looking closer at a few important issues.
"A Big Muscle is a Strong Muscle."
This is a phrase that many of you may have seen used by Mike Mentzer over the years and it serves to illustrate the common ground shared by strength training enthusiasts and recreational bodybuilders. A novice powerlifter should initially also attempt to build muscle. Likewise, a novice/intermediate bodybuilder needs to give attention to his poundages if he wants to gain mass.
It may not have dawned on some of you yet, but the majority of the magazine buying, website scanning public (those with the unquenchable thirst for knowledge) slot into the above mentioned group. They're either novices and intermediates. So how do most magazines reward their loyalty? They capitalize on their readers' gullibility by spoon-feeding them bullshit routines, backed up by glossy photos of the pros moving mountains of fake fiberglass weights (yes, really) whilst dressing like the Village People. Can anyone tell me this: Does anybody really walk into Gold's wearing only army boots and twenty dollars of spandex, ten dollars of which is stuck up their crack?
As we have established that, at a certain level, strength athletes and bodybuilders can benefit from the same advice, there's now no need for information that's too specific or advanced. I can live with that! However, there's a real need for some hard-hitting honesty!
Muscle by Numbers
Until a few years ago, most bodybuilders felt as much desire to read strength training articles as they did to run a marathon. Traditional strength training articles and their format were totally unappealing. Then something happened that changed all that. We started seeing articles that spoke of percentages, periodization, restoration and other alien terms. These articles had taken strength training technology that was new to the West and adapted it to bodybuilding.
Ironically, this technology didn't come to us via powerlifting. It was brought to us by East European track and field coaches. Tudor Bompa, the Romanian strength coach (now resident of the US), was perhaps the pioneer of this approach. We were now seeing routines that categorized our training into microcycles, mesocycles and macrocycles. More recently, adaptations from Olympic lifting theory have started popping up in bodybuilding and powerlifting articles.
At long last, these routines offered that special something that muscleheads had been longing for: a workout that told them exactly what to do! Sets, reps and weights were clearly laid out and easily calculated; instinctive training was now pass?. Not a bad thing really, considering most novices have the same kind of "instinct" that makes whales swim in Japanese waters.
This new movement toward scientific training led us to two very obvious conclusions:
• The bodybuilding public had been starved of quality training information.
• They also wanted a system that took all the guess work out of achieving their goals. The more intricate the details it gave them, the better it would be (even if it told them how many times to chew their food!)
Intensity for Immensity?
Today, an old argument is beginning to rage again, only this time, both sides are heavily armed with sci-fi info. The debate centers around which training methodology is better for building muscle, high intensity training or periodization (cyclic variation of training intensity and volume). Evidence on both sides is very complex; however, I feel that common sense and empirical evidence lean toward periodization. (Sorry, Mr. Mentzer.)
Major contributions in this area have come from Drs. Tudor Bompa, Yuri Verkhoshansky and Mel Siff, all of whom support the philosophy of mapping out your entire competitive training career. These guys have presented the facts; however, those facts have been open to some pretty varied interpretation.
Scientific facts that have already been identified include mechanisms of muscle growth, mechanisms of catabolism, and factors that lead to increased strength. It's not the intention of this article to go over these facts, as the above-mentioned gentlemen have all produced excellent pieces of work in this department. Also, my experience from coaching and doing many seminars is that when you confront the average athlete with this kind of info, they usually start dribbling, developing nervous ticks, or rolling their eyes in the back of their head.
Simply put, all but the most hardcore or curious of athletes are interested in this kind of information. In fact, it's my observation that often times when you bombard an athlete with high tech information, they tend to miss the more critical points in the whole picture. Occasionally, because of the nature of my articles, it'll still be necessary to back up a recommendation with some science.
I mentioned earlier about how some have chosen to interpret the findings of the experts. In many instances, the motives are commercial. In others, it's through oversimplification of the findings or not making any allowances for variables. Think for a minute about the amount of technology behind motor racing (Nascar or Formula One), the money involved, how long it's been going and the individual expertise in the pits. Yet with all this behind it, it's often just the opinion of the driver that decides what works and what doesn't. Such is often the nature of strength training.
If we could unravel all the mysteries of human performance and adaptation that easily, I feel sure that we would've found the answer to at least one of man's more serious concerns along the way. Consider the known facts as the border pieces of a very large jigsaw puzzle, one that takes a long time to put together. After putting it together several times, all that time amounts to a lot of experience. The combination of known facts (constants) and experience is surely the most accurate way of addressing any challenge, including getting bigger and stronger.
