Strength Training: Rethinking Everything We Thought We Knew?

[Cosmos]

Since I have tried quite a bit of strength training and used various methods, and also sort of educated myself on what the smartest and best ways of training might be, quite a bit (with all the context included, like good diet, reducing stress, etc), I kept noticing something:

There seem to be people out there who seem to exhibit enormous amounts of strength while they usually don't look all that "big" and excessively muscular at the same time, nor does it look like they are using any illegal/dangerous enhancers. Further, I noticed that they rather commonly seemed to have a similar background: coming from a former Soviet Union state and/or states that were close to it in some way or the other. What follows are just two examples.

Here is one famous example and three shorts. A man that originates from Ukraine, I think. His Western name is Anatoly:

And here is a "skinny" (Russian?) woman, effortlessly beating a very well-trained Western man:

In my research and discovery tour of various methods, including trying to find out what people like Anantoly are actually doing/training, I started to think that "less is more" quite a while ago, and it seemed to me to be one key, and doing what you do smartly as well. But what follows puts many things that I thought I knew on its head while also incorporating "doing less" in quite another way.

Anyway, today I came across a video that pretty much seems to demolish almost every key principle that I thought I knew about strength training. The principles described in this video sound so unique and new to me that I'm very intrigued, and it actually sounds like it could indeed work:

Here is the text of the video:

This Soviet training method helped millions of soldiers complete 100 push-ups per set. Not per day, per set. I know this sounds impossible if you're stuck at 20 right now, but don't worry. The Soviets figured out a system that works even if you've never done a single push-up in your life. In this video, I'm going to show you the exact Soviet method that takes you from wherever you are now to 100 reps per set in less than 10 weeks. Plus, I'm going to give you an extra trick that was surprising to me, that no one knows about.

Before we start, I want you to test your max push-ups and then write that number down. This is how many you can do in one set to failure. We'll need that number for an exercise at the end of the video. So, if you want to do a lot of push-ups, it's very important to know there's a downside to doing them that almost everyone overlooks. Remember that number you wrote down? Well, in 10 weeks, you'll be doing guaranteed 100% reps per set, but your shoulders will hurt and your lower back will break when you don't listen carefully now. Okay?

So, the Soviet method uses a technique called "Greasing the Groove". It makes your nervous system incredibly good at any movement you practice repeatedly. Think about your handwriting. If you learn to write a letter the wrong way as a kid and nobody corrected it, you'd still write it wrong today. Your brain made that pattern permanent through repetition. And the problem is, your brain doesn't care if you're practicing good form or terrible form with your push-ups. It just gets better at whatever pattern you keep feeding it.

If you do 100 push-ups every day, but your lower back sags towards the floor, you're not building strength, you're building back pain. After 3 months of practicing bad form, especially at high volume, you'll be amazing at hurting yourself. This is why the Soviet coaches had one rule. Don't stop your set when your muscles start burning. Stop your set the exact moment your form gets even a little worse.

If your hip drops slightly, that set is over. Quality matters more than quantity when you're programming your nervous system. You can do this quick test to find out if you're doing the perfect push-up. Imagine someone laid a broomstick along your spine. It should touch your head, your upper back, and your butt at all times. If any of those three points lose contact, your form is not perfect yet. Now that you understand what not to do, let's talk about what the Soviets actually did to hit 100 push-ups per set.

The Soviet approach sounds almost too simple to work. They spread their training across the entire day. Instead of one brutal workout, they did 10 short sets from morning to night. One set after waking up, one mid morning, one before lunch, and so on. Each set was only 10 reps. Never hard, never tiring, just consistent, perfect movement. I know what you're thinking now. I don't want to do 10 sets with 10 reps each. I want 100 reps in one set. That's you. That's what you sound like. Relax for a minute and keep watching.

I'll explain it in a second. Then you'll understand why I mentioned this. By the end of the day, they hit 100 total reps without ever feeling destroyed. Their bodies didn't register it as hard training. It became normal movement, like walking or breathing. And that's one key point. When something becomes normal to your nervous system, you get incredibly good at it. There's a famous principle in neuroscience called "HEBB'S law". Neurons that fire together wire together.

