Power to the People

These notes were published in 2021 and discuss the book’s training and health claims as presented in the book at that time.

Power to the People by Pavel Tsatsouline is one of the classic books on strength training. These are my notes on its methods and the questions they raised for me.

Wired for power

Tsatsouline argues that our muscles have more power than we normally use; my notes put a 20–30% figure beside this claim without making its denominator clear. Part of strength training, in his account, is improving ‘neurological efficiency’. He says that we cannot eliminate the entire ‘strength deficit’ without risking damage to the muscles. His example is bodybuilders whose strength has increased beyond what their tendons can hold.

Tension, what force is made of

The book treats muscular tension as the basis of force and sets out five conditions for training it:

1. Perform exercises slowly.
2. Maximise muscular tension, flexing regardless of the weight used.
3. Lift heavy weights, 85–95% of maximum, some of the time. Tsatsouline says this helps the spine, joints and tendons get used to pressure.
4. Minimise fatigue. “High values of fatigue and tension are mutually exclusive”, according to the book, so the programme aims to keep fatigue low.
5. Use the neurological phenomena discussed in the later chapters.

Training to failure or to success?

Tsatsouline puts the emphasis on heavier weight and greater tension rather than on more repetitions or exhaustion: “[Y]ou must push your limits of weight/tension, and not reps/exhaustion if you want to get stronger.” He connects this to the Hebbian rule, which I noted as ‘cells that wire together, fire together’. His memorable warning is “If you are training to failure, you are training to fail”.

Don’t water down your strength with reps and fatigue

The book’s suggested way of limiting fatigue is specific:

• Keep sets to five repetitions or fewer and use no more than two sets.
• Rest for three to five minutes between sets, and pause and relax between repetitions.
• Do not practise the same lift more than five times a week.

At the time, I left myself a question about how this low-repetition advice fits with building muscle. The book also advises training almost every day while allowing breaks, and claims that taking more than one day off reduces effectiveness by 50%. I did not resolve how those recommendations fit together.

More low-rep advantages

Tsatsouline presents low-repetition work as safer because the stabilising muscles are not yet fatigued and the lifter has to concentrate. In his account, strength can increase without training to failure. The intended result is a workout that leaves you with energy, unlike the draining effect I associated with higher-repetition work.

Rigor mortis, or why high reps failed to tone you up

The book explains the ‘burn’ from high repetitions as running out of ATP, drawing an analogy with a dead body. It equates strength, tension and muscle tone, arguing for residual tension rather than the temporary feeling of exertion. These are the book’s explanations, not conclusions I checked independently.

But I don’t want to bulk up

One reassurance in the book is that lifting heavy weights will not necessarily produce large muscles.

Machines are the wusses’ way out

Tsatsouline favours learning with free weights, while first building enough stability to handle heavy weights. My note includes Paul Chek’s explanation: “The more fixed the object, the more likely you are to develop a pattern overload,” explains Paul Chek.

Isolation exercises, Frankenstein’s choice

Instead of isolated exercises, the book favours movements involving more than one joint and muscle group, forming a ‘kinetic chain’.

Irradiation: Getting strong and hard with only two exercises

The chapter opens with a line attributed to Bruce Lee: “It’s not daily increase, but daily decrease – hack away the unessential” – Bruce Lee. To illustrate the law of irradiation, I noted the experience of making a fist, tensing it harder and then feeling other muscles up the arm and into the chest contract as well.

The programme centres on the deadlift and side press rather than the bench press. In my notes, the deadlift accounts for roughly 80% of the value of the pair, a Pareto-style way of thinking about the exercise choice.

Emphasise your problem areas without adding exercises

To focus on a weaker muscle, the book suggests changing the variation of one of those two lifts. I wondered whether even that is necessary: increasing the load on the basic movements may recruit muscles that have been doing less work.

How to become a bear: a Soviet commando’s secret

The ‘bear’ method is the book’s answer for someone who does want larger, more visible muscles. It calls for more time under tension, but still uses relatively heavy weights:

1. Do four to six repetitions per set and ten to twenty sets.
2. Stop a few repetitions short of failure so the same weight and repetition count remain possible across sets.
3. Use short rests. My example was to replace a set of 100×5 followed by 90×5 with repeated 80×5 sets, resting 30–90 seconds and stopping when 80×5 is no longer possible.
4. Train each muscle group less often than in the basic strength plan, but still around three times a week.

My notes question whether shorter rests promote HGH production and whether a 45-minute training session is best for testosterone release. I did not establish either hormonal claim.

Last three pieces of the big biceps puzzle

The chapter also advocates eating a lot of protein and resting. It points to Anabolic Diet by Mauro Di Pasquale for diet advice. I noted a health reservation of my own: carrying a great deal of muscle might also strain the body. The book’s approach to rest is summed up in this line: “Don’t run if you can walk, don’t walk if you can stand, don’t stand if you can sit, and if you sat, might as well lie down and take a nap.” A calmer mind and less stress are presented as helpful for muscle building.

Virtual masculinity

Tsatsouline criticises building muscles primarily by pumping them full of blood. The notes distinguish sarcoplasmic hypertrophy from myofibrillar hypertrophy, which the book associates with heavy lifting. Higher-repetition work can produce both, but he characterises some of the resulting muscle as ‘empty’.

On variety, soreness, and keeping things in focus

The book compares adaptation to exercise with getting used to a smell: a change in intensity or type makes you notice it again. In that account, a ‘plateau’ may mean becoming accustomed to an exercise. Its answer is to keep the same main movements but cycle the load. Tsatsouline also says that soreness does not correlate with progress.

