Customer Reviews

Power to the People!: Russian Strength Training Secrets for Every American

5 star:		(56)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Information contained in this book - in general accurate - could fit in a max 10 pages. First of all, I ve never in my life read a book in any subject employing so much fluffy terminology: Hyperirradiation, Irradiation, Pre Tension; you are trying to figure out on some common sense info through loads of useless terminology and hints on "secret techniques" uncovered by the author. If I were in my teens - 15 years ago when I first started training and had virtually no experience / knowledge on such issues - this book would indeed have looked fantastic in my eyes. I advise you to read the review of the reader from Alamo (Apr-13th-04); if I were to write a fuller review I would have quoted every single sentence he writes!

The only good point about the book is that's it is fun to read; it's full of "smarties" of the like: if you think that technique is for sissies, I suggest you volunteer your opinion to the 300-pound temperamental Mr x (who uses the author's suggested technique), and see how much you live...

The last 30 pages - i.e. roughly 25% of the book - and many quotes within the rest of the text, invite the reader to buy other books by the same author. Well, no thanks, I ll pass.

This book is essentialy about deadlifting and overhead pressing. Deadlifting has been the subject of much agreement in the fitness world as the most important barbell movement to enhance athletic performance. The varieties of and tricks for improving DL performance can be put on two pages. Overhead presses are treated as the pushing equivalent of the DL's pulling. SP's are rightfully more imporant than bench presses, or for that matter, perhaps any other single movement. Ok. Another two pages. Pavel makes it a whole forty dolllar book, and charges another forty for two more exercises in another book,(pushups and squats), in his -Naked Warrior-Pavel makes a big point of the superiority of building strength without mass due to the possibility of losing the mass, and thus the strength, in harsh circumstances. The -reality- is that strength built without mass must recieve constant training to be maintained, and is very specific to the way it's trained, while mass is much slower to be lost,(along with its strength), and is applicable to whatever strength you apply it to, with a little bit of training. Unless you are training for powerlifting, the possible damaging effect of the heavy weight eventually needed in this method far outweigh the benefits.

I bought this book in December 2003, that is two months ago. Power to the people is about power; how to get stronger with little or no muscle gain. In my case it worked. Before I bought this book, my best bench was 255 lbs, but in a usual workout I would go up to 225 and do two reps. Now I can do 10 reps with 225 at any time, and I don't need a spotter for weights up to 245. Sometimes I lift 275, and once I pressed 295. As you can see these are good results, but not extraordinary.

On the back cover of the book you'll find the promise: "Increase your bench press by ten pounds overnight". I wouldn't advise you to try that. However, if you read this book you'll be able to achieve this in one week, and this is no little thing.

I will write here the ideas in this book, but it's good for you to read the book, because it provides a lot of motivation.
- when you lift, tense up al the muscles in your body. To the maximum. This way you'll be more stable, thus safe, and you'll be able to lift more.
-don't worm up, this is an unnecessary waste of energy; just go straight for a big weight. In real life when you have to use your power you aren't given the opportunity to worm up!
-do just five reps per set, two sets per muscle group, and two exercises in all, one for pull, one for push (I chose bench press, and deadlift).
-long breaks between sets, like 5 minutes.
-don't try to go for your maximum weight every day, once a week is enough; build up for this goal, every day a little more. This way you'll work with submaximal weight most of the time, and still gain strength.

This is it. All these ideas are developped into chapters. They will convince you that the system works.

Now about the week points of the book.

First: Pavel Tsatsouline promises that his system works with little modification for muscle gain. My training partner wants to gain muscle, and it doesn't work for him. Go for the classical pyramidal programs, and train to exhaustion. This is how all bodybuilders train, and they know how to best build muscle. Buy Arnold's Encyclopedia, and follow its line.