Every time you do a push-up without fatigue, those nerve pathways get stronger and faster. Your brain builds highways for that exact movement pattern. [snorts] But this only works when you stay fresh. Tired practice creates messy signals. Perfect practice creates clean patterns. After 3 months of this, your nervous system knows how to do push-ups so well that 100 push-ups in a row will feel like nothing. Now comes the most interesting part.

How do we apply this correctly for your daily life? So, you can reach 100 reps a set as fast as possible. Well, remember that number you wrote down at the beginning, your maximum push-ups. Let's say it's 20. Whatever it is, here's what you're going to do. Take 50% of that number. If your max is 20, 50% is 10. Keep this new number in your mind or write it down. For the next 6 days, you're going to do 10 sets of 10 push-ups throughout your day, not all at once. I would suggest using that schedule we talked about earlier.

10 sets of 10 is 100 total reps. That's four times more than your current max. Now, here's the most important part. You should never, under any circumstances, feel tired. You should never feel a burn in your muscles. You should never feel pumped or out of breath. When you finish each set, you should feel like you could immediately do the same number again if you wanted to. That's the signal you're in the right zone. And you have to do this six days per week. On the seventh day, take a complete rest so on the eighth day, you can rise like Jesus. Your body needs that recovery day to solidify all the neural patterns you built during the week.

And after 2 weeks, you need to test your max again. Do as many perfect push-ups as you can in one set, and I guarantee your number will be higher. Let's say it jumps from 20 to 40. Now, recalculate that 50%. And for the next two weeks, you do that new number 10 times per day. It's the same rules. And you keep repeating this cycle every two weeks to test your new max. Your working sets will gradually increase, but they always feel easy because they're always half of what you can actually do. After 3 months of this, your nervous system will have practiced over 5,000 perfect push-ups. Your body will stop seeing the push-up as hard. They'll become something you can just do. And when that happens, hitting 100 in one set won't even be a challenge. It will be your new normal. The protocol gives you a road map.

But now there's a simple physical technique that I mentioned in the beginning that the Soviets use which makes each rep stronger. Let me quickly show you what they did. It's called full-body tension. When you do a push-up, you're probably thinking only about your chest, shoulders, and arms, right? Well, the Soviets saw your body as one connected system, not separate parts. The interesting part is when you squeeze one muscle hard, the electrical signal doesn't stay in that muscle. It spreads to the neighboring muscles and makes
them fire harder as well.

So before you even start the push-up, you set up three tension points. First, your hands. Press them into the floor hard as if you want to rip it apart. Imagine you are opening two big jars, one with each hand. Gently twist your palms outward without letting them slide. This creates tension in your forearms up to your shoulders and across your upper back. Your shoulder blades become tight and stable. Second is your core. You take a breath and you brace your stomach like someone's about to punch you. Not sucking in, not pushing out, just creating a solid wall. You keep your ribs pulled down, not flared up towards the ceiling. And this connects your upper body to your lower body. Without this, your two separate pieces. And with this, you're one solid structure. Arguably most important is your glutes. I want you to squeeze them as hard as you can. Clench them together like you're trying to crack the subscribe button between them.

By the way, tell me in the comments if you've ever done that before. Now, here's the key. You don't do these three things one at a time. You activate all three at once before you even move. Grip, brace, squeeze, all at the same time. Then you do the push-up while maintaining all three tensions throughout the entire set. Your hands stay active. Your core stays braced. Your glutes stay squeezed beginning to end. The first time you try this, it's going to feel hard. You're going to use way more muscle than you're used to, which basically also means you're building more muscle in your entire body. Your whole body will feel tight and engaged. And after three or four reps, it will shift.

You'll notice that your form stays cleaner, your reps feel more controlled, and because your form isn't breaking down, you can keep going longer as usual. This is what the Soviets meant by turning the body into a machine. Every part is working together. A very important thing to understand is this technique gives you an instant boost in performance. You can try it on your very next set and will feel the difference immediately, but it's not a replacement for the training protocol we covered earlier. You'll still need the 6-day cycle. This is the amplifier, not the source.

Try it right now if you want, and let me know your push-up max in the comment section down below. The Soviets also had massive shoulders, which is basically a must for a lean physique. To find out how they did it, click the video on the screen. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.

I wouldn't be surprised if one reason why people like that Anatoly guy mentioned above are so strong is because they, in one way or another, incorporated the principles mentioned in that last video above. Perhaps they use remnants or similar methods as the Soviets?

