The Evil Russian Speaks by Chris Shugart

[hermanchauw]

Read this:

Part 1
www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=151russ

Part 2
www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=CE28C020AAA437A4C0DE55C552836C5C.titan?id=460502

[liuzg150181]

Great articles(all the three articles),really thx for it~~~
However i particularly like this one,as it is more catered to Martial art stuff:

T: Interesting. What can you offer bodybuilders?

Pavel: I can show them how to get stronger immediately by training their nervous systems. The best bodybuilders, when you think of Ronnie Coleman, Dorian Yates, or Arnold, they¡¦re very strong. Even if you don¡¦t feel like getting strong for the hell of it, you do not get the muscle density and muscle tone without heavy training. Besides, when you are stronger you are able to use more weight in your bodybuilding exercises. Will you make better gains curling 95 ten times or 115 ten times? It¡¦s a no-brainer.

T: Okay, so how are you going to accomplish this?

Pavel: Through various neurological phenomena. Let me show you something, Chris. Squeeze my hand.

T: Okay.

Pavel: Now, tighten your abs, squeeze your glutes and crush my hand again. . Okay, what¡¦s the difference?

T: Did I squeeze your hand harder the second time?

Pavel: Much harder. It seems preposterous to a bodybuilder that clenching your cheeks and bracing your abs will strengthen your grip, but that¡¦s the way your body works. What I teach is just the opposite of isolation. Isolation is impossible anyway. There is something called irradiation.

Make a fist, Chris, a tight, white-knuckle fist. Notice how the tension spreads into your biceps, shoulder and chest. So whenever the load is meaningful, the tension will spread elsewhere. It¡¦s going to happen. If you try to fight it, you¡¦ll only hurt yourself.

Quotable Dr. Ken Leistner compared a bodybuilder to "a collection of body parts". That¡¦s really the problem. Used to "isolating" and doing exercising sitting and lying down, they have no knack of integrating their body as a unit. These guys walking around the Arnold Classic may be able to bench press 400 pounds, but most can¡¦t tackle a hundred pound metal ball, like one of my kettlebells. Some can¡¦t even clean it to their shoulders and most can¡¦t press it overhead, at least not without horrendous back bending. They just don¡¦t have the core strength and they can¡¦t integrate their whole body in the act.

Only by using those Malibu Ken and Barbie weights can you truly isolate. So you might as well decide to use your core muscles, brace your abs and your glutes and go the anti-isolation route. Bodybuilders may think that will take away from the contraction of the target muscle. We have just demonstrated with the grip test that this is not the case. Whenever you intelligently contract other muscles ¡X your glutes, your abs, your diaphragm, and if you¡¦re working the upper body, your grip ¡X you automatically increase the intensity of the contraction of the target muscles.

"tightening the abs, squeezing your glutes" is one of the techniques used in power generation in sancheen/sanchin stance in karate(from goju-ryu derivative,including kyokushin karate,actually came from fujian boxing.)

: Tell us about breathing and training.

Pavel: Russian scientists have studied the so-called pneumo-muscular reflex. Here¡¦s how this reflex works. Think of your muscles as loud speakers. Think of your brain as the CD player. The volume control is located in the abdominal cavity. These special baroreceptors sense the pressure. Whenever the intra-abdominal pressure goes up, it¡¦s like turning up the volume in your stereo and vice versa. So no matter how hard you¡¦re trying, if you decrease the intra-abdominal pressure you¡¦ll be immediately weaker.

When I teach people to do the splits, I teach them to minimize intra-abdominal pressure with a sigh of relief. But for strength you want to maximize the intra-abdominal pressure, that is , if you do not have a heart trouble or high-blood pressure. One reason why some martial artists exhibit such tremendous power is because they understand the importance of intra-abdominal pressure. They have a different way of putting it, but that¡¦s what they do. The loud "Kiai!" that you make when you strike the target increases the pressure in the abdomen and immediately amplifies the power. This is how a 130 pound man could strike with the force of a heavyweight boxer.

When I started arm wrestling, I was told by a professional in the sport, "Don¡¦t let me hear you breathe." This is because the moment you exhale, you¡¦ll get beat. Arm wrestling, by the way, is a very sophisticated sport in terms of incorporating all these techniques of using the body efficiently.

As Marty O¡¦Neal, one of the top arm wrestlers in the Midwest, said, all of us have been beaten by somebody who doesn¡¦t look like anybody. In arm wrestling you find that more than in any other sport because these people really understand how to tap into their hidden reserves and use their muscle software.

T: How can we modify this karate breathing and apply it to weight training?

Pavel: You have to learn to maximize this internal pressure but time it with exertion, in martial arts lingo, "match the breath with the force." One way of doing this is to pull up the rectal sphincter to increase the pressure further, take a normal breath ¡X 75% of maximal breath is usually recommended by Russian scientists ¡X and then you expel the air at really high pressure with your teeth pressed against your tongue: "ts-ts-ts!" Make sure not to release all your air, you need it to protect your back and joints.

In some exercises you have to modify this. For example, in the bench press your rib cage would sink in, your shoulders would come up, and you would die about three inches off your chest. So in the bench, you wait until you reach your sticking point and then power breathe. In squats and deadlifts, of course, you have to hold your breath because you can¡¦t afford to lose the air; you need to stabilize your spine. If you are really hard-core you may apply a highly sophisticated "reversed breathing" technique to your squats and deads. If you are interested, pick up an April 2001 copy of Powerlifting USA.

Again,i think it is referring to sanchin stance related katas,such as sanchin and tencho kata,they are very slow breathing katas and utilizes abdominal breathing~~~
Teeth pressed against tongue,qigong also does that,though they say it connects the 'ren' and 'du' meridian lines~~~

[jonathan]

Thus speaketh Pavel!