I've written a lot of posts on Pavel Tsatsouline. He was a great part of my lifting career because of his large Internet presence. I have some sort of love hate online relationship with him. It's mostly switching to hate because of a large disappointment caused by my ignorance rather than by Pavel himself.
One of the reasons I kinda feel cheated is the fact that I used to believe most of the crap he writes in his books just like a teenage boy believes in bullshit muscle magazines.
For newbies: The secrets of professional bodybuilders are not reps and sets. It's all about steroids, growth hormone, IGF-1, insulin, dieuretics, recreational drugs and gay 4 pay. (Thank me later)
The whole career of Pavel Tsatsouline is based on "The Russian Training Secrets". However the funny thing is that the guy is not even from Russia. He grew up in Latvia. I guess "Latvian Training Secrets" does not sound as gangsta as "Russian Training System".
There are a lot of misleading information in most of his book. Some books like Beyond Bodybuilding seem to be like the ultimate way to confuse someone - the book is like a collection of articles some of which even repeat. On top of that there isn't a single article on steroids which are a must if you ever want to be a "real" bodybuilder. But let's forget about all that and go to the sexy part - DragonDoor's marketing.
Pavel and the whole Dragondoor crew are millionaires for one simple reason - insane marketing and digging into the minds of easily brainwashed people. Steve Maxwell (another fitness guru) even indirectly accused the kettlebell crew of creating fake biographies in order to promote kettlebells. Whether Pavel did it is hard to tell and I am not motivated enough to search the biographies of the old timers presented in his books. One thing is certain however - many of the subjects in the books of Pavel are product of his imagination. For example in Power To The People he presents "a routine for mass" called The Russian Bear. He talks about a Russian commando who got huge using the program. However how can you really tell if that person existed ? I seriously doubt it. But wait there's more...
The book Convict Conditioning by Paul "Coach" Wade is like a Hollywood movie. Paul Wade is supposedly a convict who got mad strong using the exercises in the book. The funny thing is that Paul Wade actually does not exist. The publishers decided increase the popularity of the book by using an old trick - mystery. People like mysteries and since we have all seen prison movies where tough motherfuckers do push-ups we are attracted to the idea of training that way, sometimes it's even in our subconscious minds. We all started training because we wanted to be tough. Life is scary and hard so I guess becoming tough helps. Training like a convict (who in movies are often presented as good bad boys who get the girl ) becomes cool. That's how the legend of Paul Wade was born. Oh wait !!! It gets better there's even an interview with Paul Wade: http://zacheven-esh.com/convict-conditioning-interview-with-coach-paul-wade/
Reading the interview just makes me:
The guy in the pictures of Convict Conditioning was actually the man behind BeastSkills.com. He said all he did was send pictures to DragonDoor.com and he never actually met Paul Wade. Maybe because you cannot meet someone who does not exist ? Also another interesting question is why such bad ass like Paul Wade was not used as model for the pictures ? I guess FBI was after his ass for spreading information about super secret bodyweight exercise more effective than nuclear weapon.
The answer could be found once more in the disclaimer of the book which goes like this:
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This book is intended for entertainment purposes only. This book is not biography. The names, histories and circumstances of the individuals featured in this book have accordingly been changed either partially or completely.
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I guess it's ok to invent a person that never existed if you write a disclaimer.
Here's cool comment I found on Dragondoor.com while digging for dirt:
Click On Image For Larger View
Obviously there are a lot of diverse stories about the magical skills of this gangsta convict but believe me - it's all about the hype. In case you fail to see the obvious fraud I would be glad to see a video of you doing 100 single arm push-ups done the way your idol Paul Wade describes them. You should be able to do this by the time Dr. Dre is ready with Detox.
See you in next life.