Zahabi on JRE

[Jrohm24]

Watching Firas Zahabi (GSP's coach) on Rogans podcast right now and hes talking about alot of interesting stuff, but what really got my attention is his belief that you should never workout to a point of being very sore the next day. Never going to failure. For example, if your absolute max amount of pull ups is 11 you shouldn't be doing 10, you should be doing 5 at a time so that you can come back without being sore the next day and do it again until it becomes easy to do 6 at a time and so on. The idea is that the guy pushing to failure wont be able to do pull ups again until the end of the week, while the guy doing 5-6 will end up doing many more over the course of the week. He also talked about getting into the "flow state" during training which i found pretty interesting. Keeping training challenging enough to still make it rewarding, but not so hard that the thought of it stresses you. Pretty interesting coming from the head trainer of arguably the best fighter of all time. Thoughts?

 

[GordoBarraBJJ]

This is geared towards fighters right?

 

[Jrohm24]

This is geared towards fighters right?

Yes i believe so. For the most part

 

[Oblivian]

It applies to lifting too. When I first started, media wasn't near as available. Most of the stuff you saw had people posting PRs or pushing to failure. It seems the culture of lifting was geared towards that. Now you see a lot more people training submaximal. I'm starting to realize how much the lifting marathon is about the ability to handle more volume for long term strength gains.

 

[Johnsonville]

That sounds similar to pavel's routines that "grease the groove". Low volume low intensity high frequency, but I've never done it myself

~DaViD~

 

[Noodles03]

 

[Jrohm24]

It applies to lifting too. When I first started, media wasn't near as available. Most of the stuff you saw had people posting PRs or pushing to failure. It seems the culture of lifting was geared towards that. Now you see a lot more people training submaximal. I'm starting to realize how much the lifting marathon is about the ability to handle more volume for long term strength gains.

Have you seen the same sort of progress and results training this way? I wanna try this style of working out now that im training again so that im not super sore at practice. I just know the way my brain works, if i dont leave the gym feeling like i did something intense i feel like i bitched out. Lol i know how stupid it sounds its just a bad habit of mine, ive always had the same problem with dieting. either eating a very small amount of calories or saying screw it and not tracking at all.

 

[Bodil]

It sure sounds like a very interesting way of doing things... I've been thinking about trying the ''volume over time'' approach as opposed to trying to break PRs every time I'm in the gym. For example, my current Deadlift 1RM is around 600, I don't know if doing like 315 for sets of 5-10, 3-4x a week would be beneficial vs hitting a hard set of AMRAP with 5 plates once a week + assistance work.

 

[Noodles03]

I really enjoyed listening Zahabi talk about training and philosophy. However I wonder what Ross Enamait would say since his approach to training is high intensity.

 

[INTERL0PER]

I watched the podcast last night and i personally really like this training philosophy. But I'm far from an expert.

I like the double pronged benefits of actually getting more reps in (able to train more because you're not sore) and also increasing longevity because you don't put your body under anywhere the same amount of strain. Plus I feel like this would be a more gradual way of growing strength etc, which would be far less likely to develop imbalances that lead to injury.

 

[Lord Commander Palis]

It was a good podcast and makes a ton of sense. I think honestly if you're already doing a program like starter strength or something that pavel offers, you should really only "max" at 80% and you're adding a de-load week ontop of it.

Zahabi's stretching methods are spot on as well. Doing only static stretching doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[JosephDredd]

I've been reading a lot about this type of training. Olympic gymnasts and Olympic lifters basically spend hours every day working skills under sub-maximal loads.

I've heard a few different names for it. eustress training (as opposed to distress). Lactic-aerobic training. The latter is what Pavel is doing with Simple & Sinister at Stronglifts now.

Pavel has always talked about heavy weight, low reps, low volume so you still have gas in the tank for your sports training. When he did advocate volume (for hypertrophy) he insisted you stopped when your form broke.

