Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Nurudinov competes during the men’s 105kg weightlifting competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Bulgarian. In weightlifting circles, the very word conjures up images of stern men in singlets with shaggy hair and consonant-laden names hoisting barbells overhead again and again, day after day, in some torturous yet mysteriously effective program, and all while hidden away behind the Iron Curtain. In the ’70s and ’80s, when the Bulgaria weightlifting team dominated world competition, its unique training methods caused a sensation in the iron game that still reverberates today. What is the Bulgarian method, and can it be applied to bodybuilding?
IVAN’S INNOVATION
Meet Ivan Abadjiev. He’s 84 now, but back in 1957 he won Bulgaria’s first weightlifting medal. More important, he was Bulgaria’s weightlifting coach from 1968–89, when the small, poor country of fewer than nine million citizens dominated Olympic-style weightlifting. Whereas other programs avoided frequent work with low reps and focused on auxiliary exercises like high pulls, Abadjiev took the opposite approach. He believed the way to get better at an activity was to perform it over and over. This is called the law of specificity.
Weightlifting success is measured in competition by hoisting maximum weights overhead in two lifts—the snatch and the clean and jerk. So according to the law of specificity, to improve on those two lifts, you need to do them almost exclusively. Abadjiev added back squats or front squats to his program, but otherwise his athletes were practicing their lifts for low reps, often for singles, at near-maximum effort. And they were doing this with a seemingly crazy frequency—up to four workouts per day as often as six days per week. You’d think this would lead to a full-speed wall splat—utter physical and mental exhaustion. And yet the Bulgarians were thriving, rapidly growing stronger.
In fact, Abadjiev did cycle in light and heavy periods for his athletes. He also broke up monotony and upped intensity by regularly staging mock competitions, complete with full audiences. Nevertheless, the continuous repetitive grind of his program screams overtraining. This was avoided because of the regularity of the stress. Just as a swimmer adapts to constantly performing the same strokes or a boxer adapts to throwing the same blows, doing only two or three lifts again and again allows the body to more easily adapt. Furthermore, doing single reps triggered what is called protein memory, strengthening neurological pathways and causing adaptation in the muscle cells specifically for the act of doing increasingly heavier single reps.
BULGARIAN AND BODYBUILDING
Members of the Bulgarian weightlifting team had one job—Olympic-style weightlifting. They had the time and resources to work out four times a day. We assume you won’t be going to the gym more than once daily. Furthermore, unless you’re a competitive weightlifter, you’re unconcerned with how much metal you can raise overhead one time. In that sense, the chief goal of the Bulgarian method is antithetical to bodybuilding, which is all about stimulating growth in all muscles and not at all about single-rep strength in the snatch and the clean and jerk.
Still, the Bulgarian method has applications for muscle-making. First, it can be adapted to a program more conducive to growth. As in our sample routine at the end of this article, select four to six compound exercises that together hit most body parts. Keep your reps in the 8–12 range, and push sets to failure. Perform this same routine at least four times per week and continuously strive to use more weight or get more reps. Alternate one week of Bulgarian-style training with two weeks of a more traditional bodybuilding routine.
You can also do one exercise throughout a day. No, you won’t need to live in a gym. You can do curls with just a barbell or dumbbell, or you can work triceps with close-grip pushups. Do five sets of the exercise, ideally for 8–12 reps (though depending on the exercise and your strength, you may need to go higher), and do four or five such workouts in a day. Go through this one-exercise overload day once or twice per week in addition to your regular training, and skip working this targeted body part in your regular workouts.
CRAZY GAINS
Whether you’re contemplating doing the same five-exercise workout five times per week or you hit one body part five times in a day, at first blush, it probably seems crazy. That’s what they said about Abadjiev’s innovation, until the Bulgarians repeatedly brought home the most medals. The method’s “craziness” is the key to its effectiveness because it forces your muscles to adapt to frequent and unexpected stress by growing stronger and bigger.
BULGARIAN-METHOD BASICS
To get stronger in a specific lift, focus on performing that lift with great frequency.
Do an exercise up to six days per week and in up to four workouts each day.
If you want to get stronger for single reps, do mostly single reps with near-maximum weights.
To guard against overtraining, alternate heavy and light cycles.
BULGARIAN BODYBUILDING TIP SHEET
Select no more than six exercises for your routine.
Focus on compound exercises, and push sets to failure.
Do the same routine four to six days per week.
You can also do one exercise, such as dumbbell curls (five sets of 10), multiple times in a day.
BULGARIAN BODYBUILDING ROUTINE
Deadlift| SETS: 5 | REPS: 8–12
Bench Press| SETS: 5 | REPS: 8–12
Squat| SETS: 5 | REPS: 8–12
Barbell Row| SETS: 5 | REPS: 8–12
Shoulder Press| SETS: 5 | REPS: 8–12
NOTE: Perform this routine four or five days per week.
