Pavel Tsatsouline |

A recent article in the New York Times called “O.K. Russia, Time to Work It,” talks about a trainer in Moscow, Alex Reznik, who is in charge of the gym in the Moscow Ritz Carlton.

When I was a kid, when the Soviet Union still existed, and Communism was still the Red Scare, the Russians were terrible monsters of strength, crushing opponents in the ’80 Olympics, and in movies like Rocky 3.

I must break you, Comrade.

The Ruskies Are Coming!
Granted, the US didn’t participate in that Olympic games, protesting the USSR’s involvement in Afghanistan. But (after the Russians boycotted the ’84 games in Los Angeles) they crushed the 1988 games.

As long as I’ve been around, though, the Russians have had a reputation for toughness. Even in the recent past, guys like Pavel Tsatsouline have guided American fitness enthusiasts by a tough-as-nails rubric, and fighters like Fedor Emelianenko have shown what slugging it out with sledgehammers pullups and pushups can do in the Octogon.

The Russian Experiment

Wah Happan…?
The article points out the old Soviet value of physical education and fitness. This new gym culture, it says, is really only representative of the ultra-elite. It also says that even some of Reznik’s ultra-rich clients still show up with alcohol on their breath (and that some of them are seeking additional “supplementation” still legal in Russia).

But what has happened?

I imagine it’s the same thing that’s happened over here, in the Capitalist US. With prosperity comes laziness. Is that true? When calories are cheap, it doesn’t really matter how long you hit the treadmill.

What I wonder most about, is the “newsworthiness” of the story itself. What are supposed to learn by reading this piece of journalism? What is being communicated? Why is it important?

You tell me.

The first person I ever saw use the phrase “strength is a skill,” was Pavel Tsatsouline. His method of “greasing the groove” – repeating a movement pattern (like a pullup, for instance) very frequently throughout the day, but with very low duration/repetitions – summarizes this idea, and has helped a lot of people achieve levels of strength they thought were impossible.

It struck me today, after my workout, that this is really true, but in a different way than I had understood before.

It seems like the type of strength you practice is a skill. I mean, like a skill, strength is highly specific.

I’ve long been an admirer of Digby and Sale’s SAID Principle – Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. But I guess I never really felt it in my own training till today.

I started a weightlifting program about a month ago. Specifically, DeFranco’s “Built Like a Badass” program (more on that later). It had been a while since I’d done any regular, scheduled weightlifting. My workouts for the past six months or so have been bodyweight stuff.

Today I was doing some heavy one-arm rows, and realized how different I felt versus the first week of the program. It wasn’t just strength-gain/adaptation. I felt accustomed to the whole thing – the movement pattern, the intensity, the stance, etc. It was something I haven’t felt for a few years…since the last time I did one-arm rows on a regular basis.

I realized that that type of strength was a skill I had stopped practicing.

And I know that when I go back to bodyweight movements, there will be a (re-)learning curve there as well.

Seems like Pavel, Digby, Sales, and everyone else who said it was right…strength is a highly specific skill.

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The Tables Turn – Russian “Fitness”

The skill of strength…