So does the Texas method suck?

[marcf]

So it irked me that you keep calling people who lift a decent amount of weight novices...

Sticking around here long enough will temper your ego.

[marcf]

I actually got Scientific Principles of Strength Training about a month ago but I haven't read it yet. Guess I need to do that.

Have you skimmed it all? I was thinking of grabbing it, but I'm cheap.

[John Hanley]

Sticking around here long enough will temper your ego.

novices...

[Bryan Dobson]

novices...

It's like being young and inexperienced. You don't understand how inexperienced until you gain some experience. you don't understand your youth until it begins to slip away.

[marcf]

It's like being young and inexperienced. You don't understand how inexperienced until you gain some experience. you don't understand your youth until it begins to slip away.

Experience is the best teacher. Unless someone is about to hurt himself/herself.

[Chebass88]

I just stumbled across these guys this month, and have been reading whatever free stuff I can find of theirs online. What are the names of their programming books?

Or, you could just write me up a cookie cutter DUP program for free, once you're carbed up and feeling happy of course.

Or you could contact Tom via PM, politely ask what his rates are, and either do some PayPal or write a check. Or you could just write your own program using the gems of knowledge he has already freely given in this thread.

[Aaron Montgomery]

I might just write a super cookie cutter six week DUP program that people can just put numbers into and run. Because I strongly believe most people would get better numbers from that than TM. Especially on Bench/Squat. Sometimes deadlift response is more unpredictable. when it comes to volume.

Or you could contact Tom via PM, politely ask what his rates are, and either do some PayPal or write a check. Or you could just write your own program using the gems of knowledge he has already freely given in this thread.

Tom did already mention that he might write up a cookie cutter DUP program...

[perman]

Experience is the best teacher. Unless someone is about to hurt himself/herself.

Even then, the horror scenarios I hear people try to scare me with (typically when I talk of lifting numbers) of permanently fucking up their backs from heavy squats or deadlifts is something I've never seen or heard of in practice. Maybe I just haven't talked to enough people, but my impression is that serious, permanent lifting injuries are exceedingly rare. I exclude the recurring issues that seems plague lifters, a shoulder or back that's bad now and again is not the same thing as what lifting fearmongerers spout.

Hurting yourself in the gym is usually far more transient than what unexperienced people would think it is.

[BBB]

The above post is exactly why I said "novice". It wasn't even an insult... Of course you don't have good experience with judging RPE when the only program you had run at that time was the Texas Method. The Texas Method is literally DESIGNED to take you to @10 sets every single week. Not only that, but the ideal candidate for the program is getting stronger week to week, anyway. So it is very possible that you actually did get about 5lbs stronger each time.

You have a different definition of novice compared to Rippetoe (or at least what he writes in his books).

You seem to think that RPE is consistent across all workouts but it isn't. Like, just because I hit 365x5 and rated it @10 despite the fact I've done 385x5@9 in the past does NOT mean my rating during this session was wrong. Performance fluctuates.

No, I understand autoregulation, that's not what I'm talking about.

Yes, you probably would be weaker if you were a novice running RPE programs because RPE programs are not meant for novices who do not yet know how to rate RPE. You had never done a program to that point which would have taught you *how* to rate RPE. This was my entire point. Novices who have done nothing but grind away sets of 5 every single workout do not yet know how to be objective due to lack of experience.

I'm not sure it applies to just novices, but at least we're in agreement

My total at the time I made that video was 1405@220lbs so you're saying that you total more than 1405 across the big three? Color me surprised (basing that comment solely on your TM numbers that I thought were fairly recent). Or did you somehow think my total after 9 months of Starting Strength, when I actually WAS a novice (lol), was my current total at the time of that video? I totaled ~1100-1200ish after my novice phase. I hadn't even been training for a year at that point.

In your video @ 25 seconds
Aug '11: 750 @ 165
Aug '12: 1200 @ 242
Feb '13: 1124 @ 198
Jun' 13: 1405 @ 220
Jan '14: 1100 @ 198
Mar '14: 1124 @ 165

I didn't go through the whole video to see when you were using which 'aids' (not saying it in a negative way, to each his own and I appreciate your honesty in sharing your story and experience). I was comparing myself to your numbers in Jan '14, that's about 2.5 years after your first meet (or test).

Either way, that's not the point, numbers aside, I thought you were talking about novice in terms of knowledge, since you said: "ITT novices proclaim it is impossible to be objective with RPE based on their experience running LP." So if you're able to have all the knowledge you had with a similar amount of training time and lower total, then so could the other 'novices' ITT.

Anyway, no reason to belabor the point, unnecessary tangent. I clearly had my panties in a tizzy

Sticking around here long enough will temper your ego.

Hah, I don't have an ego... but thanks for pointing out that I come off that way, I'll try and be more careful with how I type my responses.

Even then, the horror scenarios I hear people try to scare me with (typically when I talk of lifting numbers) of permanently fucking up their backs from heavy squats or deadlifts is something I've never seen or heard of in practice. Maybe I just haven't talked to enough people, but my impression is that serious, permanent lifting injuries are exceedingly rare. I exclude the recurring issues that seems plague lifters, a shoulder or back that's bad now and again is not the same thing as what lifting fearmongerers spout.

Hurting yourself in the gym is usually far more transient than what unexperienced people would think it is.

I don't remember where I first learned about this, but powerlifting has very high injury rates. Here's a graphic w/studies:



I've definitely hurt myself many times, which has impacted my training. One time I actually hurt myself deadlifting with very low weight... I was warming up (single @ ~60%) and 'pop' felt a weird pain in my low back... sat out for a while. So you don't even have to be anywhere near maxes. Ironically, I rehabed it back by squatting - it actually felt better squatting rather than laying around in bed.

[marcf]

BBB, what's your best total, or what are your best numbers for each lift? Any videos?

You seem so hell bent on not being called a novice, and you define yourself as a non-novice because of your numbers.

I'll say it again: stick around here long enough, and it will temper your ego. And I don't mean that to say that you're arrogant, but your ego/self-esteem/self-worth seems to revolve so much around what you lift compared to other people, that when you're called a novice you get so worked up by it.

There are people who have much higher totals than whatever yours is after 2 months of lifting. They're freaks. But should we call them intermediate lifters? And would they be qualified to have opinions on RPE? Would those opinions be substantive?