One key difference in approach seems to be: the idea of getting "big" and/or "extremely muscular" in volume and/or weight vs. increasing functional strength. One key to the Soviet system and perhaps what sets people like the above apart is how they train and what they are training for and/or accomplishing: functional strength vs. getting "big" and/or "extremely muscular" in volume and/or weight. In fact, I can only think of two possible benefits of such a "get big" approach over a "get strong, functionally" approach.

Other than that, I can find only negative aspects in the "get big" ideas, such as carrying unnecessary weight around while actually being much less fit, strong, and functional in almost every area.

Currently I have started another approach that I will try to do for a while, and I also don't really have the time and means currently to do something like is mentioned above in the last video. But it intrigues me so much that I think that I will at least at some point try it out for a good amount of time.

The guy has a number of other videos that go into similar directions, mostly talking about Soviet methods. While other videos of his seem to "contradict" what is said in the above. My suspicion is that it doesn't contradict what is said above, but rather, if you try to train in order to "get big" optically, you actually need to use some, if not many, of the usual principles everyone knows about. But why would you need that, actually?

It would be cool if someone here could try such a method out and tell us how it goes. I would like to know things like: Are you reaching the usual strength plateaus? Do you need to switch or vary things at a certain point, as is usually the case? Or are you staying quite good (or even above average) at push-ups even if you just do that for longer than the suggested times?

I'm also thinking that there might be ways to make a protocol like the above (or rather the principles) even more efficient to maybe be able to train not only getting good at push-ups but quite a number of other areas as well? I don't know; if done smartly and perhaps using the right exercises, you could perhaps train a lot more in different areas at the same time with those "easy" methods/principles and reap many benefits at the same time? Or what happens if you do the above, let's say, for 3 months and then switch to another exercise that has another key area in focus for the next 3 months? Do you get similarly good at that new exercise? And what happens, for example, if you try the push-up exercise after you have finished that second different exercise? Are you still quite good at the push-ups (or even above average?) that you haven't trained for specifically for at least 3 months?

Maybe there is an exercise that incorporates not only the push-ups but other crucial movements in one go/movement, while at the same time you don't run the risk of getting tired in each set while being able to improve like described above, not only at push-ups but other things at the same time? A possible idea would be to find an "all-encompassing" movement that you can do in one set that "improves all major aspects" with the principles mentioned above while not needing to spend more time each day for each set. Would that be possible?

 

[latulipenoire]

Since I have tried quite a bit of strength training and used various methods, and also sort of educated myself on what the smartest and best ways of training might be, quite a bit (with all the context included, like good diet, reducing stress, etc), I kept noticing something:

There seem to be people out there who seem to exhibit enormous amounts of strength while they usually don't look all that "big" and excessively muscular at the same time, nor does it look like they are using any illegal/dangerous enhancers. Further, I noticed that they rather commonly seemed to have a similar background: coming from a former Soviet Union state and/or states that were close to it in some way or the other. What follows are just two examples.

Here is one famous example and three shorts. A man that originates from Ukraine, I think. His Western name is Anatoly:

And here is a "skinny" (Russian?) woman, effortlessly beating a very well-trained Western man:

In my research and discovery tour of various methods, including trying to find out what people like Anantoly are actually doing/training, I started to think that "less is more" quite a while ago, and it seemed to me to be one key, and doing what you do smartly as well. But what follows puts many things that I thought I knew on its head while also incorporating "doing less" in quite another way.

Anyway, today I came across a video that pretty much seems to demolish almost every key principle that I thought I knew about strength training. The principles described in this video sound so unique and new to me that I'm very intrigued, and it actually sounds like it could indeed work:

Here is the text of the video:



I wouldn't be surprised if one reason why people like that Anatoly guy mentioned above are so strong is because they, in one way or another, incorporated the principles mentioned in that last video above. Perhaps they use remnants or similar methods as the Soviets?

One key difference in approach seems to be: the idea of getting "big" and/or "extremely muscular" in volume and/or weight vs. increasing functional strength. One key to the Soviet system and perhaps what sets people like the above apart is how they train and what they are training for and/or accomplishing: functional strength vs. getting "big" and/or "extremely muscular" in volume and/or weight. In fact, I can only think of two possible benefits of such a "get big" approach over a "get strong, functionally" approach.

