thiago-barbosa

In your book, you mentioned that the exercises in the program should be performed in that order, but I have a question regarding squatting first.

The idea of doing-what-is-harder first makes sense to me, but some strength coaches (which are not as smart as yourself, but they are still respected) claim things such as this: “No matter how hard and heavy is your bench/press, it will never screw up you squat. But virtually every heavy squat will screw up your bench/press”

The argumentation here is that heavy squats screws heavy bench due to their longer ROM and the absolute weight involved. So even though they are two very different movements, as you always pointed out, your body is a system, and energy is energy. So supposedly, the “squats take away energy” and screws benches and presses.

So the my question is: Is this bullshit? Or it does make sense swap the order of the exercises and leave squats for last?

AndrewLewis

For most people, squats are the most psychologically stressful and difficult. If you can just get those done, there is some semblance of "relaxing" mentally the rest of the workout.

Also, the only alternative is to deadlift, bench, squat which is just a horrible idea, because no one wants to squat heavy after they deadlift heavy. Deadlifts are just so god damn hard and taxing, doing anything near maximal afterwards is a bad idea.

tompaynter

What if you are doing a lighter, higher-rep day on squats, but were going to do a normal, heavy deadlift set of 5? Which would work better, squats 3x10 deadlift 1x5 or the reverse?

Trey

How do you approach gauging where an athlete is in the recovery/adaptation cycle between sessions and whether or not to continue resting or get the lift in with the 2.5 pound incremental increase, or scale back and decrease the weight in the working set of the movement.

I am a novice trainee. My training background is 3-4 years in high school where I lifted weights like a bro and did so inconsistently. Since high school I have gone into the weight room 3-4 times a month and done some low weight bench presses and lots of barbell curls. Over the past year I have been reading Starting Strength and Practical Programming at a casual pace out of interest in the subject material and I have been practicing the squat, dl, press, and bench press in the weight room but not performing the program.

I am 6'5" 295.

• Squat: 45x5, 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 285x5x3 (work sets)
• Press: 45x5, 95x5, 115x5x3 (work sets)
• Deadlift: 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 285x5, 305x5x3 (work sets)

My bench press was done on Tuesday with limited upper body soreness

• Bench press: 45x5, 135x5, 185x5, 205x5, 225x5, 235x5x3 (work sets)

I just performed this workout the past Saturday, 4/7 and I have been so sore in my legs that it hurts to take full strides walking and I would have to use the desk to help sit down at work and use my chair arms to get up at home.

I am set on breaking through the soreness and completing at least 3 months of the SS protocol. I am still on the fence whether or not to increase working sets by 2.5 pounds and completing workout #2 which is four days removed from my workout #1. I sleep 8 hours and tend to usually overeat high protein meals with a lot of calories. I am always hydrated, and I have had no significant injuries outside of a bad ankle sprain 2 years ago.

Trey

Yes, first workout since February.

Will Morris

When you first start conducting the program as prescribed, you do not worry about soreness. When your day comes to squat again, you just do it...whether you are sore or not. After your first workout in three months, I'd worry less about stress-adaptation, and just do the program as prescribed. It is a little early to start worrying about deloading and resetting.