STRENGTH EXPERTS ANDY BOLTON AND PAVEL TSATSOULINE DISCUSS the MOst COMMON GYM MISTAKES

MUSCLE & FITNESS: What are the three biggest mistakes you see strength athletes making in the gym? PAVEL TSAtSOULINE: 1. Failing to understand that strength is a skill. And a skill must be practised frequently and to perfection. 2. Failing to cycleperiodically push and back off. No matter how tough your mind is, it is your body that calls the shots. Your nervous and endocrine system will abruptly pull the plug on your progress if you fail to back off periodically. Your glands will run out of hormones and your nerve cells will become less responsive to your commands in order to protect themselves. Cycling is not an opinion; it is a biological law. 3. Failing to follow the 80/20 principle. In any human endeavour, including lifting, most things do not matter or matter very little. You get 80% of the results from 20% of your investments and sometimes the ratio is as skewed as 90/10 and even 95/5. The most productive strength exercises are well known and few in number. Give them all your effort and stop worrying about hitting all the angles. ANDY BOLtON: 1. Lifting with lousy form. Do this and you will never maximise your true strength potential and will invite injuries.
Focus on the basics, like squats.

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Lift with great form and you give yourself a chance to reach your true strength potential while also minimising the chance of injury. Simple as that. Yet most people continually choose to lift with bad form. 2. Maxing out too frequently. Maxing out is a great thing to do once every two to three months to see where your strength is at. But doing it weekly (or more than once a week) like many lifters do is asking for trouble. Maxing out too frequently is a recipe for many problems, including: joint pain, lack of motivation, plateaus, injuries and possibly regression of strength. 3. Majoring in the minors. The guy who spends all his time doing curls and pushdowns is majoring in the minors. Hes wasting his time on movements that dont lead to much in the way of strength gains. On the contrary, the guy who spends most of his time in the gym squatting, benching, deadlifting, overhead pressing and doing the Olympic lifts is focusing on the right things and should make great gains. Bottom line? Choose your lifts wisely.
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The deadlift is another proven strength builder.

proven by champions in strength sports. My advice is to pick a proven programme and stick to it. Dont chop and change. Choose one proven training method, stick with it and really get to know it over the course of several months. This is how youll make your best strength gains. M&F: What three pieces of advice would you give to someone who wants a stronger squat, bench and deadlift? PT: 1. Flexibility. Develop flexible hips and hamstrings to own the perfect position on the bottom of the squat and the deadlift. Until then you have no business loading your squats and deads. Develop a great arch for the bench not by jamming the lumbar spine but by mobilising the thoracic spine. This will make you stronger by shortening the bench stroke and will go a long way towards keeping your shoulders healthy under heavy loads. 2. Tightness. Master the skill of getting tight. It is an art form and without it great strength is impossible. 3. Skill. Learn championship technique for the big three from a professional and keep polishing for the rest of your lifting life. AB: 1. Master your technique on the squat, bench and deadlift. This will lead to faster strength gains and lower your chances of injury. You know the score! 2. Use a great training programme, not one you dreamt up on the back of a napkin. 3. Train in the best possible environment you canthis means having the right equipment and the right training partners. M&F
Pavel Tsatsouline has trained elite military forces in Russia and the United States and is credited as the man who popularised the kettlebell in the west. For more information visit: strongfirst.com Andy Bolton is a multiple world champion powerlifter and world record holder. He was the first man to deadlift more than 1,000 lbs. andyboltonstrength.org Get more tips on improving strength from Andy Boltons e-books. Go to muscle-fitness.co.uk/andybolton

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M&F: What is the difference between finding the perfect programme and simply finding a programme you believe in and sticking to it? PT: Andrey Kozhurkin, a Russian coach who has done 60 strict, dead hang, no kipping pull-ups in competition, compares reaching a high athletic goal to climbing a tall mountain. You can take

a beaten path and reach the summit slowly but surely, or you can take your chances and blaze your own trail. There is a small chance that you will reach the top quicker, but most likely you will spend your life circling the base camp, hopelessly lost... By now effective training methods have been firmly established. It is extremely unlikely that they will be noticeably improved. Do not waste your time searching for the new and unique; look for what has worked time and time again. My colleague David Whitley, a master kettlebell trainer with StrongFirst, stresses: Dont get hung up on the differences in champions training; look for commonalities. In other words, do not try to reinvent the wheel; just follow in the footsteps of Bolton, Coan, Kravtsov, and so on. AB: There is no such thing as the perfect training programme. Every programme has strengths and weaknesses. But ultimately, there are plenty of proven programmes out there; programmes

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