Second: Pavel advises you to lift slowly. I am not sure about that. You'll lift slowly because you lift huge weights, but I think you should try and lift as explosively as possible. However I don't have any credentials, so you should search on the internet some advice from powerlifters. I found very valuable advice for the deadlift. And by the way, the deadlift is a dangerous game, ask a more experienced lifter at your gym to observe your form for a while when you start. The fatal mistake to look for is a bent spine; the spine has to be always straight, or even a little arched up. Also pay attention to the knees.

Third: the book makes some scientific claims, but they are not supported by a bibliography, or any sort of references. Take these claims with a grain of salt; they are there just for motivation purposes.

Overall, this is an eye opening book. I would put it on my list of books that changed my life.

i found this review of the book on the sfuk website and found it to be a very detailed and nonbaised. here it is:
Power To The People : Russian Strength Training Secrets

Dinosaur Training author, Brook Kubik, wrote (in Hardgainer mag issue 44).."what do you do if you only have a barbell? - no stands, rack or bench?" He said you deadlift and press. "Don't you think you'd be big and strong all over if you could standing press big poundages and deadlift two or three times as much?"

Tsatsouline takes this philosophy and runs with it in Power To The People.

Tale of the Tape: PTTP is about 125 pages, including a few ads for his other books.

What's the book about?

Maximum strength using minimum exercise and training time
Using bare minimum equipment (a Barbell)
Very few sets & reps
Never train to failure
Flexible training cycles
Whilst it mainly concentrates on strength rather than size, Pavel does include his "Russian Bear" routine
Tsatsouline's book revolves around just 2 exercises, done for just 2 'work sets' each with just 5 reps in each set. Read that again. Yes, just 2 exercises and 2 sets of 5 reps! Your entire workout is done with 20 reps.

The first exercise is the the deadlift. Pavel much prefers it to the squat - although you wonder if it's because Pavel looks more like a deadlifter than a natural squatter.

His second exercise is the Side Press. - the old time strongman lift. Basically you hike a barbell overhead with one hand. Yes that's right, just one hand. Arthur Saxon could hoist over 300lbs that way and Pavel reason's that if you can get strong in that, then that's good enough.

Good Stuff:

Pavel thinks machines are crap - yey!
Pavel champion's the 'big exercises' - multi-joint 'whole-body' exercises
You only need a barbell
You don't need to train for hours (ten mins a day should do it)
Minimum fatigue! Yep, you read that right.
Good explanation of training cycles
Good instruction on deadlifting and side press technique.
Never trains to failure - echoing the way Olympic lifters train + similarities to John McKean and John Christy's writings.
No gloves, no belts, no mirrors and no fancy training shoes.
Easy to read - ecletic use of quotes from Mark Twain to Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Not-so-Good Stuff:

The writing is a bit cheesy. He hams up the "Evil Russian" bit a lot.
Actually it'sa bit more than cheesy, it often comes over like those 3 page "Finish a Fight in 3 Seconds using Secret Russia Special Ops techques" adverts. eg. "Build Massive Muscles with a classified Soviet Special Forces Workout" - classfied? huh?
You need to buy a barbell or have daily access to one
Doesn't fully explain some of his theories, instead he asks you to trust him and says, "The Party is always right"
Could have been a bigger book, 125 pages isn't much - see above.
Pavel cherry-picks quotes from other Strength Writers that agree with his theories, yet the methods those writers employ are totally different to PTTP. For example, he quotes Dr Ken Leistner several times to support PTTP, yet at the same time, trashes the HIT method that Dr Ken avocates. Same with Ken Hutchins and Super Slow. And he quotes Stuart McRobert in his "Power to the People Manifesto" - even though he is against the training method that McRobert promotes. Odd.
The 2 page chapter on Power Stretching is just an ad for another book of his.

Pavel's methods have certain similarities to the way Olympic lifters train - ie. Very low reps, never to failure, long rests between sets, frequent training (if you follow Pavel, you'll know he's up for training 2-3 times a day). It was also very similar to John McKean method of 'Single-ing" (McKean is a champion weightlifter in Old-Style lifts, like the Hip lift - he also trained his phenomenally strong son).

