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Preparing the Bulgarian Weightlifters for the 1980 Moscow Olympics

V. Furnadzhiev; I. Abadzhiev, senior coach of the Bulgarian national weightlifting team

English summary of Tyazhelaya Atletika. Ezhegodnik 1982 (Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport, 1982), pp. 71–74: the text is paraphrased, not translated; data tables are given in full with English labels.

Theses of a paper given at the International Weightlifting Symposium, Tata (Hungary), 28–31 May 1981. Abridged translation from English by V. S. Kopysov (All-Union Research Institute of Physical Culture, VNIIFK).

Weekly cycle of the national team

Table 1. Weekly training programme

Table 2. Weekly time and volume

Average times as printed (the Tuesday–Saturday schedule spans 4.5 h with the break). Kept long-term, but given for information only; not decisive.

Intensity as the key factor

• Data: Anton Kodzhabashev, Yanko Rusev, Yordan Mitkov, Blagoi Blagoev and others.
• Findings: (1) lifts with maximal weights must be counted carefully, since their number sets the intensity; (2) the hardest phase starts two months before the main event, and super-intensive work beyond two months is irrational.
• Intensity = lifts near the personal record (single maxima and their repetitions); many lifts far below it mean low intensity.
• After the transition period functional level drops, so excessive intensity then worsens results. Cycle lengths were changed in 1979.

Periods, one world championship to the next European

• 1. Passive (transition): low intensity, few lifts.
• 2. Active (preparatory): load up to medium.
• 3. Maximally active (main): high intensity, for national and some international events.
• 4. Super-active (competition, two months): maximum intensity for the European and world championships. About one month to reach peak form, then holding it; many lifts at or above personal records; tonnage rises in step with intensity.

Olympic cycle 1980: six periods

• 1–3. Before high intensity; high intensity; super-active — for the European championship.
• 4–6. The same three for the world championship (the last called super-intensive).

• The build-ups differed only in the length of the first two periods. Super-maximal work was about equal (clearest for Kodzhabashev and Rusev, partly Blagoev), so stage length is not decisive.
• After the European championship Kodzhabashev, Rusev and Blagoev raised intensity to peak in training before the world championship; for Rusev and Kodzhabashev the European build-up underpinned it.
• Lifters who skipped other events trained light early in the European build-up and usually lost pre-competition form (typical case N. Kolev). Hence: compete in auxiliary events before major ones. Some Bulgarians still aim at only one or two events a year, in a single cycle.

Hormonal rationale

• Hormonal adaptation is hard to measure but crucial; the adrenal–sympathetic and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal systems matter most.
• USSR Academy of Sciences findings: these systems respond only to stress loads, arising after 3–5 h of intensive work (the researchers also defined the load needed); super-activity after 4–5 h of hard work; activity can rise tenfold, by unclear mechanisms; prolonged over-activity can exhaust them and cause disease.
• In the passive period adrenal activity barely changes (in some lifters for 3–4 months) and shifts only in the intensive pre-competition phase. Rusev's and Kodzhabashev's harder preparatory work supplies stress moments early, which is probably why they stay intense even in transition. This also supports the pre-competition “jump” and competing before key events.
• Heart rate: training works best above 180 beats/min. A 190 kg lift raised N. Kolev's to 190–200; in the passive period it rarely exceeds 160, so no significant specific changes occur.

Last two months before a competition

• Moderately active 2 weeks → active 2 weeks → super-active 2 weeks → moderately active 1 week. Variations need study; the key is the two-week super-load block between lighter periods.
• A model could join Kodzhabashev's passive-period work with elements of N. Kolev's super-load phase.

Table 3. Model training scheme of the Bulgarian lifters for the 1980 Olympics

* Printed “period of medium and load”, with a word missing. The scheme also skips 30 January – 15 February.