Starting Strength Weekly Report May 28, 2018

May 28, 2018

Announcements

StrengthCon II – This fall’s event will focus on strategies for managing injuries and rehab in the context of training, with an emphasis on the application of the stress/recovery/adaptation cycle to optimize the results and to retain maximum performance throughout the course of the injury. Experts in the field will inform and direct the discussion, with time dedicated to your personal situation and the best way to proceed by training through injuries.

Articles

A Hierarchy of Variables in Strength Training – Andrew Lewis sets out a hierarchy of variables in strength training to help "keep your focus on the important concepts without getting paralyzed by the details."
A Korean translation of Mark Rippetoe's article Protein by Inhyuk Eun: 단백질
From the Archives: What is the most important aspect of programming? Mark Rippetoe gives his perspective
and
John Petrizzo explains how barbell training has been critical to his practice as a physical therapist in Barbell Training & Physical Therapy.

Training Log

Rip discusses the close-grip bench press, highlighting the effect that the narrower grip has compared to the bench press.

Starting Strength Channel

Mark Rippetoe gives examples of of some of the poorly designed studies and resulting conclusions being generated in the field of exercise science as he reads his article The Problem with "Exercise Science".

In the Trenches

Nick D'Agostino coaches the bench press at last weekend's Press Camp at Woodmere Fitness Club. [photo courtesy of Monica Rose]

Brian Russ works through a set a squats with Starting Strength Coach Bill Coyne at the recent Training Camp in Evanston, IL. [photo courtesy of Kratos Strength Systems]

Best of the Week

Thank you, Rip!

Scott Beall

This was an EVEN MORE high quality seminar than the last times (2009, 2010) I attended! I was blown away by how many things I had managed to fuck up since then (or have changed since then). The refresher, complete with favorable changes from the past (the press 2.0, or simply "The Press" as it's now called; the Deadlift with the back segment raised IMMEDIATELY out of the bottom as opposed to the previously thought back angle remaining constant out of the bottom portion of the DL and later becoming vertical, amongst other awesome improvements that don't immediately come to mind.)

Rip, the things that I love about your teaching is that you:

You're not afraid to change the model if you find a better way.
Your mission has remained unchanged: How to lift the most weight possible, using the most amount of muscle, over the greatest ROM.
You've stayed loyal to this mission and have not let your ego get in the way of getting better (like many business owners and/or "exercise science" people have fallen prey to). In other words, your product remains of the highest quality instead of riding any existing financial wave into the future and letting the quality of the product go).

If any of you people out there give a shit about strength, YOU WILL save your pennies, and MAKE attending this seminar happen. If you apply the content, it's worth at least TRIPLE [or more] the fee!

And if you're a trainer/coach, you CANNOT call yourself a "best-in-the-world trainer/coach" if you have not achieved the Starting Strength Coach credential (for me, this is to be determined in about 3 weeks or however long it takes to hear back).

Mark Rippetoe

Thanks for the kind words, Scott. And thanks for coming.

KarlK

After a corporate life, I went into independent consulting, where I mostly teach and train, and I have to say that THIS, if not THE most important principle, is on the top of the list for those of us in this business.

Rip is not just in the exercise science business, he is in the CONSULTING business first, and like me in the teaching and training aspect of consulting.

And it's not just adapting – your business adaptations must be improvements in your concepts, your materials, and your methods in imparting knowledge that is usable and functional.

Your customers need to walk out of the teaching and training BETTER than they were when they walked in. And that improvement must be palpable.

For those of you out there who would like to strike out on your own at some point, Rip's business model is worth a deep study. It took us about 5 years to figure it all out. You can shorten that time horizon with some intensive study.

Best of the Forum

Meniscal tear / box squats

mdemauro

I'm making good progress recovering from a meniscal tear back in January. I laid off all squatting for 2 months and nearly had to be institutionalized. After weeks of physical therapy, I was feeling pretty good and started back with some VERY light squatting but the pain was a limiting factor. I decided to give box squats a try at parallel depth and eureka! No pain. My question – Until I'm ready to resume "real squats" at decent weight (my 3x5 max was about 375) should I program the box squats following the SS outline or just do "real" squats with much lighter weights?

Mark Rippetoe

I'm quite sure that if your squats are tweaking a menisceal tear, they are doing so because your knees are going forward at the bottom of the squat – the old bouncing-off-the-quads thing. The box corrects this for you, but you'll eventually have to learn to squat correctly.

mdemauro

I've been squatting for a few years using your model, or so I thought. After looking back and some old video, it's looks as if there is a good bit of difference between my shins with the box vs. no box.