Other than that, I can find only negative aspects in the "get big" ideas, such as carrying unnecessary weight around while actually being much less fit, strong, and functional in almost every area.

Currently I have started another approach that I will try to do for a while, and I also don't really have the time and means currently to do something like is mentioned above in the last video. But it intrigues me so much that I think that I will at least at some point try it out for a good amount of time.

The guy has a number of other videos that go into similar directions, mostly talking about Soviet methods. While other videos of his seem to "contradict" what is said in the above. My suspicion is that it doesn't contradict what is said above, but rather, if you try to train in order to "get big" optically, you actually need to use some, if not many, of the usual principles everyone knows about. But why would you need that, actually?

It would be cool if someone here could try such a method out and tell us how it goes. I would like to know things like: Are you reaching the usual strength plateaus? Do you need to switch or vary things at a certain point, as is usually the case? Or are you staying quite good (or even above average) at push-ups even if you just do that for longer than the suggested times?

I'm also thinking that there might be ways to make a protocol like the above (or rather the principles) even more efficient to maybe be able to train not only getting good at push-ups but quite a number of other areas as well? I don't know; if done smartly and perhaps using the right exercises, you could perhaps train a lot more in different areas at the same time with those "easy" methods/principles and reap many benefits at the same time? Or what happens if you do the above, let's say, for 3 months and then switch to another exercise that has another key area in focus for the next 3 months? Do you get similarly good at that new exercise? And what happens, for example, if you try the push-up exercise after you have finished that second different exercise? Are you still quite good at the push-ups (or even above average?) that you haven't trained for specifically for at least 3 months?

Maybe there is an exercise that incorporates not only the push-ups but other crucial movements in one go/movement, while at the same time you don't run the risk of getting tired in each set while being able to improve like described above, not only at push-ups but other things at the same time? A possible idea would be to find an "all-encompassing" movement that you can do in one set that "improves all major aspects" with the principles mentioned above while not needing to spend more time each day for each set. Would that be possible?

Wow, thank you very much for all your research on this topic. As I age I'm constantly thinking about ways to stay fit and functional, and I use to watch Anatoly's videos and think that guy is some magician, that maybe his pranks are just as fictional as other influencers go...

 

[Carl]

It looks like a cool method and certainly would be worth trying, especially for things like pushups and pull-ups. Doing 500 pushups or deadlifting 300kg for 1 rep are both incredibly hard, but they are kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum of strength. One is almost pure "endurance", closer to cardio, and one is pure fast-twitch neuromuscular strength.

It's been widely known broscience for a long time that if you train super high weight with low volume you can get very strong without adding so much "bulk". Therefore the training methods for achieving each are different. So I wouldn't say it demolishes all known exercise science, just that it sounds like a great method for getting good at certain movements.

One note to add is that it is very common for fitness influencers to use fake weights to create viral videos, including Anatoly. If you look up his actual powerlifting record, he is a strong and decent lifter, but not quite the phenom that the vids with the fake weights make out. Additionally, for the most part, they absolutely are on dangerous enhancers, and in quantities much higher you'd think. There are a number of steroids, primarily the DHT-based ones, which are known to boost strength to a very high degree despite not packing on much size. This doesn't necessarily discount any method as being bad, it's just a "buyer beware".

 

[SOTTREADER]

10 sets spread out during the day with 10 reps each for 6 days * 10 weeks screams incredible discipline to me to maintain that schedule.

Discipline and consistency are really the secret ingredients.

 

[dredger]

Very interresting finding @Cosmos

I have to give a context first :
For 3 months now, i started the protocol of food supplements that the C's recommended in the session of 18 May 2024 (FYI, the discussion started from this post of Navigator in the "Health Protocol for Mandatory Coronavirus Vaccination" thread)

At the same time, i applied one recommandation i kept in mind since a long time, and now i better understand why i kept it in mind. This recommandation was that if you start to do something rigorously, then add other things to do at the same time. And as i was telling myself since a couple of years that i needed to do something for my body, i decided to add a couple of physical exercices.

