Favoring squats

[docoftheworld]

Sean, your points, all of them, are very valid and I agree with all of them. That said, you cant be a purist in retrospective studies anyway. Looking for a signal, at least, is something and better than nothing.
For instance, the WFAC has been training athletes/laymen/general population for decades now, it would be interesting to see the mortality/morbidity in those who just kept memberships (whether they showed up to the gym or not).
A propsective study is drastically needed. However, the way its usually done: write a review --> do the retrospective study --> do the prospective one

great points though and I am with you in all of them. Strength and health is probably an inversed U shaped curve; I just am trying to figure out the maximal point beyond which health will deteriorate due to increased attempt at getting stronger.

Rip's philosphy is bop till you drop, but a back injury may prevent you from adequately boping

[I_iz_a_fatass]

"Strong enough" is very much a personal decision encompassed by your personal genetics, psychology, time and willingness to train, physiology, recoverability, and a host of other factors. On any given day I can warm up and squat more than my bodyweight, even in the absence of consistency of workouts; this apparently is better than most of my similarly-aged peers in the Real World, despite being significantly weaker than the same peer group on the forums.

Stronger is better than weaker. The process of building and maintaining physical strength in and of itself is a worthwhile endeavor.

[Charlie Davies]

I once spent a few months lifting consistently but not trying to increase weights. I.e. I squatted 185 for 2 sets of 5 several days a week (+press, chins, deadlift also done very light).

I was never sore, and my various minor joint injuries got better. But I stayed weak, and it was boring.

[SpinyNorman]

Perman, I agree 100%.
It would be easy to conduct a retrospective study and put that to rest. All we need is a list of strength athletes as a cross sectional group, match them to a control group and see morbidity and mortality (morbidity would be any hospital admission, ED visit) and mortality is self explanatory.
I would be very interested in designing this, and i have the statistical resources in my institution to conduct the analysis (which should be straightforward anyway, but i dont have a PhD in stats).

what do you guys think?

Please don't try to do a survival analysis using retrospective cross-sectional data.

[John Hanley]

Will getting my competition squat PR above 425 and my competition deadlift over 585 make my life easier? No, probably not. I can already lift well over what any reasonable person would ever be asked to lift. Would improving my press PR over 165 (or whatever it is, I can't remember) make my life easier? Yeah, probably, that's pretty low and I sometimes have trouble lifting things over head level. Right now, what would improve my life MOST is probably a lower heart rate (longer/easier walks with the stroller while talking to the kid and not getting out of breath) and lower blood pressure (borderline hypertension).

Ah. You want middle-aged-dad-periodized-training.

I'm only half-joking.

My "macro-cycle" looks like
Spring & Summer: strong strength emphasis.
Fall: strong conditioning emphasis
Winter: strong beer emphasis

###

Also: defining "strong enough" using arbitrary loads across organisms is silly. Use: "length of the cycle to gain appreciable strength."*

* I'm leaving this vague ("appreciable strength") lest the stoned-algebra-student thinks I'm trying to model strength gains as a function of "training time."

[Kregna]

I hate that 'Mericans spell 'favouring' without the 'u'

It looks like baby language

[John Hanley]

I hate that 'Mericans spell 'favouring' without the 'u'

It looks like baby language

I hate when stupid people arbitrarily value their cultural norms above other cultural norms. Just 'cause.

It's like baby logic/axiology.

[Kregna]

I hate when stupid people arbitrarily value their cultural norms above other cultural norms. Just 'cause.

Since when was looking like baby language an arbitrary reason?!

[John Hanley]

Since when was looking like baby language an arbitrary reason?!

The criteria/process for assigning the value "baby language" is arbitrary.

It's not a reasoned process. Just your inherited, wrong-headed sense of cultural superiority.

Which warrants a blood-eagle.

[Kregna]

The criteria/process for assigning the value "baby language" is arbitrary.

It's not a reasoned process. Just your inherited, wrong-headed sense of cultural superiority.

Which warrants a blood-eagle.

Is the criteria arbitrary, though? The word is shorter. Imagine if I wrote 'tre' instead of 'tree'. Nothing to do with cultural superiority - everything to do with simple baby spelling

It certainly doesn't justify a blood eagle and arguably not even this light scolding!