I've actually done the Russian Bear thing for two lifts: incline bench press and DL. I totally changed my physique doing it. I did this after graduating from 6 brutal weeks of the DeLorme-inspired 6-week Hyperthropy Cycle (another Pavel idea). The day after I switched over, I was down with the flu due to overexertion.

I found the Bear difficult to execute, unlike Rippetoe. The problem is the humongous volume of DLs. Unlike the squat, I find it far more difficult to recover from DLs. Testosterone level remains depressed for a significant amount of time (3-4 days!) before overcompensating. So where Rippetoe (where the volume is low and the DL is limited to a single set of 5s) gives me a constantly elevated testosterone, the Bear puts me in negative territory for days before soaring. I did both lifts once every 5-6 days. I did a maintenance workout with light weights and low volume between them.

I don't think porn works. When T is high, I walk around the office the whole day with a stiffy. When it's low, I'm not in the mood to get it up. Porn is a poor substitute for a naturally surging T.

There aren't many routines out there that makes the deadlift its centerpiece. After 4 months on Rippetoes novice program where squatting was everything, I felt instinctively I needed to deadlift a lot more. Which was why I did both the Bear and the Delorme-inspired hyperthrophy program. If you want to deadlift more than anything else, you have only these two. Unless of course you want to invent something of your own, which I do not feel qualified to do.

Whenever it starts to bulge out too much, I walk with my hands in my pockets and restrain it with one of them.

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Added on December 19, 2009, 5:10 pmI got plenty of traps and a massive upper back out of this. With Rippetoe, no traps.

This post has been edited by kotmj: Dec 19 2009, 05:10 PM