Common Complaints

[JoshM7]

Mark,
I followed ss to a t for a month and a half and had an injury, so I took the time to reread your book and do as much research on your program as possible..and the two complaints that seem to continually come up are
1) lack of a rowing motion for upper back
2) lack of conditioning
I personally think that power cleans hit my upper back fairly well, but I am in the army reserve so maintaining conditioning is fairly important.
So my question is, would a short HIIT session (tabata style for example) after workout B on a concept 2 rower be an efficient way to solve both of these problems? Assuming I consume extra calories to cover the extra work.
If not, what would you recommend?

[Mark Rippetoe]

What were your strength levels, i.e. the lifts, and your previous training history when you started the program?

[JoshM7]

I started your program in mid January of this year and it was my first experience with weight lifting but I was in decent shape thanks to the army. My lifts progressed as follows in roughly 6 weeks
Squat 85-190 3x5
Bench 135-170 3x5
Dead 135-205 1x5
Press 65-95 3x5
PC 65-125
After 6 weeks I started getting horrible exertion headaches and took 2 weeks off to get mri read and make sure I wasn't going to stroke out, then I took the next 2 weeks to prep for an SORT on march 17th. After passing that, on Monday I started your program back up and my current working sets are as follows
Squat 190
Bench 165
Dead 215
Press 100
PC 135

I started off relatively conservatively, but deads and pcs are shooting up since I actually have form down now instead of having to learn it like last time.

[Eric K]

...I am in the army reserve so maintaining conditioning is fairly important.
So my question is, would a short HIIT session (tabata style for example) after workout B on a concept 2 rower be an efficient way to solve both of these problems? Assuming I consume extra calories to cover the extra work.
If not, what would you recommend?

I don't know about the injury thing or the upper back; I'll let someone more qualified answer that part. But, in my experience following the program (from October 27-December 23 last year), I went from a 191 lb guy with working set weights of 225 to a 205 lb guy with 345x5x3, without any accessory conditioning. Then, in preparation for a fitness test that included a 3 mile run, I started a conditioning program for a little over a month and ran a 19:25, at a body weight of 192ish.

I did mostly 400's and 800's for conditioning with one Tabata Run session a week. Nothing to write home about, but now that the PFT is over, I can start lifting again.

My point being that conditioning is not that hard or time consuming to develop when you need to, but it is harder and more time consuming to maintain when you're trying to get stronger.

[Mark Rippetoe]

For a guy as weak as you are, strength training with NO conditioning work will drastically improve your work capacity, by increasing your ability to produce force. And that, after all, is what conditioning is for. Unless you weigh 95 pounds. You have omitted your bodyweight/height from the information.

How many times do I have to remind you guys to provide complete information before I just start deleting posts that omit it?

[JoshM7]

I'm 6' 180.

And what was your previous best time on a 3 mile run?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'm guessing your age, since you didn't provide it, as about 25. When I was 25 and squatting 405 x 10 x 3/555 x 1, my 3 mile time was about 24 minutes.

[Mr.City]

I'm guessing your age, since you didn't provide it, as about 25. When I was 25 and squatting 405 x 10 x 3/555 x 1, my 3 mile time was about 24 minutes.

Holy shit, Rip. Kinda puts a spin on how hard 20-somethings train nowadays. Most of those that "lift weights" can hardly put up 405 for a single.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Oh, there are lots of guys this strong. Josh is just not one of them.

[JoshM7]

Oh, there are lots of guys this strong. Josh is just not one of them.

My new 6 month goal is to quote this again with a video of me squatting 405x5.