Thoughts on Ivan Djuric?

[jaxqen]

If you enjoy it, have at it. If not, scrap it.

Unlike any other exercise.

Yes it works, yes its brutal, no its not for everyone.

Basically, it's mostly for guys with elite genetics that are roiding.
I'm talking about the bulgarian, not about Djuric.

[MyEgoProblem]

Unlike any other exercise.



Basically, it's mostly for guys with elite genetics that are roiding.
I'm talking about the bulgarian, not about Djuric.

Yup. Really Bulgarian vs Bulgaria lite/esq/ish different animals

To elucidate, im neither and had fantastic success for Bulgarian-like super high frequency ... Maxing squat and bench twice a day and deads twice a week for over 80 days running up to a meet

The ultra high frequency max work certainly isnt only for joocey elites.
One of the biggest fallacies i see.
What it is... Or isnt, more to the point.. It isn't for bros, pump junkies or super high volume lovers. (or people that don't respond well to high intensity/%1rm)

As for the Actual Bulgarian. Yes, its only for weightlifting in the appropriate decades, in the appropriate country under the abadjiev and it ruined all but a very select few joocy elites. No one does this now - max aita has great insights for anyone who wants the inside scoop on what really went on

Define squatting.

There are literally a million ways to squat.

And I do none of them lol

If you enjoy it, have at it. If not, scrap it.

I did ssb box squats last week....
Can't remember the last time before that (including leg press, hack ect)

Was enjoyable for a change

[GeneralSerpant]

So that's what happened to Erik Kinevski.

edit: What a coincidence! I haven't heard about EK in years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdF0WX08bu8

[jaxqen]

I'm reviving this thread.

I am looking at Ivan Djuric. No idea it he is natural or not. He started this squat daily project 3 years ago with a high bar squat of 180kg and a dead of 220. So he was a strong guy already.
His squat is now 220 and his dead is 260.
40 kg for both in 3 years.
His goal is 300 for both dead and squat.

He always squats in long baggy pants and most of the times he wears a hoodie... I thought it was hot AF in Australia. If I would train in long pants and hoodie, my performance would clearly drop.
So I don't know much about his physique, but he looks like the regular commited bro who did bro splits for many years.


If you listen to guys like Dan John, strength based, or even Mike Israetel, more hypertrophy based, they would tell you it will not work, because:
- it's too much wear and tear, too much warmup, your joints will hate you
- the bulgarian method was for weightlifting, not powerlifting, the second one generates more fatigue for both body and CNS, while weightlifting is much more technical
- Bulgarians had better gear than US and most Western countries {no idea why, since Bulgaria is my poor neighbor, but I will look into it)
- Russians had similar results and didn't do high frequency {sure, Russia big, Bulgaria small}
- survivorship bias - many of them didn't make the team, had injuries

Sure, Ivan doesn't really do Bulgarian, some days he goes light, some days he will do something weird like the Squat Pig Routine, but he goes hard most days

Anyway, congratulations to him, seems like a nice guy.

I don't know how the hell he can do it daily for 1000 days.
He has kids and a wife
I assume he works
Don't people have emergencies?
Sick kid?
Holiday?
Severe diarrhea?
A knee problem
Something
Anything

To elucidate, im neither and had fantastic success for Bulgarian-like super high frequency ... Maxing squat and bench twice a day and deads twice a week for over 80 days running up to a meet

So only one maxing top set for each, morning and evening?

[MyEgoProblem]

Squat Top single (usually 1 warmup then 1@/7/8/9)
1-3 back off triples (usually only backoffs on am session)

Bench top single
1-3 back off triples

Grease the groove pullups

Deads 3x week
Top 1-3
Generally no backoffs

Weak point pickup work. (pm session)
Usually band hamstrings. High rep band curls, high rep facepulls/pull apars or something fun with the boys.

First run was pretty much comp variations only.
Second run (much preferable to me) was daily rotating lift variations

[CW47]

First run was pretty much comp variations only.
Second run (much preferable to me) was daily rotating lift variations

Lifting every day or were you mixing in some rest days?

[MyEgoProblem]

Lifting every day or were you mixing in some rest days?

2 gym sessions per day
Daily minimum every session
Daily max more often than now
Backoffs am sessions
Gpp/weak point/joint happiness pm sessions
Grease the groove chins every time i passed a chin bar at home or gym.
no days off.
Trended up well
Obviously some bad days


I think i had 2 sundays where where i only did one session cos life

Fit super well with my split shift chef work at the time.

Second and third runs where a little different.

[CW47]

2 gym sessions per day
Daily minimum every session
Daily max more often than now
Backoffs am sessions
Gpp/weak point/joint happiness pm sessions
Grease the groove chins every time i passed a chin bar at home or gym.
no days off.
Trended up well
Obviously some bad days

As you know, I did something kind of like this last year for about 3 months in which I made pretty decent progress. As I reflected back on it after the fact my main takeaway was that I probably would have progressed better with more volume (I know that sounds ridiculous to most people, but I recover from max lifts very quickly/easily). I've been thinking about how to go about intelligently adding in more volume.

The 2x per day makes a lot of sense, but wouldn't be sustainable for me for any length of time. I could see doing 2 lifts per session though - something like Bench/Squat, Bench/Squat, Bench/Dead, repeat. I could probably run something like that for an extended period of time as long as the exercise selection is reasonable. Will have to give it some more thought. Been tentatively planning to give it another go sometime later this year.