Cycling: the Russian breakthrough for continuous improvement

Rather than repeatedly testing a maximum, the book recommends periodisation: increase the weight over time, then back off after an intense period such as a competition. It describes cycles of roughly eight to sixteen workouts and three ways of structuring them:

• Linear cycle: start around 80% of a five-repetition maximum, a weight my notes compare with one that could be lifted ten times. Run at least eight workouts and stop if the planned set cannot be completed.
• Wave cycle: go back down in weight during the cycle before increasing it again.
• Step cycle: hold the weight steady for a while, then move up a larger step. Smaller steps may suit lighter exercises.

If I had been ill or away from the gym for seven days or more, the notes advised returning to the load from two or three workouts earlier. They suggest the same adjustment when feeling unwell.

Hyperirradiation: how to boost strength and safety

The next chapters describe ‘neural programmes’ used during lifting. Tsatsouline calls one of them hyperirradiation: tensing muscles throughout the body to recruit them during a lift. His cues are to squeeze the weight as though crushing it, contract the glutes as though pinching a coin, and brace the abdomen as though expecting a punch.

Hyperirradiation: “Cheering” not “Cheating”

The book also suggests bracing against the ground in Olympic lifting. In its explanation, slack muscles absorb the ‘recoil’ of those doing the work. Engaging the other muscles is said to increase neural stimulation of the target muscles, provide a more solid and aligned foundation, and improve stability and safety. Those are the book’s proposed benefits.

Hard abs + strong hands = powerful body

Grip training may help the deadlift, while heavy lifting recruits the core, including the abdominal muscles, to carry a significant share of the load.

Power breathing: the karate secret of superstrength

The book presents abdominal tension as a source of strength and connects it with the shout at the end of a karate punch. Its method includes contracting the rectal sphincter; an alternative is to breathe out while keeping the abdomen tense. Tsatsouline argues against relying on a lifting belt because, in his view, it can create a weak point in the midsection. My notes mention concentrated breathing as a practice, perhaps eight repetitions and eight sets, and refer to Beyond Crunches: Hard Science. Hard Abs.

I recorded the book’s breathing cues as a technical list, with the original uncertainty about the practice intact:

• Inhale to about 75–100% before loading the muscles. Hold the breath and breathe out at the end of the lift or just after it.
• If the exercise allows it, breathe between repetitions; with deadlifts, take more breaths between them if needed. Do not expel all the air if that loses tension.
• Keep the midsection hard without letting the stomach bulge out. The book also says to use the ‘anal lock’ by contracting the rectal sphincter.

Slow and steady wins the race

Tsatsouline recommends lifting heavy weights slowly, taking three to five seconds on the way up and another three to five on the way down. He argues that going faster will not allow a heavier lift.

Feed-forward tension

The book claims: “Because your strength generally does not exceed 30% of your tendon structural strength, the strength governor mechanism is set up way too conservatively”. It calls the proposed response ‘feed-forward tension’: contract the muscles as hard as possible with a submaximal weight, or practise dynamic tension without a weight. My notes leave open whether this can interrupt the feedback loop and allow greater tension under heavy loads.

The author distinguishes this from simply focusing on a muscle: “Feed-forward tension is not the same thing as ‘feeling the muscle’ either. Feeling your entire body cease to be a carbon based life form and get compressed to the density of a black hole is more like it!“

Pre-tension for max power and safety

The next cue is to build tension before taking the load, rather than waiting until the lift is under way.

Successive induction

Tsatsouline uses ‘successive induction’ for the idea that, after one muscle group contracts, its opposite may be disinhibited because the body expects the first to hold tension. My example was to engage the triceps on the way down from a biceps curl.

On shoes, gloves, and mirrors

The book advises against springy running shoes for lifting and favours shoes with little support or spring, such as deadlift shoes or Chuck Taylors. It also argues against gloves because they reduce pressure and feedback. Tsatsouline discourages mirrors in favour of an internal feel for the movement; my notes even wondered whether lifting with closed eyes could help in some respects.

Power stretching

The book says: “[A] muscle that can easily relax into an extreme stretch is a muscle that can do things”, and points to Beyond Stretching for more. It advises only light stretches before a workout. My notes record the claim that stretching may damage muscle in a way that leads to splitting or hyperplasia, but I had not checked it. I also wondered whether contracting and stretching might complement each other for better results.

The drills

The two exercises at the centre of the programme are the deadlift and side press. These are the book’s movement cues, with my doubts kept where I recorded them:

The deadlift

• Keep the weight on the heels, push the buttocks back and keep the core tight.
• Look forward or towards the ceiling rather than at the bar when picking it up.
• Move the knees back so they do not go over the bar and keep them as vertical as possible; also keep them pointing forward, perhaps with a cue to push them out.
• The book recommends an alternating grip, although I preferred a hook grip. Flex the triceps to keep the arms straight.

The side press

The book presents the side press as a full-body exercise that works core stability and grip, uses the lats, teaches overhead lifting and places the shoulder in external rotation, which it considers safer. It calls the side press easier to learn than a military press, which I questioned, and says it needs neither a spotter nor a rack.

• Brace the core and press the working shoulder and elbow down.
• Think of pushing yourself away from the barbell rather than pushing it up.
• On the descent, actively pull the bar down, applying the idea of induction.

The Power to the People! manifesto

The manifesto closes with Tsatsouline’s account of why he kept the programme simple:

“Scientists who study non-linear dynamics know that complexity on one level implies simplicity on another. They even have a term, simplexity, which refers to the emergence of simple rules from underlying disorder and complexity. In Power to the People! I have attempted to deliver a ‘simplex’ approach to strength training, decades of scientific research and hundreds of years of lifting and martial arts experience distilled into a no frills power formula anyone, from a recent couch potato to a world class athlete, can use.“