PTTP also shares similarities to John Christy & Stuart McRobert's work to a certain extent - ie. abbreviated routines to avoid overtraining. His "Russian Bear" routine is very similar to the German Volume Training (GVT) that was trendy a few years ago - so in theory it should work.

But does it work?

Yeah. Sort of. I tried it after a very long layoff and within 8 weeks moved my deadlift from 80kgs to 200kgs. Training was novel and fun. Doing only 4 work sets lets you fit a workout in pretty much anytime day or night. However my own gain was a strength regain - ie back to previous levels of strength. After that I needed to cut down on frequency - Deadlifting once a week was better. Which brought me back to a McRobert style of training. However, your recovery abilities may be better, so it's worth a shot.

In theory it works, but I wonder if the 2 exercise, 20 minute a day regime is tailored as a 'quick fix' sales pitch than actually the most effective way to train given the same amount of time per week.

Conclusion

Really enjoyed the book. Well worth getting if you have an interest in strength training. It's particularly good if you're looking for a way to train with minimal equipment.

It's cool to be able to fit in a quick workout at anytime of the day - eg. you can get one in whilst waiting for the kettle to boil for a cuppa - and doing only 2 exercises for 2 sets is a refreshing change. Because you never train to failure, the routine doesn't leave you wiped out, like, say a HIT routine.

But I don't think I could recommend it to a skinny 'hardgainer' looking to gain strength and mass. The Brawn series of books would be much better for that, as I know it works. However, if you've got a few years of weightlifting under your belt then it's well worth a blast - and you could use the same methods to train Olympic style exercises like the Push Press, Overhead Squat, Power Clean etc.
Author : Pavel Tsatsouline | Reviewer: Jonathan | Score : 7 out of 10

If you are new to lifting weights & strength development and you can only buy one book, this is it. While there are many excellent books on the market, Power to the People is the only one that I have found that anyone can put to practical use immediately. It covers key areas of strength development from exercise execution and program design to weight progression and training frequency. The exercises are relatively easy to perform. The section covering the exercises has sufficient photographs of both the correct and incorrect (very important) form of each movement so that one can easily understand how their body is to move when executing the lifts. Nothing is left for the beginner to ponder.

Please make note of my initial caveat, this book is geared for beginning lifters. Nonetheless, intermediate and advanced lifters would find this book useful as there are many novel ideas in it and it is a nice book to lend to any friend thinking of stepping up to some iron. Furthermore, this book is not for bodybuilders, as it deals with developing strength without initiating muscle hypertrophy.

The only drawback to this book is the price tag. However, considering that to obtain the information contained in this book, one would have to read many books and that there is barely an ounce, if at all, of unwarranted material in it, it is good value for the money.

Otherwise, this book is good, but not great. It definitely has some good and thought provoking information, but it is littered with wacky anecdotes and advertisements for the author's other books. There is much one can learn from this book, but it is pretty expensive for the amount of meat in it.

I have been intelligently training and with weights reading related materials for 15 years-- both to gain strength and size and perform better in sports. I still learned a great deal in this book which was also easy to read.

This book was especially helpful in implementing a lifestyle workout program that I could implement without being burned out. Before this program, I would lift a lot of weight in the gym but go home and struggle carrying the groceries in because my program left me weak and depleted for days. Now I am invigorated by my workout and stronger with FUNCTIONAL, real world strength because of Power to the People.

I also saw IMMEDIATE results in the gym. This book is appropriate for all levels--beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Reading the other reviews of this book helped me decide to go ahead with the purchase. I have been lifting weights on and off for over ten years. After some consistant training I always had a problem of getting too tight and feeling restricted in my movements. This was even more of a problem as I got more and more involved in martial arts. After all these years I finally found a method to get stronger without feeling like I am loosing flexability (I think I've even gained some range of motion). So far (2 months) I find the claims the author makes on the back cover to be no exaggeration - he's all he is cracked up to be.

