An example of how Sheiko would train a heavy advanced lifter over 80kg

Boris Sheiko is the national coach for the Russian powerlifting team and has produced world record holders such as Andrey Belyaev, Kirill Sarychev, Yuri Fedorenko, Alexei Sivokon and Maxim Podtynny. At the time of this article, his athletes had won a total of 39 gold medals at powerlifting world championships. Which by any standard can be considered impressive.

Sheiko to my knowledge has never created a standard program, that should not be altered according to each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. The programs in circulations are hence examples of how different training periods could be laid out for a specific powerlifter. Sheiko emphasis in his books that no program is meant to be set in stone, but one should probably not change the overall periodization scheme. One of the principles Sheiko does though utilize when initially designing a personalized program is that he believes smaller powerlifters can generally handle more sets and higher intensity than a larger athlete. This also explains why he has made examples of how he would both train a heavy lifter over 80kg and a lighter lifter under 80kg in order to give some insights into how he would adjust the programming.

The following program comes from one of Sheiko’s many Russian books on powerlifting and is an example of how you can periodize a training program for a heavy intermediate or advanced lifter over 80kg (175lbs). The program should be done in the following order:

  1. #37v2 – Prep cycle 1
  2. #31 – Prep cycle 2
  3. #32v2 – Comp cycle

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