Training methods and planning

Dynamics of Training Load in the Long-Term Training of Uzbek Weightlifters

A. V. Pakov, Uzbek State Institute of Physical Culture

English summary of Tyazhelaya Atletika. Ezhegodnik 1985 (Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport, 1985), pp. 24–30: the text is paraphrased, not translated; data tables are given in full with English labels.

From the 1950s to the early 1970s

Training in early Uzbek weightlifting was primitive. In the 1950s the first session of the week consisted of press, snatch and assistance exercises and the second of press, clean and jerk and assistance exercises, with the bar loaded in 5 kg steps as in competition. Each exercise took 13–15 sets, light weights 3–4 times each; with a working snatch weight of 80 kg the sequence ran 50, 55–60, 65, 70, 75 and back down to 50 kg. The main flaw was that working weights were lifted when the excitability of the central nervous system was already lowered by fatigue.

In the 1960s the descending part of the load was dropped, intermediate weights were fewer and the bar rose by 10–20 kg. A month held 13–14 main and as many additional sessions, with 13–14 exercises. Main sessions had 4–5 exercises, usually beginning with tempo work; additional ones included seated and lying presses. Presses took 38.2% of monthly volume, snatch exercises 20.1%, clean and jerk 10.3%, squats 14.0%, snatch pulls 6.4% and clean pulls 11.0%, and the month's volume was 750–850 lifts. Weekly volume varied little, and session volume by only 11.2%. The shortcomings were minimal fluctuation of load, a narrow choice of exercises and modest volume and intensity.

Load parameters hardly changed in the early 1970s, but dropping the two-hand press from competition in 1972 forced corrections. An analysis of 60 four-week cycles of athletes of different levels showed that coaches often ignored the rules for building load in micro-, meso- and macrocycles. Among class-rated lifters weekly volume varied by only 7.5% and by 2.2–5% between sessions, and intensity likewise, so the body adapted and the training effect declined.

A Master of Sport and a rated lifter compared

Highly qualified lifters trained more rationally. The year of a middle-weight Master of Sport of the USSR differs markedly from a rated lifter's and shows the basic principles of annual loading: large swings in volume and intensity between months, and lower loads in the hottest months. Volume was lowest in August (240 lifts) and highest in March (903) and June (1,034); intensity lowest in August (106 kg) and highest in March (126 kg). Volume and intensity moved inversely: 666 lifts at 122 kg in month one and 1,034 at 115 kg in month six; 831 at 115 kg in October, less volume at 122 kg in November. Lifts at 90% and above ranged from none in August to 8% in February, 6% in April and 2% in March, averaging 4.4%.

The mesocycle studied had four weekly microcycles and 16 sessions, totalling 114 t and 903 lifts at a mean 126.2 kg. Load fell week by week: 33.5 t and 209 lifts, 30.3 t and 238, 29.7 t and 222, 20.5 t and 154, or 32, 26.4, 24.6 and 17% of the month. Within weeks, volume split 24.6, 18.3, 25.3, 14.5 and 17.3% over five sessions (peaks in sessions 1 and 3), 22.3, 26.9, 29.4 and 21.4% over four (peak in 3), and 37.7, 42.2 and 20.1% over three (peak in 2). Intensity ranged from 91 kg (second session, first week) to 147 kg (third session, third week) and moved inversely to volume: 73 lifts at 124 kg in one session, 42 at 143 kg in another. The master's load thus followed scientifically grounded rules for cycles of every length.

An international-class master: E. Karimov

In the early 1970s Uzbekistan had a single international-class Master of Sport, E. Karimov, who repeatedly improved USSR press records and in March 1972 set a world record in the two-hand clean and jerk (featherweight). Table 1 gives his load over 1972 in three stages, each preparing for a major competition.

Table 1 (part 1). Training load of E. Karimov over the 1972 training year, weight class up to 60 kg

Table 1 (part 2). Partial loads of E. Karimov by exercise group over the same year

As printed (including 15.2% for bends in week 1 of the first competitive period).

The first stage, three months long, prepared for the championship of the Burevestnik society's Central Council: a 2.5-month preparatory period (5 December 1971 to 18 February 1972) with a large volume at an intensity coefficient of 25.2%, then a four-week competitive period (to 17 March). Presses outnumbered clean and jerk exercises three to one; other groups were spread in proportion to the muscles involved. Lifts at 90% and above were 4.5% of the total, so most work used modest weights.

