Answering the Critics: Triphasic Training


One of the most popular presenters on the strength coaching speaker
circuit is Cal Dietz M.Ed., CSCS. He is best known for Triphasic
Training
, a book he co-authored with Ben Peterson. Dietz’s
program was advertised as “The pinnacle of sports performance
training,” so I decided to take a closer look.

Because just about
anyone can write a book (and this one appears to be self-published),
I first wanted to know who had used this workout system. Dietz’s
marketing machine did not disappoint, as many collegiate and
professional strength coaches endorsed it. One believer is Scott
Williams, an exercise physiologist who works with Golf Australia and
the PGA of Australia. Williams said Triphasic Training is one
of the best books on strength and conditioning he has ever read, and
he admired Dietz’s use of scientific research.

Moving on, I consulted
with Mr. Google and learned that Dietz built his training system on a
foundation of principles with names I had never heard of. Here are a
few:

  • Principle 1: Precision
    AlloAdaptive Modulation
  • Principle 8: Toe Glute
    Reflex Sequencing Principle
  • Principle 10: Reflexive Trimetric Method
  • Principle 13: Dynamic
    Power Potentiation Cycling Methods (DPPC)
  • Principle 14: Neuro-Gate Optimization
  • Principle 17: Muscle
    Tonus Escalation (MTE)/Tonus Creep
  • Principle 19: Isometric Pulse Wave Velocity Principle
  • Principle 21: Tendomuscular Adaptive Sequence Model
  • Principle 29:
    Free-Thinking Mind and Spirit


As just trying to pronounce these titles was giving me dain bramage,
I decided it would be best to start reading the Triphasic Training
book from the beginning. I got stuck on Section 1. It was here that
Dietz recounted one of the biggest upsets in Iron Game history, which
occurred in the 1972 Olympics.

The
Rise of the Giant Killers

It was a foregone
conclusion that the Russians, with their lineup of world champions
and world record holders, would clinch the team title in Munich. Of
the nine bodyweight classes contested, the Big Red Machine was
expected to capture five (along with some change with silver and
bronze medals). Not quite.

When the last flakes of
chalk had settled, the Russians earned three gold medals, one silver,
and one bronze. It wasn’t enough, as the small country of Bulgaria,
led by Head Coach Ivan Abadjiev, secured three gold and three silver
medals to clinch the team title. How could this happen? Dietz shared
his thoughts.

At left, Ivan Abadjiev coaching
Naim Süleymanoğlu, pound-for-pound the greatest weightlifter in
history. At right, Coach Abadjiev with Kim Goss. (Left photo by Bruce
Klemens)

Dietz, citing compelling tabular data, asserted that the Bulgarians’
enhanced performance was due primarily to increased training volume.
Consequently, Dietz said that after the Olympics, the Russians
significantly increased their training volume. This change paid off,
big time!

The Russians dominated
the weightlifting competition at the 1976 Olympics, capturing seven
gold medals and one silver. Bulgaria had a strong showing, winning
two gold medals, three silvers, and one bronze. Dietz said the
Russians also increased their training volume across many other
sports, resulting in more medals. Lesson learned.

Nice story. Now let me
share my version of why the Bulgarians succeeded in 1972.

In the 75-kilo class,
Russia’s Vladimir Kanygin posted a personal best total of 477.5 in
1971, lifts that would have earned him a silver medal. He had a 5kg
lead after the Olympic press, so he was on track for a medal, but
lost any chance to score team points when he missed all of his
snatches.

In the 82.5 class,
Russia’s Valery Shary and Boris Pavlov were expected to capture
gold and silver. In April 1972, Pavlov totaled 515 to set the world
record, and the following month, Shary surpassed that result with
527.5, along with a world record snatch of 158.5 in July. Both failed
to register a successful lift in the Olympic press, leaving the door
open for Leif Jenssen of Norway to claim gold with a 507.5 total.

The 90-kilo class
featured David Rigert, a superstar in the sport who ultimately broke
65 world records. Rigert had a five-kilo lead after the Olympic press
and started the snatch competition after everyone else had finished.
Unexpectedly, Rigert failed to complete any of his snatches, allowing
Andon Nikolov of Bulgaria to become champion with a total of 525,
well behind Rigert’s personal best of 562.5.

Stancho Penchev was
Bulgaria’s entry in the 110-kilo class, but he failed to total.
However, his contribution to team scoring would have been
insignificant. His best total (that I could find) would put him tied
for 10th place with Frank Capsouras of the US.

