More Low Rep Advantages

By Pavel Tsatsouline

Wexaggerated dangers of low

imps like squawking about the

repetition heavy training and love pitching a high rep Barbie and Ken workout as the safe alternative. Wrong. Heavy low rep training is the safest way to lift. No, I have not been hit on the head a few times too many in the Soviet military. I will give you at least three reasons why heavy training with up to five reps is much safer than lifting a light weight many times. First, the stabilizing muscles are prematurely fatigued during high-rep setsanything over five in my book. Take the squat (please!). Although your legs are error and are forced to do everything they doing the job of hoisting the load, your can to maximize safety. Dr. Joseph back muscles have to work fulltime to sta- Horrigan who has treated many sports bilize the spine in a proper alignment. Your injuries in the Los Angeles area observed quads, gluts and hammies get to contract that bodybuilderswho generally train to and relax like pistons and thus pump fresh failuresuffer from a lot more pec tears blood through them. Your lower back, on than power lifters, although the latter the other hand, stays locked from the first bench a lot heavier. to the last rep and will unavoidably die first. If you take the hint and do no more Once your back gives outyou are toast! than five reps, the involved muscles get One strength training authority who cru- fatigued at about the same rate. When the sades for 15 to 50 rep squats and dead lifts set takes only 15 to 20 seconds to complete, as a safer form of training has a list of you are forced to rack the weight for reainjuries worthy of a Purple Heart; torn knee sons other than compromised circulation. menisci, multiple pec tears, rotator cuff In the example of the squat your back and tears, an arm fracture other stabilizing muscles will not bail out Contrary to what the public thinks, on you just when you needed Most serious injuries occur durthem most. ingfatigued The second reason for the states and from superior safety of low rep moving out of heavy training is concentraposition, and not tion. When you do someduring maximum thing five versus 25-times it (1RM) attempts, is a lot easier to keep your as top US strength mind on the task at hand. experts, Drs. Stone Besides, heavy weights and OBryant, like to command high respect point out. Power while light ones do not. lifters have a saying Third, lifting heavy that five is the most weights allows you to reps God intended for develop awesome a power lifter to do. strength without trainNot because, as one ing failure. I have smart alek said, they explained this point in cannot count higher the last chapter. You than five. Because with must agree that taking the monster loads they ission a weight that you rm e /p dw Reprinte lications, Inc. are handling they have a could lift six times b u P r o Do Dragon very narrow margin for the six rep max, or 6
38 Close Quarter Combat Magazine

RMand lifting it only five times is a lot safer than cranking out 10 reps with a 10RM load! A better quality of life delivered by low rep weight training is nothing to sniff at either. I do three sets of 10 to 20 reps on all of my exercises, a martial artist asked me once in a magazine, and I get so sore and tired, that I have no energy left for my martial arts practice! No wonder. It is well documented in the former Soviet Union by Roman and other scientists that repetitions in excess of five, and especially 10, make one a lot more sore and systemically fatigued than three to five rep sets. Heavy training, if not overdone, even energizes you! Low rep heavy work, for example three sets of three reps at 90 percent of the athletes maximum (3x3@90%1RM), is often employed by Russian coaches to produce a tonic effect on their athletes nervous systems. You can see why the old time strongman said that after a good workout he felt ready to battle for kingdom!
Pavel Tsatsouline, Master of Sports, is a former physical training instructor for Spetsnaz, the Soviet Special Forces, an articulate speaker, and an iconoclastic authority on flexibility and strength training. Pavel was nationally ranked in the Russian ethnic strength sport of kettle-bell lifting and holds a Soviet Physical Culture Institute degree in physiology and coaching. Tsatsouline has authored Beyond Stretching, Beyond Crunches, and Power to the People. For more information visit www.dragondoor.com or email pavelizer@aol.com