So, since almost 3 months now, i'm doing a series of exercices each monday, wednesday and friday.
I start with a quick "taping" seance, exactly has the guy in the following clip (I even saved it on my PC) :

https://twitter.com/x/status/1975207966002344243

... then followed by 9 exercices with 6 of them coming from this video of a french physiotherapist who explains very well each exercice. I do each exercice 3x while circling between them. I also raised the number of movements from time to time when i feel it. About the push-ups, I started with 3x10 and today i just raised from 16 to 18 ... and then i felt on this new thread of Cosmos, what an odd !

I watched the video and ... well, it's tempting ! But it would require me to do it 6 days per week, so, I don't know yet, this period of the year is very busy at work and if i do it I have to find the time to do exactly as he recommends in the video (10x a day).

I take benefit of this post to add something i watched a couple of weeks before which is about the well known recommandation to stretch after doing exercices, and the guy was saying that it's not a good thing to do. He explained that stretching is good but should not be performed after exercicing but during another session and type of exercices more focussed on just doing stretching. I do not remember the detailed arguments he gave, just that he said that massaging one's muscles after exercising is the good option (if you want to do it, he did not say that it has to be done), but not stretching the muscles. I think the guy is right.

At least, if one has hard to start doing such exerice, think "MuCo", or Mutual Coaching. It's a term or an idea i had 1+ year before and i even wrote some kind of rules to follow somewhere in a file .... but the principle is simple : find a teammate and schedule a call (video/audio) each week the same day and hour, each one following the other on some targets or goals that the other decided to do ... or to try to do (and so, vice-versa). This will greatly help to achieve some goals one would have hard to achieve alone. I had this idea thinking about the forum and the community here, a way to help each other and also raise the general strenght of the community by creating solid link between members ... FWIW.

To come back to the method and the open question of Cosmos, i'll think about during the coming days and ... time will tell !

 

[Alejo]

One note to add is that it is very common for fitness influencers to use fake weights to create viral videos, including Anatoly. If you look up his actual powerlifting record, he is a strong and decent lifter, but not quite the phenom that the vids with the fake weights make out. Additionally, for the most part, they absolutely are on dangerous enhancers, and in quantities much higher you'd think. There are a number of steroids, primarily the DHT-based ones, which are known to boost strength to a very high degree despite not packing on much size. This doesn't necessarily discount any method as being bad, it's just a "buyer beware".

This is a good point, mostly because he's world famous and extremely recognizable, while I do not discount his method and strength, I always found it a bit suspicious how no one knows who he is at this stage specially if he shows up with the exact same act and outfit.

As for the soviet method, I'm curious about it, I'll look into it and see what I may be able to add to my routine. Which interestingly enough, is what has become of a lot of modalities that I've learned about over the years, some bits really work and get added or adapted to whatever works for me personally.

Sort of like diet, every body is different, but I do think the one common factor on all practices is the attempt to try new things, the commitment and discipline with the adequate mindset (and emotional stability), that ends up enhancing your health overall. So it isn't that one method works like a magic pill, I think it's more that your choice to improve your health through exploring and experimenting with different methods is what does the trick, IMHO.

Or like prayer, it isn't the reciting of a set of words, it's the choice to commune with something higher that does the trick.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Cosmos]

When it comes to that Anatoly guy I‘m pretty sure that he is really incredibly strong for his size and mass and much of what you see there is real. Yes, it could very well be that he is faking stuff from time to time to get more views especially the reactions of “huge“ people and perhaps sometimes using fake weights (but I would tend to think that isn’t what is happening most of the time). I saw the guy train outside of his channel uncut with really “huge“ and world class people that use enhancers on top of that and I don’t think anything was faked in there. In most cases (no matter the exercise) he could keep up with those “monsters“ easily and in certain exercises even outperform them quite a bit. I also know that he uses a method for training that is pretty different than what most people recommend and I think in essence at least partly it might come closer to some of the principles “the Soviets“ used.

Anyway, the point I try to get at is not really that Anatoly guy or that “russian“ woman.

They are just two more or less famous examples of the trend I seem to have noticed before finding the above video, as mentioned above: I came across quite a number of “Russian background“ people in my research who all seem to be quite above average fit and strong while usually they seem to workout quite differently from what everybody in the west nowadays would recommend and they don’t tend to look “huge“ or excessively muscular either at the same time.

So I began to suspect that what makes them so strong and fit might not only be possible inherent genetics, enhancers or faking things, but actually at least in part real things such as training quite differently and quite a bit smarter than the average western person.

Then I found the above video.