If you are interested in strength, I recommend this book over all others. Don't waste you time or money on anything else. The author's ideas are contrary to the popular methods in use. But, I find that his ideas match my actual experience. For example, the basic rule of "bulking up" is to do heavy weight for only a few reps. Absolutely not true. For years I bought into that theory. Luckily I came accross this book.

Lastly, I recommend this book to all martial artists. You don't have to look like a freak off a California beach to be monsterously stong. In fact you can be equally as strong, probably stronger in MUCH less time. Finally there is a safe way to get strong for those of us that are "chemically challenged."

(I should also mention that although I have been getting consitant and powerfull results, I don't know if it works for everyone.) Good luck.

Using Pavel Tsatsouline's weight training methods from his book Power to the People gives you the feeling that you can take on the world after only a 20-30 minute workout! I was reading an article in Outside Magazine about Jim Loehr, a trainer of world class athletes and corporate executives. He developed a method to substantially improve job performance by exercising every two hours at work for 10-15 minutes. (Loehr's book is entitled Stress for Success - translation: exercise for success.) I found Pavel's program compatible with Loehr's training ideas; you can adjust Pavel's routine to meet this time requirement. Tsatsouline's book is written with such cleverness, clarity, and detail that I couldn't put it down. I am thoroughly enthusiastic about weight training where my past indoor training consisted only of Yoga postures. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in enhancing their performance on the job, in weight training, and in other athletic pursuits. Pavel's genius is that he can take a complex subject like weight training and design a program that is enjoyable, efficient and gets fast results. He has done the same thing for abdominal development and stretching.

Although I can see where you're coming from with your criticisms, I think that you're evaluating Power to The People(henceforth referred to as PTP) by the wrong criteria. Pavel makes it clear that his book is about building strength, not about building mass. That is the crucial difference between the world of powerlifting and the world of bodybuilding, respectively. Powerlifters and bodybuilders use very different training protocols, primarily because they're aiming for different goals. Bodybuilders usually use sets of 6 to 12 repetitions, isolate particular body parts into many different exercises, and do different body parts on different days. Powerlifters use no more than 6 repetitions per set, utilize a small number of compound-joint lifts, and rarely split their workouts by body part. What this boils down to is that training for strength and training for mass are two different things.

Look at any powerlifter, and you won't see a huge guy with bulging muscles. But you will see a guy who can lift more weight than you've ever dreamed about. Have you ever watched the Olympic weightlifting events? Those guys don't look very ripped. Or just take a look at Pavel himself. He's not a huge guy, but he is immensely strong. There's a reason why almost every branch of Special Ops in the US military has hired Pavel to train their recruits. The guy is hard as a rock, and he has the credentials to prove it. Most bodybuilders, on the other hand, look much stronger than they actually are. Pavel is condescendingly critical of bodybuilders and their training objectives, so I can understand why someone who adheres to a bodybuilding protocol would feel slighted. But PTP is a book about building strength, and building functional strength in particular. This is among the best books out there when it comes to developing real-world functional strength. The lifts described in PTP use multiple body parts, and require you to balance the weight and use supporting muscles during the whole lift. The strength gained from such lifting is applicable to real-world situations. When was the last time(whether in sports, or just in life in general) that you ran into a situation where you needed to isolate your biceps without using any other arm muscles? The answer is never.

The bottom line is that if you want to get huge and look good at the beach, go check out "Brawn" or some of those other bodybuilding books. But if you want to develop true strength, pick up a copy of PTP. Aside from what I've already said about the book, PTP is also notable for its focus on using muscular tension and on training the central nervous system. Additionally, Pavel's breakdown of proper technique for the deadlift is the best I've ever seen, and he's insistent on maintaining strict form(which is essential to prevent injury). And yes, Pavel does have a penchant for shameless self-marketing, but try to ignore this, because PTP contains a wealth of information that would won't find almost anywhere else.