I can’t emphasise enough the value of a good coach. You can read all the books in the world and read every internet article out there, but a good coach will give you personalised feedback and guidance you won't find printed anywhere.  A coach can also push you to do things you never thought you could. I have been lifting for a couple of decades and I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to be a better lifter. At the beginning of 2012 I started working with Mike Tuchsherer. He is not only one of the world’s best lifters, he is also one of the worlds best coaches. With Mike I have been breaking PR after PR. Recently, he agreed to let me interview him to discuss his lifting and coaching.

SP: You have made a name for yourself as a lifter, coach and the mind behind Reactive Training Systems or RTS- thanks for taking time to share your knowledge. I first heard of you as a lifter around 2007-2008, as someone who emerged as one of the best powerlifters on the planet- your own performance generated interest in the way you train. What are some of your achievements as a lifter?

MT: My best lifts are 903/644/850/2342 (410/292.5/387.5/1065) in single ply equipment and 785/474/850/2105 (357.5/215/387.5/957.5) done raw.  I've won USAPL nationals 6 times.  I was a gold medallist at the IPF Jr World competition in 2006.  I took the silver medal at my first IPF Senior World Championship in 2008.  In 2009, I became the first American male in USAPL history to win a gold medal for powerlifting at the World Games.  For those who don't know, the World Games is a competition held every four years and is composed of the top 40 lifters from the World Championships.  It is the pinnacle of IPF Powerlifting and the closest thing we have to the Olympics.

Since then, I've been doing some raw competitions.  This past summer, I competed at the inaugural IPF Classic Cup in Stockholm Sweden.  Over the last few years of raw powerlifting, I've even managed to set a few world records including the squat, deadlift, and total.

But one of my proudest achievements has been as a coach.  At the Classic World Cup in Sweden where the top IPF raw lifters on the planet gathered to test their strength, four were those I personally coached and several other lifters approached me to say they use RTS methods.  I'm not aware of any other private coach who brought as many lifters to such a contest.  RTS is proving itself for intermediate level lifters all the way up to the highest levels of Powerlifting.

SP: As you have progressed as a lifter you have also managed to develop a sophisticated training system that has made a huge difference to myself and many other lifters. What are the origins of RTS and how has it evolved?

MT: You often hear people say, "You have to listen to your body."  But what does that mean?  How does one "listen to their body"?  RTS began as a way of systematically learning to do that.  I began developing the system when I was the Cadet-In-Charge of the Powerlifting team at the US Air Force Academy.  I was able to fine tune and try out many of the ideas that we were developing at the time.  As with any good system, it's always in a state of evolution to make it better over time.  But most users don't need to be concerned with that.  You learn to listen to your body and that helps you for as long as you use it.

A lot of people are making use of RPEs and fatigue drops- can you outline what they allow a lifter to do and how they are useful for regulating volume and fatigue?  RPE's allow a lifter to auto-regulate the amount of weight on the bar.  Most programs use percentages in an attempt to get the right amount of weight on the bar.  While that can be a decent approximation, it fails on a number of levels.  Differences in muscle fibre type distribution, training history, and work capacity can have dramatic effects on what loads are required for effective training.  And even if you have a coach that adjusts the percentages for your own individual requirements, there's still no way he can predict your good days and bad days.

Those will also throw off a percentage based program.  We have found it's far more reliable to plan for a number of reps and a corresponding RPE.  RPE stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion and basically is a number for how hard the set felt.  We use a scale of 1-10.  We describe a 10 as a maximal effort set with no reps left "in the tank".  A 9 then is a hard effort with one rep in the tank.  An 8 is 2-3 reps in the tank and so on.  By using a scale like this we can accurately determine how hard a set felt and it's much more descriptive than, "that felt easy" or something similar.

So this allows us to load the appropriate weight on the bar.  If I say to do three reps with 85%, one lifter will find it too easy while the other may find it too hard.  But if I say to do three reps at a 9 RPE, they will load whatever weight is needed to produce a 9 RPE.  This is the essence of listening to your body.  You automatically adjust the weight up or down depending on what you've got each day.