Steve Justa's book really surprised me with similar ideas he had used to build his crazy strength.

 

[Phlog]

Have you seen the same sort of progress and results training this way? I wanna try this style of working out now that im training again so that im not super sore at practice. I just know the way my brain works, if i dont leave the gym feeling like i did something intense i feel like i bitched out. Lol i know how stupid it sounds its just a bad habit of mine, ive always had the same problem with dieting. either eating a very small amount of calories or saying screw it and not tracking at all.

Sounds like you need discipline. You're making excuses for yourself instead of holding yourself accountable for your behaviours.

I recommend the juggernaut system. It takes the thought out of it, you just follow the plan and it accounts for your development. It's largely about training sub maximally. You won't go near a 1rep PR for 3 months and when you do, you smash it.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

I really enjoyed listening Zahabi talk about training and philosophy. However I wonder what Ross Enamait would say since his approach to training is high intensity.

That's not entirely true. I'm not sure which of the books it is, but Ross talks about leaving "reps in the hole" to build volume. I have Infinite Intensity, Never Gymless and the discontinued Underground Guide to Warrior Fitness (that I purchased 15 years ago) and there is no way anyone is going to do "high intensity" training all the time. Ross talks about building all sorts of types of strength and muscle endurance.

I remember when I first tried out some of the concepts how quickly something like pushups numbers were built in a matter of days, simply by leaving reps in the hole (falling short of max number and stopping while feeling strong), then going back to the exercise in 10-20 minutes. I see why someone like Herschel Walker can do 1500 or more pushups in a day in short order.

 

[Oblivian]

Have you seen the same sort of progress and results training this way? I wanna try this style of working out now that im training again so that im not super sore at practice. I just know the way my brain works, if i dont leave the gym feeling like i did something intense i feel like i bitched out. Lol i know how stupid it sounds its just a bad habit of mine, ive always had the same problem with dieting. either eating a very small amount of calories or saying screw it and not tracking at all.

I think so, but it's hard to tell since I'm old. My progress was really quick going all out, but a lot of it was newb gains and being young. I feel I stalled way earlier than I would have if I would have built up a good volume base.

 

[Jrohm24]

Sounds like you need discipline. You're making excuses for yourself instead of holding yourself accountable for your behaviours.

I recommend the juggernaut system. It takes the thought out of it, you just follow the plan and it accounts for your development. It's largely about training sub maximally. You won't go near a 1rep PR for 3 months and when you do, you smash it.

Thanks for the recommendation, im looking into the juggernaut system now. I think im actually gonna give it a shot, a lot of solid reviews for athletes. This is the type of program ive been looking for

 

[Jrohm24]

I think so, but it's hard to tell since I'm old. My progress was really quick going all out, but a lot of it was newb gains and being young. I feel I stalled way earlier than I would have if I would have built up a good volume base.

Yeah i hear ya. I had great results training until absolute soreness the next day but that was also when i first started lifting weights in general, and i wasnt training as hard back then. Trying to lift like that now has me so burnt out that i dread going to practice in the evenings

 

[Oblivian]

Yeah i hear ya. I had great results training until absolute soreness the next day but that was also when i first started lifting weights in general, and i wasnt training as hard back then. Trying to lift like that now has me so burnt out that i dread going to practice in the evenings

The lifting culture has seemed to shift a lot to where volume and not going to failure seems a lot more popular than when I started lifting. It really does make sense though. More volume should equate to more gains.

 

[Chungungo]

If many good trainers are recomending this is because is the way to go I guess.
PD: I´ll check Juggernaut too !

 

[Phlog]

Thanks for the recommendation, im looking into the juggernaut system now. I think im actually gonna give it a shot, a lot of solid reviews for athletes. This is the type of program ive been looking for

I've been following it for a couple of years and love it, can't recommend enough. Has a lot of shit in there for athletes, I play American football and it suits me great.

The best thing is that it constantly adapts to your development.