Custom Training in The Face of Athletic Adaptation
By Mike Tuchscherer 07 March 2018
Many of us treat “what works for you” like a math problem and it’s not. If I ask you “What is 247*53”, you likely don’t know the answer right off the top of your head. But with a little calculation, you can pretty easily figure out that the answer is 13091. Now if I ask you again “what is 247*53”, you don’t need to go through the same steps. You just remember that the last time the answer worked out to be 13091 and assume it’s the same answer this time. And as long as you did the math right, that’s a good assumption to make. It saves you time.
Why I Don’t Use Prilepin’s Chart
By Mike Tuchscherer 28 February 2018
Bottom line up front: It wasn’t developed for Powerlifters and will have limited direct applicability. A much better way is to extract the useful information from it and apply the principles rather than the chart directly.
The Effect of Fatigue in Training
By Mike Tuchscherer 14 February 2018
Bottom line up front: measuring fatigue helps you make useful training choices, but will not help you to decide whether to go for a PR or not. Read more…
Should You Use Heavy Singles In Training?
by Mike Tuchscherer, 10 Jan 2018
In 2013 I met Boris Sheiko at a seminar he was conducting in Vicenza, Italy. It was quite an enjoyable time and we had several interesting conversations that day, particularly over lunch. I’m sure it’s no surprise and probably goes without saying that we generally agreed on most things coaching related. But one thing that we didn’t agree on was particularly interesting. He feels that working with 90%+ loads are especially taxing to the lifter. I do not. Coach Sheiko (or whoever runs his social media accounts) recently posted about his opinion, so I wanted to weigh in with mine.
Recovery and Training Throughput
by Mike Tuchscherer, 27 December 2017
Doing a lot of training volume doesn’t matter much if you can’t recover from it. It’s not about workload, but rather the workload that you can recover from. Now from there, we can spout generalities usually in one of two varieties. We can say, “Most people aren’t working hard enough, so most likely you shouldn’t worry about it and just work harder.” Or we can say, “Recovery is the critical factor. Better to under-train than over-train. So keep training on the conservative side.”
Deloading Effectively
by Mike Tuchscherer, 20 December 2017
Deloading is taking an easy week every third or fourth week, right? Well… That’s a caricature of what effective deloading looks like. In most standard cases, deload training is intended to reduce accumulated fatigue and facilitate adaptation to future training cycles.
Log Your Training!
by Mike Tuchscherer, 14 December 2017
Back in 2008, we had a training log app on the RTS website. For many reasons we had to shut it down and rebuild it. We relaunched it in 2016 and have been packing it with features ever since. What’s more, it’s free for anyone to use with any style of training you want.
How to Use RPE in Your Training *Correctly*
By Mike Tuchscherer, 5 December 2017
You may see people using the term “RPE” regarding their training, but not be sure what it’s all about. Or, more likely, you are one of the people who *thinks* you know what it’s about, but still make fundamental errors with it. No matter which one you are, or even if you do for sure get RPE training correct, hopefully you can learn something from this post.
What is “Squishing” in Powerlifting?
By Mike Tuchscherer, 14 November 2017
One of the general movement deficiencies I identify in the powerlifts is “squishing”, but a lot of people don’t know what I mean by this term. In powerlifting, you need to be solid and stable to effectively transmit force into the barbell without any leakage with maximum safety. “Squishing” is basically a failure to do that. It can look different in each lift, so let me explain in a bit more detail.
Correcting Max-Effort Technical Deviations
Correcting Max-Effort Technical Deviations
By Mike Tuchscherer, 10 September 2017
I’ve written before about why I think including assistance work is a good idea. And I do mean *assistance* work, not just supplemental work. And the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that this is the best way to develop strength over the long term.
Quick aside on exercise classification before we get started…
Competition Exercise: The exercise as it’s performed in competition. If you squat low-bar in competition, then high bar squats are not a competition exercise. If you wear a belt in competition, beltless work is not a competition exercise.
Assistance Exercise: Exercises that are very closely related to the competition exercise, but contain 1-2 small changes to give the lift a certain emphasis. Things like pause squats, deadlifts with chains, or board presses all fall into this category.
Supplemental Exercise: Exercises that train the same muscles, but not the same movements. Usually trained for higher reps as well. Exercises like lunges, military press, and good mornings fit into this category.