Danis

Hey Rip, my father has recently been dealing with some pain in legs and hips. He is 63 y/o male 5 '10' ' 200-210ish pounds and has never trained. Arthritis runs in the family.

X-Ray for lumbar revealed:

• Marked narrowing L5-S1 disc space with grade 1 anterolisthesis of L5 over S1
• Small posterior osteophytes
• Moderate narrowing L4-5 disc space with small anterior and posterior osteophytes
• Small anterior osteophytes on rest of lumbar vertebral bodies with relative preservation of remaining intervertebral disc spaces

Pelvis:

• Mild osteopenia
• Mild degenerative changes in bilateral sacroiliac joints
• Mild narrowing of bilateral hip joint with small osteophytes indicating early degenerative osteoarthritis
• Calcified phleboliths noted in pelvis

They recommended for him to go to physiotherapy, which is probably just going to include some mobility and telling him to take it easy. I want to get him going on some training. My question is, is this just regular aging and should he just start training? Is there anything he should be cautious of with this diagnosis? He has also thrown his back out a few times over the years and is concerned with this happening while lifting. I want to steer him in the right direction without making anything worse.

Mark Rippetoe

He has a normal 63-year-old spine. Here is the question: Have you ever made your father do anything?

Danis

Hell no. I think he would be willing to help himself out in this scenario and start training. I just wanted to check if this was anything more serious than the normal effects of aging.

Mark Rippetoe

Our experience has been that low-level back pain goes away after about 3 weeks of the program.

Peter Bex

I apologize if this has been asked before, but a quick search of the forums didn't turn up anything. I also haven't been able to find a page with errata for PPST.

Anyway, here goes: I'm currently re-reading PPST 3rd ed. with a bit more attention (as in, actually studying it), and have a question about the definition of intensity. On page 29 it says:

Intensity is the average weight lifted in a workout or group of workouts relative to the trainee's 1RM ("one-rep max," or the maximum weight that the trainee can lift for a single repetition):

volume / repetitions = average weight used
average weight used / 1RM x 100 = % intensity

But the definition of volume says:

Volume is the total amount of reps performed in a workout or group of workouts, usually excluding warm-up reps.

When volume is the total number of reps, that first equation in the definition of intensity would always result in 1 as that would mean it's essentially volume / volume. I assume what's meant there is:

tonnage / repetitions = average weight used

That would still leave me with the question whether we should use work set tonnage or total tonnage (including warm-up sets) for the definition of intensity. Including the warm up sets would just drag down the average weight used, so my (again) assumption is that it would be work set tonnage.

Peter Bex

Of course, 5 minutes after posting I realized the answer is in the example given below. It's indeed total tonnage / repetitions = average weight used. Still, might be worth publishing an erratum for.

Andy Baker

Don't overthink.

Volume is the total number of sets and reps independent of load.

Intensity is weight on the bar. If I squat 3x5x135 today then the intensity is 135 lbs.

Tonnage is volume x intensity.

Intensity can be expressed as a percentage of 1RM in some circumstances. If you're trying to illustrate what the Texas Method is for someone it doesn't really do any good to say "Squat 5x5 on Monday, 2x5 on Wednesday, and 1x5 on Friday."

In those circumstances when we're referencing a hypothetical trainee or trying to illustrate an example then we will refer to load as a % of 1RM. We might then say "Monday Squat 5x5@75-80%, Wednesday Squat 2x5@70%, and Friday Squat 1x5@80-85%."