In short, if the
Russian lifters had equaled (or come close to) their previous bests,
they would have won five gold medals and Bulgaria two. Bulgaria would
have captured more silver medals, but that would not have earned
enough team points to surpass the Russians.

What is not so obvious
is why the Russians would dramatically change their training
volume because of poor coaching decisions, such as starting their
athletes too high, or being overtrained going into the competition.

Addressing this latter issue, one potential solution could have been
to lower the training volume in the period leading up to the
Olympics. But there’s more to this story.

After the 1972
Olympics, the Olympic press was eliminated from competition, leaving
only the snatch and the clean and jerk. The removal of the Olympic
press freed up more time for the other two classic lifts, as a
significant portion of the training volume for the three lifts had
been dedicated to the press. However, comparing the training volume
of competitions that involve two lifts versus those that involve
three is comparing apples to oranges. One reason is that training for
the Olympic press often involves more auxiliary lifts, which are
usually performed for higher repetitions, further increasing the
overall training volume.

Volume:
Too Much of a Good Thing

Deitz’s claim that
Russian weightlifters increased their training volume after the 1972
Olympics puzzles me, as he often cites Russian sports science
research. Many Russian sports scientists claim that continuously
increasing training volume leads to diminishing returns and
ultimately results in a decline in performance. One of these
scientists is Arkady Nikitich Vorobyev, a two-time Olympic gold
medalist in weightlifting.

To review, volume
refers to the number of repetitions, intensity refers to the
amount of weight relative to a one-repetition maximum, and load
refers to the total amount of weight used. In his 1978 textbook,
Vorobyev stated that the volume of training is not as important as
its intensity.

“The planned tendency
in recent years to sharply increase the training load can be seen as
a negative phenomenon,” says Vorobyev. He added that such an
approach “most often leads to overtraining, overstraining,
increases the number of injuries, shortening the sporting life of the
lifter.” (FYI: The high-volume Bulgarian workout Dietz provided did
not include the Olympic press, so it would not have been performed
leading up to the 1972 Games.)

A classic periodization
model developed by Russian sports scientist Leonid Matveyev starts
with high volume and low intensity, progressing to high intensity and
low volume. However, this model was created for beginners. Matveyev
stated that there is an optimal cut-off point for volume, and
advanced athletes should concentrate on increasing intensity.

After the Olympic press
was dropped from competition, coaches had to revise their approach to
recruitment. The athletes who excelled in the three-lift competition
often did not reach the highest levels in the two-lift competitions.
This was because the press relied more on upper-body strength and
less on total-body explosiveness and athleticism. Let me give you an
extreme example.

Russia’s 110-kilo
champion Jaan Talts broke 10 world records in the press, finishing
with a best of 211. Talts snatched 164 kilos during his win at the
1972 Olympics, whereas that year in the USSR Championships, comrade
Pavel Pervushin snatched a world record 175 but only pressed 185
kilos. After Munich, Pervushin became the 1973 World Champion, as his
weaker lift was dropped from competition.

It was also believed
that after the 1972 Olympics, weightlifters who excelled in the
Olympic Press would be more drawn to the sport of powerlifting. This
was certainly true in the US, and it’s also true that the Russians
would later excel on the world stage in powerlifting.

Two Russian world record holders
who were expected to win gold in the 1972 Olympics were David Rigert
(left) and Valery Shary. Both failed to finish the competition.
(Photos by Bruce Klemens)

I must emphasize that Coach Abadjiev had an extraordinary career,
producing 12 Olympic gold medals and 57 World Championships.
Defeating the Russians for team titles remained a challenge, as they
had a significantly larger genetic pool to select athletes and
considerable financial support. Nonetheless, Abadjiev’s training
methods evolved and were markedly different from those used by the
Russians – it was not just about volume. Let me expand on this
point.

Whereas the Russians
performed dozens of exercises, many of which could be considered
bodybuilding movements, after the 1972 Olympics, the Bulgarians
focused on the snatch, the clean and jerk, and the squat. That’s
about it. Another difference was that they lifted higher training
loads, often reaching their maximums several times a day!

In 2010, I had the
opportunity to interview Abadjiev in person. I asked him why he
didn’t include more lifts in the 70-75 percent intensity range to
work on speed, as explosiveness was so crucial in the two-lift
competitions. Abadjiev said that he was not interested in lifting
light weights fast – he wanted his athletes to lift heavy weights
fast. There is also considerable research, available in Russian
weightlifting papers translated by the late Bud Charniga, that
suggests lifts representing about 92 percent of maximum strength have
the most transfer to the snatch and clean and jerk.