Maybe I can later summarize some of the key principles that are mentioned in the video because I find them so very interesting and intriguing, because in parts they highlight almost the exact opposite what everyone in the west would recommend or think is needed. In the quoted text from the video above you can find those things as well if you don’t want to watch.

Keep in mind though that a possible key here might be to get strong and fit in a functional way that could very well outperform most of what “very well trained“ and “huge“ people can do, while you probably stay rather light/lean and don’t add that much weight/volume in muscle mass that would look “huge“. At least that is how it seems to me for now.

I‘m really tempted to try it out. And I‘m even more curious if you could distill a number of things/principles out of the video there and create a new exercise routine that might be much more effective and less time/energy consuming while reaping similar if not better benefits than the usual western methods.

For example, maybe you wouldn’t even need to do the recommended thing 10 times a day, but quite a bit less and then still do better then in most other ways?

 

[Cosmos]

By the way, I find it funny and interesting that I thought about starting some of the key things mentioned in the video above without even knowing any of “the Soviet“ methods:

- Quite a while ago I told myself something like:

“I will train now really hard/smart for quite a while to build a good foundation and then afterwards I will quit that and just maintain good fitness/strength by just doing push-ups and other good exercises every time I can do it during a typical day as often as possible (without any fixed shedule) with fun and without much/any exhaustion (NOT overdoing it at all) in every such single set.“

That sounds pretty much like the same thing that is one important key principle mentioned in the video above.

 

[Matty F]

Thanks Cosmos for the thread. Without realising it I’ve been close to doing this soviet training. Due to busy life and shoulder/elbow issues I’ve been breaking down reps and doing pushups /pull-up through out the day. Mainly first thing in the morning and when I get home. I’ve noticed my strength and physic improve and I get reps without my body breaking down. The only thing i haven’t been doing is counting reps or keeping track. I just do it when I have a spare moment.

 

[Anthony]

There seem to be people out there who seem to exhibit enormous amounts of strength while they usually don't look all that "big" and excessively muscular at the same time, nor does it look like they are using any illegal/dangerous enhancers. Further, I noticed that they rather commonly seemed to have a similar background: coming from a former Soviet Union state and/or states that were close to it in some way or the other. What follows are just two examples.

This is because training for strength or size is correlated but it's not the same. You would adopt different training approaches depending on what your goal is.

Some (oversimplified) general pointers, just to point out the difference:

If training for strength, you'd generally keep your training volume around 4-10 sets per muscle group per week, you'd lift heavy weights and do low reps, you'd stop the sets well short of muscular failure, you'd train frequently throughout the week, the exercise selection would be about picking lifts that you want to get strong at, and rest as long as you need to in between sets to stay fresh.

If training for muscular size you'd do 10-20 sets per muscle per week, you wouldn't lift as heavy as when training for strength, meaning that your rep ranges would be higher, you'd rest less in between sets, you'd push closer to failure, etc.

I guess most people use the term strength to describe a general degree of physical or muscular capability, but it's actually about muscular force production, how much tension your muscles can generate. It's the ability to overcome or counteract external resistance through muscular action. Strength training involves neural adaptations, and the other part of the equation is what is called muscle cross sectional area/hypertrophy (increases in muscle size), meaning that the bigger a muscle is, the stronger it will be.

Strength adaptations are also not a singular thing. There are different kinds such as: absolute strength, explosive strength, speed strength, and strength endurance, etc. Depending on what you want to achieve, which strength quality you want to develop, you would adjust your training accordingly. For instance, if you're going after maximal strength, you would do heavy weight lifting. If you're going after strength endurance you would do high rep training.

Anyway, today I came across a video that pretty much seems to demolish almost every key principle that I thought I knew about strength training. The principles described in this video sound so unique and new to me that I'm very intrigued, and it actually sounds like it could indeed work:

So in the video, he's talking about "greasing the groove", it's nothing new or unique and it has a proven track record. The military uses this method for PT conditioning tests, and it was also popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline I believe. In the video, he's using it to get to 100 push-ups, meaning that it's for the specific adaptation of strength endurance (the ability to maintain muscular functioning under work conditions of long duration), not overall strength. If that's what someone wants to achieve, then I don't see why not use it, but there's nothing special about it and it has it's limitations (i.e. for exercises that require enormous relative strength).