SP: What sorts of templates and training methodologies have you or others you have worked with applied these to?

MT: Oh, just about everything.  I tell people the training system you use is like a rifle and RTS is like the scope that attaches to it.  The scope doesn't change the rifle, it just allows you to employ it more effectively.  RTS is the same way.  You can pair the RTS "scope" with the Westside "rifle" or the Sheiko "rifle" or the Block Periodization "rifle".  It doesn't matter.  Any system you pair it with will be more effective because you're taking that system and modifying it so it better fits your needs as a lifter.  It has to be more effective.

SP: I have to confess when I first came across RTS I was a Sheiko convert. I held the belief that the value of the Russian systems was the vast research they were built on. To me, at that point, the apparent objectivity of the systems was their strength and I felt that systems that drew on subjective measures like perceived effort or feel risked deviating from what made the systems so effective. But, the more I thought about it, the templates provide a starting point, based on generalised data or research and, as I believe Sheiko himself has said, the point is to individualise. So when I came across RTS it occurred to me that this is precisely what makes this system the obvious next step, with whatever methodology to start with. Am I on the right wave-length? Is this how you see RTS?

MT: Yes, essentially.  Our bodies are immensely complex beyond our current understanding.  We don't work like robots at all and it simply makes sense that a complex, living, adapting being would need a living, adapting training program to optimize your results.  Things like subjective markers don't satisfy our categorical, analytical minds, but sometimes that's the best way and it's FAR more accurate than many may think.  It's certainly not a weakness of the system at all.

SP: What sorts of things do you take into consideration when you are working out what type of template or program a lifter should follow?

MT: First off, a template is not a program.  I often ask lifters about what kind of training program they are on and they tell me about their template.  A template is an important piece of the program, but essentially it's just how the exercises fit together in the weekly cycle.  That said, when I'm working with someone new, their past experience and comfort level is a big influence on where I begin.  Then, over time, we usually gravitate toward a more frequent program, time permitting.  The reason is that frequent practice is extremely beneficial from a motor learning standpoint.  You will get much stronger practicing a lift frequently, all things being equal.  But I don't start a person out with high frequency if they aren't used to it.  The reason is they need time to build work capacity to handle frequent training, but they also need time to believe in the system.  Belief is a huge component of an effective training program and it is a mistake not to consider it in your planning.

SP: You also offer lifting analysis- can you explain how this works and how it can help lifters progress?

MT: This is something relatively new that we're doing.  Being strong relies on force development.  Everybody produces force in different placed due to things like leverage, stretch reflex, and weak joint positions.  We can take a video and run an analysis on how the bar moves, then figure out what a lifter's force curve looks like.

Translation:  We can figure out precisely where a lifter's weakness is and identify things they can do to fix it.  And it goes beyond determining weak point too.  Based on the shape of the force curve, we can figure out what kind of training will produce the best results.

SP:Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get great results from speed work and other people seem to get nothing out of it?

MT: One of our current theories that seems to hold some merit is that this has to do with force curve.  People with one kind of force curve tend to respond well to speed work and others don't.  This analysis allows us to cut to the chase and prescribe effective training without so much trial and error.

SP: You coach quite a few lifters- I believe there were approximately 6 lifters at the raw worlds from 4 countries at the IPF raw worlds either coached by you or training RTS- how many do you now coach and what types of successes are you seeing?

MT: The exact number of athletes is always changing, but it's up around few dozen at the moment.  I work with all kinds of folks from older masters lifters to teenagers, high level lifters to novices.  I focus on powerlifters, but I even train bodybuilders and strongmen.  Not everyone I train competes, but most do.  Some are really busy and others have very flexible schedules.  The only requirement is that you have to want to get better.

