I've just started the transition from novice to intermediate (315 squat, 395 deadlift). I'm a competitive person and feel like the best way to motivate myself to continue to drive my lifts up quickly is to find a competitive outlet.
The most obvious carryover from SS is powerlifting, but I've read a lot of rather dubious things on The Internet. A lot of people say things like, "I don't care about where I place, I just do contests for myself," "I only enter contests to set contest PRs/break federation records," "Nobody cares about who wins, and nobody cares about anyone else's lifts" etc. etc. If this is really the case, I'd prefer another sport where winning really matters, if only to the contestants.
Is this really the mentality of most powerlifters these days? You mention a few times in your books that you worked hard to win powerlifting contests – is the current mentality different from how it was 20 years ago? Or is this just a case of a minority viewpoint being over-represented by YouTube and Instagram, and actually most powerlifters really are concerned with winning?
A lot of people say that the earth is 6000 years old. A lot of people say that The Reptilians enslaved the Bilderbergers in the 18th century and have been managing the global economy since then. A lot of people say that the secret moon base has been having HVAC problems for the past few months. If I were you, I'd just go ahead and enter a meet and win it, since nobody there will be trying to beat you.
At a high enough level winning definitely matters. There was a great battle this year at USAPL Raw Nationals in the 83 kg weight class for first place between Sean Noriega and Russell Orhii. If you care about winning, then winning matters.
In Chapter 6 of Practical Programming for Strength Training 3rd Edition: The Novice, there is an example of a Starting Strength linear progression log. The training log looks like what we novices are all shooting for and reflects very closely what Rip prescribes in Starting Strength. However I notice that in week 9 of the program, something changes. If this trainee's program was indeed executed near-flawlessly then this is something which was not covered in Starting Strength.
In week 8, this guy’s progression is standard, 5 lbs per day increase on his squat. He ends week 8 at 280x5x3 on the 3rd day. On day 1 of week 9, he increases 5 lbs more on the squat, 285x5x3. However, on day 2, this trainee drops the weight down 20% on his working set of squats and does 220x5x3. Then on day 3, he returns to his progression based on day 1 weight, 280x5x3.
While this programming is very intuitive, is it Starting Strength? It makes a lot of sense to me since I've been struggling squatting 240-250 these past 3 weeks, making weekly progress instead of daily, and feeling very over-trained. I imagine I would benefit from a drop day in the middle of the week.
My point is: I didn't know I could do this and not be accused of YNDTP? Can I get away with this?
Is the only part of the novice chapter that you read? I refuse to believe that you read the entire chapter on novice programming and missed the part about the midweek offload.
It's not a new concept. The mid week light squats are in SSBBT as well, and that stage of Novice LP is often referred to as "advanced novice" phase.
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