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TODAY’S TRAINING INSPIRATION:
VIKTOR BURAKOV

Today’s Colin Timberlake Training Inspiration is a man who personified two of the most important qualities anyone will need in their fitness journey: perseverance and faith in the results.

When anyone begins their fitness journey, they are typically trying to lose fat or gain muscle, or both, or achieve some other goal related to good health or physical performance. And there is virtually always, at the start, a lengthy period where hours upon hours are poured into the program with no visible or tangible results. This is where people have to work and work, making a leap of faith, and trust that the results will be there in the end. This is where the New Years Resolution crowd falls off the wagon, and the thing is, it is am absolute given that you will achieve better fitness, better health and a better physique if you stick to your guns with a workout program.

Viktor Burakov did not have the luxury of any form of certainty in his endeavours. Just a diligence and work ethic that allowed him to achieve a near-impossible task of paramount importance.

In the 1980s, an unknown serial killer was running rampant in the Soviet Union, one who would ultimately claim over 50 Russian lives. It was Viktor Burakov, a low-level detective and forensics man, who was recruited to solve the murders that his superiors would not even admit were being committed by one man; to do so would be to acknowledge that Mother Russia was capable of producing a serial killer.

Burakov worked the case pretty much 24/7/365 for eight years, fighting bureaucracies, technological and administrative and organization shortcomings in the system, and an enormous limitation on tips and clues as a result of the case receiving no publicity due to the government’s failure to acknowledge it for what it was. Needless to say, hunting a serial killer on a daily basis for almost a decade, with little prospect of success, while swimming against the stream of your superiors the entire time, would be enough to break the strongest of men. But Burakov puts his head down, stuck to his guns, and focused on the task at hand: saving the lives of Russian children.

It was through ingenuity, dedication and hard work that in the early 1990s, Burakov and his team did catch Andrei Chikatilo, the murderer of over 50 innocent Soviet citizens. Burakov’s story and struggle were documented in the film Citizen X, starring Stephen Rea and Donald Sutherland, where the daily stresses and hopelessness of this quest are palpable the whole way through.

So, the next time you fall off the wagon at the gym because you haven’t noticed a change in the mirror after two months, remember: not only will you get results much more quickly than Burakov did (it took him eight years), but you will not have to fight anybody but yourself to get the job done, and you are guaranteed to succeed in your fitness goals if you persevere. Burakov persevered with not only no guarantee of success, but constant roadblocks and little reason for hope. Get your ass to the gym!

TODAY: BICEPS (3-3-3 Tempo, 90 Second Rests)

STANDING BARBELL CURLS (3 sets)
95 x 4
95 x 3
95 x 2

SEATED PREACHER DUMBBELL HAMMER CURLS (3 sets)
30 x 5
40 x 3
50 x 2

SEATED PREACHER MACHINE CURLS (HORIZONTAL GRIP) (3 sets)
70 x 6
100 x 3
120 x 2

SUSPENDED-LEGS INCLINE TWISTING DUMBBELL CURLS (3 sets)
20 x 6
30 x 4
40 x 2

TRAINING NOTES

Total Sets (Biceps): 12

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