Is Practical Programming all you need for life?

[Matt-Panz]

You get good at programming by spending thousands of hours on the gym floor with lots of different types of people and coaching them through the process of being very weak to very strong. You try and fail with 100s of different approaches until certain patterns start to emerge with certain demographics that can be used to reliably create generic training templates and methodologies like you find in PPST3.

If I don't have the time to train hundreds of people and don't want to ruin my own progress by experimenting with myself, can I just get a coach to create programs for me to follow? Or does a coach just make recommendations and it's up to you to adjust as you go?

I'm currently doing "General Heavy-Light-Medium" on page 166 of PPST3. Should I just do this until it stops working?

Thanks,

Matt

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Some people need various levels of coaching and advice. If you tend to get "paralysis by analysis" or you just don't have the time/inclination to learn the nuts and bolts then you'll probably do better when you have an experienced person design a program for you based off their objective analysis of your goals, abilities, etc, etc.

[Christopher Anderson]

If you're on a program that is working and you're seeing progress, why would you stop? Continue the program until progress stops, then when you get to that point you can address the possible need for a coach to help you. There are different types of coaches out there, as I'm sure everyone can attest, but if you aren't sure what to do then get a coach to do your programming for you and trach your progress so they can make any needed adjustments as you progress.

[David Kirkham]

Or you could just contact Coach Matt Reynolds and his gang and have them set up a program for you. Worked for me! I didn't have to go through any experimentation or headaches. Each workout is tailored to ME and I look forward to his (and Scott's) comments every couple of days. It's like having another lifting partner encouraging, adjusting, and correcting you constantly. Feedback is the next day. It's pretty awesome.

www.startingstrengthonlinecoaching.com

[Elephant]

Some people need various levels of coaching and advice. If you tend to get "paralysis by analysis" or you just don't have the time/inclination to learn the nuts and bolts then you'll probably do better when you have an experienced person design a program for you based off their objective analysis of your goals, abilities, etc, etc.

Even if you know what you're doing, it can be helpful to have an objective third party design a program for you. Many tend to not be as good at analyzing themselves as they are at analyzing others. I see that a number of SSCs have other SSCs doing programming for them. As Abraham Lincoln is reported to have said in another context "He who represents himself has a fool for a client".

Presumably even if you have a coach programming for you, you can discuss things with your coach and jointly modify the program. Or would you prefer people just do what you tell them to do?

[Sean Herbison]

If I wanted to become just as good at programming as an SS coach

That's a rather huge range of proficiency. All of us have at least a decent minimum of ability in that aspect of coaching, but some of us (like me) are near the bottom of that range, while others (like Andy) are near the top, and the gap is wide. It primarily comes down to, as Andy mentioned, experience with clients at various levels of advancement. He's got lots of it, while I primarily work with one-off clients on learning the lifts. Andy also does this as a full time job, while it is currently a very secondary occupation for me. You just can't replace experience with anything else.

So if you want to be good at programming, aim to be like Andy.

[Aslin]

I followed SS and then TM virtually to the letter. I think the only adjustment I made was adding Rows. I ended up with a 300 bench, 220 press, 600 squat, and 560 DL, all for sets of three. I was really happy with myself. I have used the coaches on the forum and the books exclusively. Never been to a seminar or had coaching, so it definitely works verbatim.

I would advise anyone to go see a coach though, even if things are going perfectly for them. For many months I believed I had the perfect squat and deluded myself. It was easy as I was progressing more than I ever thought I would. In fact the bar was slouching slightly on my right side, leading to a loss of extension in the back. It caused a bad case of sciatica for a number of weeks and lots of progress lost. I'm annoyed because it's something a decent coach would have picked up on and sorted out in a single session most probably.

[jkolt]

As an interesting aside, I believe Jim Wendler has described a moment some years ago where he walked into Dave Tates office and said "we need to write programs"

According my imperfect recollection, Tate was adamantly against it, and preferred to teach rough programming, and have people figure out the tactics themselves.

I believe Jim's 5/3/1 is also his logical conclusion to that strategy versus tactic issue.

[Elephant]

That's a rather huge range of proficiency. All of us have at least a decent minimum of ability in that aspect of coaching, but some of us (like me) are near the bottom of that range, while others (like Andy) are near the top, and the gap is wide. It primarily comes down to, as Andy mentioned, experience with clients at various levels of advancement. He's got lots of it, while I primarily work with one-off clients on learning the lifts. Andy also does this as a full time job, while it is currently a very secondary occupation for me. You just can't replace experience with anything else.

So if you want to be good at programming, aim to be like Andy.

There seems a rather large range even for seminar staff and SSOC team leaders. I would imagine these are coaches with a lot of experience with a lot of clients. Perhaps personal fit is part of the difference, although that should likely count as a component of coaching proficiency.

I'd bet the range for coaching form is much narrower.

[Sean Herbison]

I'd bet the range for coaching form is much narrower.

Probably true. We've all got cues that we use more or less than others, and some coaches are better at finding the cues that work for an individual faster than others, but we're all aiming for pretty close to the same target in terms of movement.