US weightlifters haven't had a ton of success in the Olympics, and legendary coach Ivan Abadjiev thinks he knows why. Abadjiev is a weightlifting coach who guided Bulgaria to Olympic gold in 1972 - a competition in which the Soviets were heavily favored. Beyond this, he also made Bulgaria an weightlifting international power since his country went on to win numerous competitions in the 70's and 80's. <\/p>\n
Much of Abadjev's success can be attributed to the Bulgarian method, which centers everything on lifting in the gym, rather than using a combination of lifting, cardio, situps and cross-training. In addition to revolving everything around the weights, the Bulgarian also believes that people should spend 5-6 hours in the gym every single day.<\/p>\n
I don't think I need to tell you that this type of training is controversial to say the least. After all, spending 100% of your time focusing on the weights doesn't exactly promote total fitness. Going further, it's easy to get burned out on a routine such as this where you don't get any days off.<\/p>\n
However, Abadjiev has recently had some success training athletes in America, and he hopes to produce some Olympic champions by 2016. And the US could definitely use some of these because they haven't won gold as a team in 40 years of Olympic weightlifting competition.<\/p>\n
US weightlifters haven’t had a ton of success in the Olympics, and legendary coach Ivan Abadjiev thinks he knows why. Abadjiev is a weightlifting coach who guided Bulgaria to Olympic gold in 1972 – a competition in which the Soviets were heavily favored. Beyond this, he also made Bulgaria an weightlifting international power since his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n