Since you're brining it up in the context of functionality, I personally wouldn't bother with prioritizing strength endurance unless I was enrolling into the military or the police force, engaging in combat sports, or something similar. Most people these days work a desk job and I can't think of a activity where lifting something a 100 times or so is demanded of us. In other words, I don't see much functionality in it.

One key difference in approach seems to be: the idea of getting "big" and/or "extremely muscular" in volume and/or weight vs. increasing functional strength. One key to the Soviet system and perhaps what sets people like the above apart is how they train and what they are training for and/or accomplishing: functional strength vs. getting "big" and/or "extremely muscular" in volume and/or weight. In fact, I can only think of two possible benefits of such a "get big" approach over a "get strong, functionally" approach.

Other than that, I can find only negative aspects in the "get big" ideas, such as carrying unnecessary weight around while actually being much less fit, strong, and functional in almost every area.

From what I've read on the Soviet system, those are geared towards professional athletes and people with specific goal and those that compete professionally. Strength training is about specificity. For instance, if you take powerlifters, they aim to be strong in lifts they're competing in (bench, squat, deadlift), they're not aiming to build overall functionality, since that would actually hinder their performance.

If you want to read more about the Soviet stuff, there are books such as: Secrets of Soviet Sports Fitness and Training or Soviet Sport Methods. Also books by Pavel Tsatsouline that are more for the general population.

It's actually bodybuilders that develop functional strength overall since they aim to develop muscular size in all areas of the body. So if by functional strength you mean something that has the most carryover to performing daily activities, training more like a bodybuilder rather than a strength athlete would be better if you ask me. Or maybe combining pure strength training and hypertrophy training.

But overall, my take on training is that there are not many shortcuts or secrets, it takes consistency and putting in the time, finding out what works for you via trial end error. Some things will work for a period of time, and then they will stop working and you have to adjust. There is a lot of content out there that gets marketed as if they've discovered something new and that works across the board, but it's mostly just a sales pitch.

 

[Wandering Star]

My experience.

Y I started doing push-ups on the floor many years ago, and when I started I did two or three.

Just one set a day, doing the maximum number of repetitions until your arm gives out.

As I said, I started with 2 or 3 and the next day I was doing 5. After four or five days I was doing 10.

Well, now I'm staying at around forty or fifty and I don't go up more because sometimes I stop for a week or fifteen days.

I had a friend in my teens who was very, very strong and only did push-ups on the floor with his arms.

"Just do a series whenever you remember at home and that's it," he told me.

 

[Cosmos]

To come back to the method and the open question of Cosmos, i'll think about during the coming days and ... time will tell !

In case you are ending up trying out the mentioned method/principles it would be good to hear some updates on how you are doing during it and if you improve in a couple of weeks/months and how that experience compares to other things/methods you might have tried before on yourself.

 

[Cosmos]

One of the really interesting ideas mentioned and probably the most difficult at the beginning is full body tension (via the three helping methods he is describing) during the light workout in each set of the day.

One other very interesting idea is that what you are primarily trying to do is not really targeting the muscles per se but the nerve system of the whole body, in the hopes that different parts of the body work better and more efficient together, also via electricity.

And the next very interesting idea connected to the above is that it is actually almost totally counterproductive to make such a mentioned set in any way tiring or hurtful at any point: on muscles and breath for example BECAUSE it sends the exactly wrong signal that enabled neurons to fire and wire together, which is one key concept behind that idea it seems. The better things wire and fire together the stronger you get at least in certain movements, and that apparently only really happens quickly, smartly and efficiently if you actually feel as good and relaxed during and after the set as possible and quite possibly as happy and in good spirits during and afterwards as possible as well.

The other very interesting thing is that any type of “feeling pumped“ after a set is strongly discouraged, as well as feeling that you are going anyway even close to the maximum.

Further it is very interesting that keeping the right/perfect form during an exercise is so absolutely crucial and that you should never ever continue on, even if your form starts to get worse just a little. Form getting worse is a serious signal to stop right away.

It is also interesting that the above methods seem to also largely revolve around the idea that you start to get much better aware of your body and trying to make it work in unison rather than in separate parts.

As you can see, just mentioning a couple of the points in the video already seem to go against many of the common (western?) wisdoms of what you should do when you train.

