BNSF Edition

Starting Strength Weekly Report

August 22, 2022

On Starting Strength

Starting Strength Book for Women? – Rip talks about training for women and explains why there isn't a "pink book."
Weightlifting Shoes. A Most Useful Tool For Strength Training – Starting Strength Coach Ray Gillenwater discusses why weightlifting shoes are superior to regular old tennis shoes. When making big strength gains in the gym every advantage helps, and your shoes can be quite the game changer.
IS Physical Therapy Fraud? – Ray Gillenwater and Chris Reis talk about medical bureaucracy and how physical therapy studies work.
Lift Silently by Mia Inman – When lifting heavy weights, you should take in a breath and hold it against a closed glottis. This is known as the Valsalva maneuver...
The Prep Course and Starting Solo by Daniel Rodriguez – Most of the people I have met in the Starting Strength Coach Prep Course (SSCPC) signed up with the intention of...
Weekend Archives: Is it Training or Exercise? by Lt. Col. Ryan Whittemore – The Army’s FM 7-0, Training for Full Spectrum Operations, states, “Properly presented and executed training is...
Weekend Archives: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Squats by Mark Rippetoe – One of the most persistent myths in the entire panoply of conventional exercise wisdom is that squats below parallel are somehow bad...

From the Coaches

Easy Doesn't Work: An Interview with Stef Bradford – Stef joins the Weights & Plates podcast to discuss the mental and philosophical side of training and why the term “easy doesn’t work” encapsulates the career of a lifter.
Phil Meggers demonstrates and discusses several common mistakes that lifters make with lifting straps. He also covers the reason straps actually work so well . . . and it's not what you think.
Do you look up when getting up off of the toilet? Didn't think so. Accompanied by general shenanigans, Phil Meggers quickly discusses and demonstrates how to solve the problem of a ridiculous focal point when squatting. This is the fourth video in Testify's series of Saturday Shorts on fixing the squat.
Spotting the squat isn’t complicated, but man, it can get ugly. Phil Meggers discusses common mistakes people make when spotting the squat as well as how to correctly spot.

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In the Trenches

diana keeps the bar close on her set of 245 deadlifts

Diana keeps the bar close in her 245x5 deadlift at the Deadlift & Clean Training Camp in Indianapolis. The shorts being pulled up are a good indicator she's kept it close. [photo courtesy of Andrew Lewis]

eric strong power cleans 225 at a starting strength training camp

Eric Strong power cleans 225 at the training camp in Indiana. Long forearms aren't always a death sentence and Eric made it work here. [photo courtesy of photo courtesy of Andrew Lewis]

starting strength cincinnati members watch matt complete his last heavy press

Several fellow members join Head Coach Adam Martin to watch Matt complete his last heavy press single in the Saturday 7am session at Starting Strength Cincinnati. [photo courtesy of Lucas Schroeder]

barb mueller coaches the deadlift at testify strength and conditioning in omaha

Coach Barb Mueller cues Liana during her top set of five reps at 60 kg as Liana wraps up her first training session at Testify Strength & Conditioning in Omaha, NE. [photo courtesy of Phil Meggers]

shelley teaches new member lisa how to bench press

Shelley Hancock-Wells teaches Lisa Meier how to bench press. [photo courtesy of Josh Wells]

starting strength boston newest member deadlifting

Josh is Starting Strength Boston’s newest member. Here he is deadlifting at the Thursday 5:30am class. [photo courtesy of Arthur Frontczak]

erin squatting wednesday at wfac in texas

Erin knocking out a set of squats on a Wednesday evening. [photo courtesy of Bre Hillen]

starting strength cincinnati apprentice coaches a member deadlifting

Starting Strength Cincinnati apprentice Tony coaches member Ann as she warms up for her deadlift. [photo courtesy of Lucas Schroeder]

jameson wells adds to 2kg to one up dan sweet on rack pulls

Starting Strength Katy’s youngest member, Jameson Wells, sets up for a rack pull. He had to add 2kg to one up Dan Sweet. [photo courtesy of Josh Wells]

Best of the Week

Strength

Mark Rippetoe

High school football players hailed as heroes for saving woman trapped in car crash

“A group of high school football players from Georgia is being praised for their quick thinking and heroic actions after saving the life of a woman involved in a car crash.

Members of the Rome High School football team — including Cesar Parker, Treyvon Adams, Antwiion Carey, Messiah Daniels, Tyson Brown and Alto Moore — arrived at school last Friday when they witnessed a serious collision between two cars that left a 50-year-old woman trapped inside.

According to mathematics teacher Luis Goya, smoke was pouring from the car with fluid spilling everywhere and the doors jammed, but the brave athletes immediately jumped in to rescue her.

“They literally started using their strength to pry the door open, so the lady could be released,” Goya wrote in a Facebook post. “After a few seconds of pulling and pushing the door, the boys ended up opening it and helped her get out of the car.”

cmdrfunk

More of that toxic masculinity

Best of the Forum

Dorian and Rip Maul a Myth

Bigredbull

Huge bugbear for me is training myths and bullshit. The myths don’t come much bigger than the training variable sirens. Here’s Dorian (who knew a thing or two about general strength ie. applying force against an external resistance) recently calling out the "change your exercises" myth: Dorian's Advice - How often should you change your workout routine. Why the hell more people don’t listen to a guy who has sold more books on strength training than his competitors by a country mile (Rip) and the one of the best Mr. Olympias ever who dominated the sport in its most competitive era (Yates) is a shame.

Mark Rippetoe

All the biggest guys lifted very heavy weights, not a lot of sets and reps, and not a lot of exercise variation. I believe I remember that Dorian was doing incline benches for sets of 5 at over 500.

Bigredbull

Yes, Blood and Guts dvd. A total classic. Yates was an old school English Bulldog - all bite and no bark. An animal. They don’t make ‘em like they used to.

cmdrfunk

More importantly, how much bigger and stronger would Yates have been if he used a trap bar?

Mark Rippetoe

It's impossible to know.

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