Top 10 Articles: Charles Poliquin

Charles Poliquin definitely has a unique voice in this strange and wonderful internet marketplace we find ourselves in.  However, once you get past his strident tone, it is clear how valuable his contribution is.

Here is my own selection of articles from his site:

1. The top five habits of successful lifters: Charles reminisces about his interactions with hugely successful lifters and concludes that five principles made them the great successes that they are.  (1) They value the power of rest, (2) they do what works for them, (3) they find a mentor, (4) they constantly experiment, and (5) they are great stress managers.  Ultimately, the take-home here is that you need to identify what assets you have and try to maximise them, while keeping one eye on your ability to recover from training.
2. Five things I learned from Doug Hepburn: Charles lists the five big lessons he learned from the big Canadian lifter, Doug Hepburn.  (1) Concentrate on just two lifts a day – Charles likes to pair antagonistic supersets, like pull ups and presses – for success, (2) perform lots of sets for maximal strength to increase work capacity, (3) do neural work first, then functional hypertrophy, (4) use split routines, and (5) take your time.  Along the way, Charles speaks highly of Christian Thibaudeau (of T-Nation) and Anthony Ditillo (of The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban), just going to show that he can play nicely when he puts his mind to it.
3. The case for the overhead press: I love overhead pressing but my training history as a competitive swimmer makes them a questionable exercise for me.  However, Charles talks about the benefits of this exercise in this article, not the disadvantages.  The benefits are (1) it develops the key muscles of the deltiods, trapezius and triceps, (2) it is a great way to improve your bench press (I note that Christian Thibaudeau has also claimed this), (3) it can help prevent shoulder injuries, (4) it trains the lower back and core, and (5) it is a great diagnostic tool for the strength coach.  Charles is only getting warmed up at this point, though, and he launches into a huge section on a series of workouts to improve your pressing power.
4. Functional hypertrophy for athletes (parts one and two): this pair of articles is really interesting for anyone looking to help athletes.  In the first part, Charles looks at the nature of the muscle fibres where hypertrophy occurs in response to different lifting stimuli.  In the second part, Charles looks at whether functional hypertrophy is the key to athletic performance.
5. Putting meat on the spinal errectors: in the first paragraph of this article, Charles references the great English bodybuilder Dorian Yates, thereby guaranteeing that I will link to it.  But, fear not, because this is also an awesome article that discusses some of the reasons why coaches are often afraid to programme lower back work and why lower back work is essential to increase athletic performance.
6. Training diary of a hammer thrower: just to reinforce how much of an in-the-trenches coach Charles is, this is a really fascinating look at the training programme Charles created to assist a hammer thrower in reaching a world record.
7. Eight stupid myths about squatting: sometimes, I wish that this article could be tattooed upon the eyelids of everyone who ever dares to claim that squats are in some way a dangerous exercise.  Charles lists and debunks the top eight idiotic claims: (1) squats widen the hips, (2) squats are bad for the knees, (3) there is only one way to squat, (4) you should squat until you puke, (5) Smith machine squats are safer, (6) squat are bad for the back, (7) squats make athletes slower, (8) squats are bad for the heart.  I’m not even going to try to list the weighty evidence Charles presents against all of these ridiculous ideas, but if you know someone who is struggling with the idea of squatting, this is a great place to send them.
8. Rising to pull up success: in this article, Charle says some very nice things about pull ups and chins in general.  In fact, by the end, I was quite overcome…  Anyway, Charles claims that if you can’t get a female client to 12 pull ups in 12 weeks then you don’t know how to train people.  To be fair, this is classic Charles.  Very provocative but setting very high standards.  Interestingly, while Charles can be very openly scathing, he is also offers praise openly.  He says that anyone who can do 3 pull ups with 66% of their bodyweight strapped to them is impressive.  Thank you Charles.  It is not often I get called impressive.
9. Very dumb workouts (parts one, two, three, four, five, six and seven): in this series, you will find Charles at his iconoclastic best.  Don’t even go here if you don’t like your assumptions being challenged or if you have a sensitive disposition.  You have been warned!  Over the series, Charles wades in and kicks seven bells out of numerous exercises and practices.  Among other things, the things that arouse his wrath are: dumbbell cleans, performing exercises on swiss balls for no obvious reason, the way most people perform box jumps and the Litvinov workout.  Don’t click away in disgust if you find yourself disagreeing with Charles at any point.  You can tell from the way he recounts his tales that they are real life experiences from the shop floor and therefore have value.
10. Top 10 things to avoid for mass gain: Charles breaks down the top ten mistakes he sees people making when they are trying to get bigger.  While you’ll see the basics here, Charles does go into the detail on a number of areas so it’s well worth checking out.

Sometimes, when I’m reading Charles, I feel almost like it’s a guilty pleasure, because he is referenced so infrequently by other strength and conditioning bloggers and authors.  However, I do feel that I get a lot of benefit out of his writing.  I hope you feel the same after checking out these articles.