Constants and variables
The term "variables" should lodge firmly in your brain. These are the things for which allowances are seldom made, and thus probably account for the downfalls of most routines that simply "looked good on paper".
Below, I've listed several factors that should be taken into account when we review the evidence presented in various studies:
• Most studies use previously untrained individuals. You don't have to be an Einstein to figure out that, in many instances, these results could be totally irrelevant. Most beginners improve fast, no matter what training regime is employed. Their gains are more closely linked to improved coordination and various other neural factors. A lower percentage of muscle fiber recruitment, due to the previously mentioned neural components, will result in improved recuperation and adaptation.
• The training regimens employed are often inadequate. In fact, they're bloody laughable when compared with the regimens that would be put together by an experienced strength coach.
• Often times, age and gender differences aren't taken into account. In general, men recover faster than women and younger athletes recover faster than older ones.
• Comparisons between high intensity and high volume training regimens, that look at the impact on body-fat levels and hormonal adaptation, are often made using runners as test subjects. Although there's some common ground, this isn't a good base from which to start drawing conclusions on resistance training protocols.
• Those studies that didn't use previously untrained individuals usually use the extreme opposite: elite level competitive strength athletes. This can be as deceptive as using untrained individuals as there are even more variables with this level of athlete. Some of these may not be taken into account; others are simply not mentioned for ethical reasons.
That last point brings us nicely to where my contribution will begin. I'd find it very hard to believe that all of the researchers failed to recognize the influence of drugs and nutrition on the results of their studies. Sure, I readily accept that the majority would fail entirely to make any connection. The problem is that many of the more "involved" researchers work for universities, medical institutions or sports teams. Some hold a position in the governing body of a sport. It goes without saying that these guys would have the career prospects of a blind guide dog if they ever once opened that Pandora's box. Unfortunately, this area needs addressing if we are to come up with the definitive blueprint for success. Ask yourself the following questions:
1. When I first started on steroids, did they make any difference in the results I got from my training routine?
2. Do different steroids, dosages or patterns of use influence my results in different ways?
3. Would my post-steroid training routine (i.e. between cycles) be exactly the same as that of someone who's never used steroids?
4. Are steroids likely to have any effect on my recuperative abilities?
5. As many experts mention hormonal adaptation, are steroids likely to alter this process?
In reality, the list could go on and on, but I think I've already demonstrated my point. The subject of nutrition also needs to be addressed, this being as much a hot bed of contention as training theory. These areas, of course, are interrelated. Consider, for example, the implications of improved protein synthesis on recuperation.
If steroids improve protein synthesis, then surely this will allow us to make adjustments to our training workloads that could, for example, dramatically influence the supercompensation process. However, this will still depend on us consuming adequate quality protein in the first place. So you see, there's a definite synergy between training, nutrition and drugs. Although, as I've mentioned, there've been some major contributions to training technology, the degree to which the researchers have touched on the other two factors has been quite shallow and noncommittal. Because of this synergy, it stands to reason that drug and nutritional strategies should also be cycled for optimum results.
Trilateral Periodization
By now, many of you have become familiar with my views on steroid cycling (refer back to my S-Files articles on cycle construction). The cycles that I develop are based on scientific constants combined with my observations and health considerations. This last point is critical, as impaired health leads to impaired results.
Over the years, I've developed a system that I employ with all of my lifters. I call this system Trilateral Periodization, in recognition of the need for a three sided, inter-relational approach to cycling. My training and nutritional protocols are based on the same three factors as my drug cycles.
I'm both an "ergogenic engineer" and a strength coach, but I admit that I'm not a scientist. I wouldn't insult the intelligence of those who've put themselves through years of study in subjects like exercise physiology by claiming to be one. Indeed, I'd often put into practice the theories of experts like Tom Fahey, who I viewed as being way ahead of his time due to his "real world" ideas. I do, however, consider myself scientific and I believe that, in order for a coach to be responsible, it's imperative that he maintain an open minded attitude by keeping his finger on the pulse.
Unfortunately, I've encountered many coaches who can't handle this challenge to their egos. It's also fair to point out that performance enhancement is a science in itself, one that encompasses the principles of several sciences. Expertise in any one field won't be enough to address the whole challenge.
Over the next few articles, I'll detail the principles behind Trilateral Periodization, in much the same format used in my articles on cycle construction. I'll also put forward my beliefs and observations on subjects like exercise selection, protein requirements, the use of negatives and restoration. Where necessary, I'll cover the variables, thereby enabling you to make your own adaptations.
Then I won't have to worry about finding pictures of Ian's hairy Australian ass in my mailbox!