In the competitive mesocycle the intensity coefficient was 25.1%. The first week, with 29.5% of the month's volume, was developing; the second, at a maximum 41.1%, shock-developing; the third, maintaining, cut volume but kept intensity high; the fourth was a recovery week with both lowered. Compared with preparation, presses rose 5.5% and snatch exercises fell 1.6%; squats rose 1.3% and clean and jerk exercises fell 2.3% to 6.5%, pulls 2.9% together. Presses were thus five times the clean and jerk work, a paradox with a simple explanation: Karimov's favourite exercise, in the 15 years the author watched him, was the two-hand press, in which he reached 85% of his best clean and jerk. Pressing, above all the push press, brought many lifts at 75–90% of that best, so improving the press also developed qualities that raised the jerk.

This was confirmed at the Burevestnik championship in March 1972: press 130 kg, a world-record clean and jerk of 156 kg, snatch 110 kg, total 395 kg. But the large volume of pure strength work held back the snatch, which depends on speed-strength: his snatch-to-jerk ratio was 9% below the 1972 featherweight average. The second stage (20 March to 11 July) left the method unchanged, and almost eight months of monotonous load produced adaptation and a weaker training effect. At the Friendship Cup in July his total fell 7.5 kg to 387.5 kg.

After ten days' rest the third stage began on 24 July; its first half fell in the hottest weather, probably lowering all load parameters. By September volume and intensity peaked, while presses, squats and both pulls fell about 1.5-fold. In October volume dropped sharply and intensity rose. Learning that the press was leaving the competition programme, Karimov cut pressing and raised snatch and clean and jerk work, evening out presses and snatches and enlarging the clean and jerk share; tension rose through more lifts at 90% and above (5.1%). In the competitive mesocycle volume fell further, intensity rose and presses almost vanished; heavy snatch work gave training a speed-strength bias and a republic snatch record of 115.5 kg.

In the early 1970s the methods of the rated lifter, the Master and the international-class master thus differed radically. Monthly volume was 645, 677 and 1,090 lifts; the intensity coefficient 29.5, 27.1 and 25.1%; lifts at 90% and above over the year 9, 4.4 and 4.9%. The main difference lay in how load was built across cycles: little variation for the rated lifter, variation following scientific rules for the Master, wide swings of volume with stable intensity for the international-class master.

The late 1970s and the 1980s

From the second half of the 1970s volume rose sharply. In 1977 members of the Uzbek team did 927 to 3,495 lifts in a four-week preparatory cycle, 1,700 on average. Weekly variation was weak: similar loads every week, or two heavy weeks followed by two slightly lighter. Master of Sport Yu. Dolganovsky did 289, 340, 463 and 422 lifts in successive weeks, and L. Kurtametov 1,028, 1,063, 720 and 684. The team trained 16–31 times a month and 4–10 times a week, with 36 to 218 lifts per session. Strength work predominated: special assistance exercises took 82.7% of Dolganovsky's monthly volume and 79.7% of Kurtametov's.

Large volumes persisted into the early 1980s, while specialists kept seeking to rationalise training. Early specialisation now had scientific backing, and many talented, fast-improving young lifters went after records. Uzbek lifters made themselves heard: third in the 1981 USSR Cup, and second for the republic team at the III All-Union Youth Games. L. Plokhoy, V. Semenov, N. Mukhamedyarov and I. Isakov became USSR national team candidates, which justified a detailed study of preparation for the VIII Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR in 1983.

The example is the international-class Master of Sport Nail Mukhamedyarov (82.5 kg), who used 31 kinds of weight exercise in a preparatory month, with 26 sessions totalling 312.3 t and 2,352 lifts at a mean 132.7 kg. Table 2 shows weekly variation with the shock-developing load in week 3 (variant 2–3); volume also varied within a week, from 61 to 129 lifts in sessions 3 and 6 of the second week (Table 3).

Table 2. Weekly distribution of volume in a preparatory month of N. Mukhamedyarov

Table 3. Distribution of volume over the sessions of one week for N. Mukhamedyarov

Partial loads (Table 4) show training aimed at proportionate development of all a weightlifter's qualities. The few bends were offset by more snatch pulls, which develop basically the same muscles and improve the first part of the snatch, lifting the bar to the squat under it. Volume varied widely, intensity did not: the coefficient was 35.5, 36.8, 36.3 and 37.1% in weeks 1 to 4.

Table 4. Volume by exercise group in the same month

As printed; 492 of 2,352 lifts is about 20.9%, not 29.9%.

Conclusions

The study of training load in Uzbek weightlifters over many years showed four things. Volume rose steadily: the maximum monthly volume grew more than threefold in 20 years, from 800 lifts in 1963 to 2,500 in 1983. Intensity varied little in monthly and weekly cycles. An ever wider range of training means was used to develop all physical qualities proportionately. And the structure of load in macro-, meso- and microcycles differed substantially between lifters of different qualification.