Sheiko

nico said:Ben, I know you've been sheikoing for a while now. You gave me a fair bit of info a while ago. I was wondering if you could go through your personal experience with Sheiko with the benefit of a couple of years of doing it.

How have your lifts progressed?
I think I ran my 1st Sheiko cycle mid way through 2008, i was probably good for 580ish at the time. Now I am probably good for 720ish on a good day with a following wind (i.e. after a run of unijured training).

I think the gains would have been a LOT more if:
a) I had understood or at least trusted the principles behind the programming from the start. Like everyone else i thought i knew better than one of the most sucessful powerlifting coaches of all time, and f**ked around with it to 'customise' it

b) Id had way more uninterrupted training...ive had a s**t year for injuries and havent gained much since Nov 09

What has been the big plus/minus of Sheiko for you?
Well the big plus is that it meks me stronger. Sounds right daft but I am not a natural born athlete and even for me to be average, like what i am now, has been a fair old slog. Now gains come even slower, but i KNOW without doubt that if i put a run of 12 wks solid training together (i.e. 2 prep cycles and 1 comp cycle) i will gain something on my total.

It also suits my wierdo OCD brain - I like understanding the maths/science behind the method and I work better if i have everything planned out before i get to gym and complete the planned workload even if it is rediculously brutal.

Cons are that the sessions take f**king ages, you are out of sync with your training partners who do 'normal' methods, you dont gain much muscle and that it kills you to death in terms of recovery and hormones balance and s**t. Quite often you make your best gains after you have been really beat up with bad sleep, no libido, pissed off all't time etc. - part of the principle is still training super high volume when you are very fatigued and forcing your body to adapt & get stronger I suppose. Probly part of the reason the ruskis do so well off it is that the whole team is on the special breakfast and recovers amazing.

What advice would you give to new Sheikoists?

1. Dont f**k about with it too much. The glorius comrades of the Soviet Union did tests on thousands of athletes and a lot of their best PLers have followed routines written by Boris and most people gain great off a stock cycle.

2. Be prepared to feel weaker from training, not stronger. The high volume & s**t means that weights that felt easy on wk 1 & look light on paper feel like a s**t-ton on wk 9 or whatever. A lot of people give up then cos they feel beat up and like their lifts are going down. Its not until you have peaked/deloaded that you see the gains


There is a lot of info about Sheiko, but the personal experience over a long period would be very interesting.