We see some pretty fantastic results, but I'm sure you expected to hear that!  Seriously though, some have gotten truly amazing results.  I've worked with several people who have put over 100 pounds on their total over an 8 week period.  It's insane really.  Then there are others who struggle for whatever reason.  Maybe they're genetically disadvantaged or whatever.  But we keep working with them until THEY are happy with their gains.  Some lifters want to be world champions.  Others don't have that dream.  Our goal is to help you maximize your results with the resources you have.

Now you might wonder how much individual attention lifters get if we work with a few dozen lifters.  First, this is my full-time job.  I coach people and make people strong.  And I'm pretty dang good at it.  Second, I have a system of lifter management that nobody else has.  I know that because I built the system myself.  We send training to RTS Athletes, we review the training logs, communicate with the lifter, update the plan... maybe change the strategy a little or whatever else is required to maximize gains, then send the next week's training.  Each lifter gets an individual training plan and we continually re-evaluate and improve it as we go.

SP: What challenges have you faced coaching yourself and others and how have you overcome these?

MT: Each athlete presents their own set of challenges.  Some guys have scheduling issues or only have decent training equipment on certain days.  Other guys are beat up and can only train certain movements.  Even the guys who are apparently totally good to go will have something that isn't quite right or something that doesn't quite work.  The key to ANY of these problems is to communicate with the athlete, find out what's going on, and adjust the training so it maximizes THAT ATHLETE'S results.  The guys who fail to communicate with me are the ones who struggle most.  For myself, it's still communicating with others.  I have a handful of other coaches that I really respect and I communicate with them about my training.  They help keep me on track.

As a lifter, has your work as a coach fed back into your own training?  Absolutely.  I learn all kinds of stuff from my athletes and my athletes benefit from my own experimentation.  Then there's Project Momentum.  I created Project Momentum to test various training ideas.  We run these projects a few times throughout the year.  It's free for anybody to sign up.  You don't get a fully customized training plan, but you get a pretty darn good one.  There's always some aspect of it that we haven't proven yet and we're seeking evidence about whether it works or not.  As I said, these projects are free and they historically produce pretty good results for the participants.

SP: I have learnt a lot from RTS, not only about the physical side of training, but also the psychological side. You have said some interesting things about the internal conversations we have with ourselves while we train and compete. How important do you think the mental aspect is and what have been some of the things you have worked on for yourself and others?

MT: The mental side is immensely important.  But I suppose everyone says that.  The trick is to tell people what aspects of it are important.  It requires us to think about thinking, which is pretty difficult and confusing at times.  I'm still trying to figure out a good, accessible way to teach the mental aspects of the sport to people.  We can talk about believing in yourself, being focused, setting goals and all that, but the conversation is pretty shallow.  If you can teach someone how to believe in themselves... then you've got something special.  But that's not easy to do.  Some good coaches just kind of understand this on an intuitive level, then they can help bring out the best in their athletes.  But it's very difficult to teach someone how to do these things in a mass environment.

SP: What are your short term and long term goals?

MT: For right now, I want to win a gold medal at the next IPF Classic World Cup and take my record book back.  That has the entirety of my training focus right now.  Beyond that... who knows.  Maybe I'll want another one!

SP: What sorts of people can you assist with your online coaching- is it just powerlifters or have you worked with other sorts of strength athletes? How do people find out more?

MT: As I mentioned, I work with just about everyone regardless of goals, age, schedule, and so on.  I tend to specialize on powerlifter types (competitive or not), but I've worked with all kinds.  I've even trained a few military types over the years and helped them achieve some really incredible things in a short time.  I'm really proud of those guys.

SP: Any plans to come to Australia?

MT: Ha!  Nothing concrete, but I definitely want to come.  I'm just looking for an excuse to go, really!

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge Mike.

For more information about RTS, coaching and lift analysis check out Mike’s website:

http://www.reactivetrainingsystems.com/

or for forum discussions:

http://www.reactivetrainingsystems.com/new-forum

By Steven Pritchard

Tags: weightlifting Stephen Pritchard