 

[KJS]

Great discussion! I was recently experimenting with AI for my genetic‑trait analysis on MyHeritage data, and it looks like even in the strength‑training aspect, things vary a lot from individual to individual. If anyone is interested, below is the summarization of results I got. What’s interesting is that I was always training in the 8–12 rep range, which seems to be the type of training my body is naturally adapted to, yielding no results, even with slight progressive overload. So it looks like one needs to explore more subjectively extreme types of training for growth.

Genetic Profile
Key Markers:

• ACE II (rs4343 AA): Low angiotensin-converting enzyme activity results in predominance of Type I (slow-twitch) muscle fibers, superior cardiovascular efficiency, but reduced natural anabolic signaling for muscle growth. Requires stronger mechanical tension to trigger hypertrophy via mTORC1 pathway.
• PPARGC1A Gly/Gly (rs8192678): High mitochondrial biogenesis capacity enables exceptional aerobic performance, rapid ATP resynthesis, and superior fatigue resistance during high-volume training.
• COL1A1 GT (rs1800012): Moderate collagen structural integrity with elevated soft tissue injury risk (tendons, ligaments).
• COL5A1 CT (rs12722): Balanced collagen fibril regulation but lacks optimal tendon stiffness for extreme dynamic loads.
• MMP3 GG (rs679620): Efficient tissue remodeling but potential tendon destabilization under repeated heavy loads.

Program Assessment
PHAT Suitability: YES, with critical modifications.
Rationale:

• Power Days (3-5 reps at 80-90% 1RM) are physiologically essential to overcome ACE II-related resistance to hypertrophy by recruiting high-threshold motor units.
• Hypertrophy Days (high volume, short rest) perfectly match PPARGC1A capacity for metabolic work without systemic burnout.
• Risk Factor: Standard ballistic movements and heavy loads threaten weak collagen structures.

Critical Modifications
A. Eliminate Speed Work
Replace explosive movements (speed squats/benches) with pause/tempo work (2-second holds at bottom) to reduce peak tendon forces while maintaining mechanical tension.

B. Cap Intensity
Maximum RPE 8 (2 reps in reserve) on power days to prevent neural-driven "grinding" that outpaces connective tissue adaptation.

C. 4-Week Tendon Prep Phase
Slow eccentric training (4-second lowering phase) to stimulate fibroblast collagen production before full-intensity PHAT.

Modified Weekly Structure

[ Redacted full-body upper-lower split, with 3–6 rep "power" days and 10–20 "metabolic" days ]

Nutrigenomic Protocol

1. Collagen Loading: 15g hydrolyzed collagen + 500mg Vitamin C taken 45-60 minutes pre-workout to maximize tendon collagen synthesis during mechanical loading.
2. Caffeine Optimization: As CYP1A2 fast metabolizer, 3-5mg/kg bodyweight (200-300mg) consumed 30-45 minutes before Monday/Tuesday power sessions enhances motor unit recruitment.
3. Appetite Management: High protein intake (>2.2g/kg) with voluminous, low-density meals to counter FTO gene-related reduced satiety.

Conclusion

The paradox: "An endurance athlete's metabolism trying to build a bodybuilder's physique." PHAT is the optimal program because its hybrid structure provides the heavy mechanical stimulation ACE II genotypes require while leveraging PPARGC1A's capacity for high training volume. Without power days, hypertrophy stagnates; without volume days, metabolic advantages go unused. However, collagen vulnerabilities make structural protection paramount—pause work, tempo control, and collagen supplementation transform genetic liabilities into manageable variables.

 

[nature]

For example, maybe you wouldn’t even need to do the recommended thing 10 times a day, but quite a bit less and then still do better then in most other ways?

I've done an experiment with the HBOT but will not recommend it as I used a trick that can be risky. The result was incedible after 3 months: I was able to move, run, carrying heavy objects without noticing any difficulty, as if it was natural, I mean as if there were much less gravity. I lost all these benefits when the device exploded and I should have gone to 5D.

But I can share another russian method beside the one you share it here, a soft method, no risk, . It's the method exposed by Dr Arthur Rakhimov, with the training mask, among other:

Elevation Training Mask 2.0 Review: Increase Body Oxygen?

The Elevation Training Mask is a breathing device that is similar to military gas masks (version 1 of Training Mask). Version 2 or 2.0 is simpler since it

www.normalbreathing.com