Dietz said that
although Abadjiev’s methods worked for weightlifting, they didn’t
work for his athletes due to the stress on their recovery systems. He
suggested this was partially due to the Bulgarians’ use of anabolic
steroids. Dietz said the Bulgarians were open about their use of
these drugs in the 70s and 80s, although I find this hard to believe
based on what happened at the 1988 Olympics.

After two of their
lifters were caught doping in Seoul, the Bulgarians withdrew the rest
of their team from the competition. A UPI article reported, “The
Bulgarian Olympic Delegation said it would investigate the cause of
the irregularities and also take stern measures against the trainers
and the doctor of the weightlifting team.”

Speaking of politics,
if you’ve seen the 2017 documentary Icarus, you’ll know that the
Russians had some dirty laundry with doping control that ultimately
caught up to them. (Fun Fact: In the 2004, 2008, and 2012 Olympics,
Russian men won only a single gold medal in weightlifting.)

Getting back on track,
it wasn’t an increase in training volume that led to the Bulgarian
victory; it was simply a poor performance for the Russians. Had their
coaches been more conservative in choosing their attempts, Dietz
wouldn’t have a story to tell or a new training narrative to
promote.

Despite my skeptical
attitude, I continued reading. After all, you can learn something
from just about anyone. So, moving on, let’s break down the basics
of Triphasic Training, starting with its name.

A Question of Balance

The athletic fitness
textbook Supertraining by Professor Yuri Verkhoshansky and Mel Siff,
Ph.D., was published in 1993, whereas Triphasic Training was
published in 2012. Verkhoshansky and Siff discussed a concept called
“the triphasic nature of muscle action,” and this is the earliest
reference I could find on this topic.  

The training methods of Russian
weightlifters were detailed in many papers and books by Russian
sports scientists, along with South African sports scientist Dr. Mel
Siff. 

Verkhoshansky and Siff explained that all athletic movements consist
of three types of contractions: eccentric, isometric, and concentric.
Their message was that understanding the qualities of each type of
contraction should influence how strength coaches and personal
trainers design workouts.

In many of his
workouts, Dietz uses a four-digit formula to describe the tempo of a
set. Giving credit where it’s due, strength coaches Ian King and
Charles Poliquin wrote about manipulating the phases of muscle
contraction in the late 1980s in the journal Sports Coach. King
developed the three-digit formula, while Poliquin added the
four-digit formula, representing a pause after the concentric
contraction.

Ian King (left) and Charles
Poliquin are credited for developing the formulas for prescribing
exercise tempo. (King photo by King Sports International)

On a larger scale, one training model Dietz presented was a
three-stage program in which a single type of contraction was
emphasized for several weeks at a time. Thus, the first stage focused
on eccentric emphasis, the next stage on isometrics, and the last
stage on concentric contractions. I would question spending so much
time in the first two phases because there is an inverse relationship
between movement velocity and mechanical tension.

Slow eccentric and
isometric contractions can alter the function of tendons. In a 2013
study on the squat published in the European Journal of Applied
Physiology, researchers found that tendons “act as a power
amplifier at light loads and a more rigid force transducer at heavy
loads.” Further, Russian sports scientist A. I. Falameyev stated
that workouts involving slower types of muscle contraction can
negatively affect joint mobility and the elasticity of muscles and
tendons. There’s more.

A study published in
Experimental Physiology in 2015 concluded that bodybuilding methods
impact an athlete’s ability to generate maximal muscle tension. The
researchers found that, compared to power athletes (such as
sprinters), bodybuilding training may be “detrimental to increasing
muscle fiber quality.”  

Excessive use of bodybuilding
methods may have detrimental effects on the ability of athletes to
perform explosively. (Left and middle photos by Miloš Šarčev,
right photo by Joe Morel.) 

There’s one more issue with bodybuilding training. Excessive
hypertrophy, which often results from eccentric and isometric
training, influences the pennation angle of muscle fibers. This angle
refers to the organization of the contractile components within
muscle fibers.

Hypertrophy methods
taken to the extreme alter the pennation angle of the fibers in
relation to the tendons to which they are attached, making the
muscles less efficient at producing force. As US Olympic Champion
Norbert “Norb” Schemansky said when explaining the difference
between weightlifters and bodybuilders, “One tries to look good,
the other tries to do good!”

I don’t want to imply
that I fully understand all of Cal Dietz’s extensive training
methods – doing so would require weeks of dedicated study and a keg
of coffee. That being said, I find many of Dietz’s ideas
controversial, so I would approach the Triphasic Training program
with a critical eye. As Bruce Lee said, “Absorb what is useful,
discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.”


References

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