# Westside and Conjugate Periodization Part II



## Trendkill (Sep 19, 2022)

Louie was heavily influenced by the Soviet Dynamo Club and the researchers and scientists that helped build the Soviet’s into the weightlifting juggernaut of the 60s, 70s and 80s. The group focused on developing dozens of variations of the classic Olympic lifts to they could be trained for frequently without plateauing or burning out. The Dynamo club’s most famous lifter was Vasily Alekseyev who was a two time Olympic gold medalist at SHW and the first man to clean and jerk 500lbs, coincidentally in Lou’s hometown of Columbus, OH. The Russians viewed sport as a way to attempt to showcase their political and cultural dominance and they poured massive amounts of money and resources into building the strongest athletes across many sports. The scientists employed by the Soviet’s to build their programs wrote several books about strength training. Some of the more famous ones include “Science and Practice of Strength Training” by V. Zatsiorsky, “Special Strength Training” by Yuri Verkoshansky, “Management of the Weightlifter” by N.P. Laputin, “A System of Multi-Year Training in Weightlifting” by A.S. Medvedyev and the notes and journals of Soviet lifting coach A.S. Prilepin. The later is most recognized for his famous table which outlines the ideal number of sets and reps for a particular intensity level. He developed the chart after analyzing the training journals of elite Soviet lifters over a period of several years:


*Percentage of 1RM*​*Reps/Sets*​*Optimal*​*Total Range*​55-65​3-6​24​18-30​70-80​3-6​18​12-24​80-90​2-4​15​10-20​90+​1-2​4​10​


Lou was also fascinated with the Bulgarian weightlifting program of the same time period that launched that little country on the path to becoming a weightlifting superpower. The Bulgarians spent money on their program the way other countries do on infrastructure. Boys were monitored and recruited into the national weightlifting program around the age of 9-10. Coach Ivan Abadjiev developed a system of, quite simply, maxing out all the time. 4-5 times a week and sometimes more the Bulgarian lifters were maxing out in the clean and jerk, snatch, front squat and 4-5 other exercises closely related to the Olympic lifts. This system’s most famous lifter was 7 time world champion and 3 time Olympic champion Naim Süleymanoğlu aka the “Pocket Hercules”. He stood a whopping 4’10” and recorded best lifts of 336 snatch (WR in 1988), 419 clean and jerk (WR in 1998) and total of 755 (WR in 1988). Their will be a spelling test at the end of this section so practice your Alekseyev, Zatsiorsky and Süleymanoğlu spellings frequently.

Lou’s third big influence was the original Westside Barbell Club in Culver City, CA. This was home to guys like Bill “Peanuts” West, George Frenn, the first man to squat 800, and Pat Casey, the first to bench 600. These guys wrote articles in Muscle and Power magazine and this is where Lou picked up on the use of the box squat, heavy partial lifts and other now common powerlifting training methods.

Since there were no powerlifting books, research or other resources at the time Lou poured through all these Soviet and Bulgarian books and training journals along with the stuff he learned in the American muscle magazines and started experimenting using a mixture of these methods on himself and the other lifters training at his gym and adapted them to powerlifting. As you begin your journey with the conjugate system it’s important to understand some key concepts and terminology to better understand the why Lou built the system the way he did and what each component of the system is designed to accomplish. I will cover this in detail in Part III in my next post.


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## Slabiathan (Sep 19, 2022)

Awesome! Looking forward to the next one! Thanks, Trend!


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## BrotherIron (Sep 20, 2022)

The "butcher" Ivan Abadjiev as he was called for the number of athletes, he crippled to make his Oly team that swept the world like a plague in the 80's isn't someone I would encourage anyone to follow when it comes to training methods. His undulating daily maxes (work up in waves) will leave your broken, crippled, and disheartened.

He went through 1000's of lifters to get his team of 13. Did he get results, sure... no one can argue that but at what expense? IOC changed the weight classes to wipe his lifters records off the books.  He was also known for his big-time drug use which still didn't allow his athletes to have long lived careers. 

I would encourage you to steer clear of the Butcher's methods and instead follow the Russian system (which was made up of many lifts) to build a strong foundation that will leave your fortified instead of fractured and fragmented.


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## Yano (Sep 20, 2022)

This is freaking awesome man , I'm definitely not the member of the family that needs to write a book.


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## Trendkill (Sep 20, 2022)

BrotherIron said:


> The "butcher" Ivan Abadjiev as he was called for the number of athletes, he crippled to make his Oly team that swept the world like a plague in the 80's isn't someone I would encourage anyone to follow when it comes to training methods. His undulating daily maxes (work up in waves) will leave your broken, crippled, and disheartened.
> 
> He went through 1000's of lifters to get his team of 13. Did he get results, sure... no one can argue that but at what expense? IOC changed the weight classes to wipe his lifters records off the books.  He was also known for his big-time drug use which still didn't allow his athletes to have long lived careers.
> 
> I would encourage you to steer clear of the Butcher's methods and instead follow the Russian system (which was made up of many lifts) to build a strong foundation that will leave your fortified instead of fractured and fragmented.


Lou realized this as well which is why the max effort lifts are only performed once for bench and once for sq/dl on a weekly basis. Daily, like you referenced for the butcher, can and would cripple people. Abadjiev would have them max in the morning 5 days a week and in the evening 3 days per week. Totally nuts.


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## Thewall (Sep 20, 2022)

Great stuff trend. I remember reading a lot of those books you mentioned, trying to grasp the correlation between them and west side.


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## BrotherIron (Sep 20, 2022)

Trendkill said:


> Lou realized this as well which is why the max effort lifts are only performed once for bench and once for sq/dl on a weekly basis. Daily, like you referenced for the butcher, can and would cripple people. Abadjiev would have them max in the morning 5 days a week and in the evening 3 days per week. Totally nuts.



It's not nuts in the sense that they went from last to first in only a decade. He did this to elevate the country's standing quickly, but he was a cold, ruthless coach who knew he was crippling his athletes and didn't care. You also have to remember that those athletes had the best of everything as long as they performed. Their families were also taken care of so they would kill themselves to win. The shit thing is as soon as they were unable to, they were thrown back on the streets and other lifters were brought in.


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