Starting Strength Weekly Report


August 03, 2020


Mousetrap Edition

Starting Strength Radio
Starting Strength Channel
  • Brent Carter discusses coaching, the optimization of running the program, and why coaching is the reason people train at Starting Strength Gyms.
  • Vegans Have Great Form! – Listen in on part of a recorded conversation from a Lockdown Zoom Meeting with Starting Strength Gym Coaches and owners during the Great New America House Arrest of April 2020 as Jarrod Schaefer, Starting Strength Austin Head Coach, describes his experience working with vegetarians and vegans.


Articles
Training Log
  • The Boogaloo Bertha Story – Bre Hillen becomes a lifter. Nick Delgadillo explains her transformation and progress over the last few years.
  • From the Archives: Mark Rippetoe details what going too deep in the squat is and why you should optimize depth instead.

In the Trenches

bennett setting up squat
15-year-old Bennett came with his dad to the Squat and Deadlift Training Camp in Boise, Idaho so they could train together. [photo courtesy of Pete Troupos]
jason at the bottom of his squat
Jason takes his final set of squats to rock-bottom during the training camp at Snake River CrossFit in Boise, Idaho. [photo courtesy of Pete Troupos]
bethann deadlifting starting strength training camp
Bethann is a masters lifter that also attended the camp. She came to learn the squat and the deadlift so she could train with her husband, but without him having to coach her through that process. [photo courtesy of Pete Troupos]


Best of the Week

Masks while lifting?
eyezm

I'm in a bit of a tough place. I manage a gym in ABQ, NM, and per our governor's health orders, all gym users MUST wear a mask. Absolute baloney, I know.

Members will at times pull their mask under their nose to catch their breath, which is understandable. I get it. Some members don't necessarily like that, and are threatening to call the Health Department to close us down if things "don't get better". Some people just wanna be crabby buttholes I guess.

With that all out of the way, I am wondering if you would have any recommendations on training with a mask, if any. I know it's not ideal, and I would just ignore the health order, but I'm the manager here and I have to enforce it and it would be very bad for business if members saw me training without complete face coverage. Shitty situation, I know.

Mark Rippetoe

Sorry, but this is like training the squat without bending your knees. Just close the gym and admit that you live in a shitty state with a criminal governor. Failing that, get rid of the shitty snitch members.

Dr. Manhattan

My deepest sympathy to you, eyezm. I hope you keep a mental list of the snitches and find an opportunity to hand the festering masses of bacteria their just rewards sometime later in life. In the meantime, I hope you can find any opportunity to reprimand them publicly for ANY posted "gym rules" broken.

Frank_B

What about enforcing shitty rules on the snitches? A lot of gyms have a “water only past this point,” rule that most people ignore. Surely you can find something they’re doing wrong to badger them. At the very least, it might get across to them the idea that enforcing stupid rules annoys everyone.

eyezm

So basically I'm screwed then. There's not a productive way to train with a mask?

Mark Rippetoe

Training hard makes you breathe hard, and requires a big valsalva. You figure it out.

eyezm

Dammit


Best of the Forum

Pin Firing Questions
skjill

How is it that relatively high volume deadlifts, as per the Starr Rehab Protocol, aggravate tendonitis, whereas high volume chin-ups, as per the "pin firing method", alleviate it?

As an aside, can chins effectively be substituted with lat pulldowns, for this purpose? How about curls?

Mark Rippetoe

Because the intensity is different between 3 sets of 25 and 25 sets of 3.

Brandin138

I'm currently dealing with a bad flareup of tennis elbow. Will the pin firing approach make the pain worse initially? Finished my first week of 25x2 chins on Mon & Thursday and will be upping it to 25x3 this week. Thanks.

Mark Rippetoe

Yes, typically hurts more at first.

skjill

You didn't answer my second question.

Mark Rippetoe

You only get one question.

skjill

High volume curls it is!





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