The statistical improbability of no champions

[chrisza]

To the OP

Are you upset that SS didn't turn you into a world class powerlifter? That requires freak genetics, drugs in most instances, and programming is much less a factor for those outliers. SS, it's books and practices get you really strong if you follow along. I don't compete but I'm confident I can out total most commercial gym goers and 45 year old dads I run into by following the program and that's plenty good for me. I thought I had peaked at 25 years old and on before finding SS and I've more than doubled my strength in the last 3 years due to SS.

[Diddyin94]

Diddyin94, which program is part of your identity?

Who fooled you into thinking that Starting Strength was a lifestyle brand?

To the OP

Are you upset that SS didn't turn you into a world class powerlifter? That requires freak genetics, drugs in most instances, and programming is much less a factor for those outliers. SS, it's books and practices get you really strong if you follow along. I don't compete but I'm confident I can out total most commercial gym goers and 45 year old dads I run into by following the program and that's plenty good for me. I thought I had peaked at 25 years old and on before finding SS and I've more than doubled my strength in the last 3 years due to SS.

I am happy for your strength gains. It is truly a novice expectation that you will out total most gym goers. Do a meet and quit talking about what you think you can do. Period. Championship level powerlifters programming is the ONLY thing. Why do you think 75% of people who won titles at USAPL nationals were coached by 3 people and PPST is so heavily discussed on these boards. Programming helps with long term successful outcomes. When everyone is a genetic freak--this is the only factor that seperates good from great.

Sidebar--to people reading this. Stop thinking you have bad genetics. If you're 6'1 and 200 lbs there's no set of genetics bad enough to where you can't squat 500. Put in the work and stop making "woe is me" excuses.

Diddyin94,

1) What are the defining characteristics of "champion-style" programming?

2) What are the main differences between "champion-style" and "startingstrength-style" programming?

3) What is it about "startingstrenght-style" programming that make it unappealing and/or ineffective for champion lifters?

This is not what I am talking about at all. Championship level lifters do not do Starting Strength programming. Everyone knows this.

The post is a probability question. For every million composers there is a Mozart, for every million authors there is a J.K Rolling. The question is: how is it possible that with so many people following Starting Strength recommended and styled programming (SSNLP, TM, HLM, DUP) why have statistical outliers NOT BEEN PRODUCED. The question is NOT why do USAPL national champions not run Texas Method.

Starting strength is a Novice Linear Progression - it is designed to take untrained individuals (read: novices), and add muscle and strength every workout for as long as the person is able to do that.. eventually, after a few months, he or she is no longer able to do that at which point the person advances into more advanced types of programming, depending on the goals of the individual.

It's literally called "Starting Strength"

No elite lifters run any unmodified programs. Programming becomes more individualized the more advanced the lifter is. Starting strength is designed to take untrained individuals and make them mildly strong, to the point where they can't add weight every single workout. From there, people branch off into whatever type of programming suites them.

Good luck on being "mildly strong". Couldn't be me.

You know most people will only run the LP for like 3 months successfully--and I don't know about you but I plan on lifting until I die. You will spent most of your training career out of the novice phase and 99% of your progress will happen outside of the LP. Intermediate programming is important so is advanced, it's also not the subject of this thread.

So you're claiming that of the thousands of elite power lifters, none of them ran a simple linear model of full body compound movements, 3 times a week, adding weight every time? between strong lifts, starting strength, and the other duplicate programs out there, you happen to know, that of every single successful power lifter, none of them ran these style programs when they were beginners? And none of them ran a simple weekly progression of heavy days, and lighter volume days, when they were intermediates?

Not what I am claiming but you are on the right track. You would think that a genetic freak could follow the exact outline you describe, do everything right and become an elite lifter. But that has not happened, why? They are called outliers for a reason--but to NEVER produce an outlier seems more unlikely than the presence of outliers themselves.

[Ivan Stepic]

Any approach to the training of an athlete of this caliber is a highly individualized matter and is beyond the scope of this text.

Got it?

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

Diddy's point is that if our methods were really as good as we say they are, the best lifters in the world would be using them.

Another possible interpretation is "if our methods were as good as we say they are, one could expect at least some of the people using them to be at world-champion level, or thereabouts".

Only Diddy can clarify which interpretation is closer to what he meant.

IPB

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

Only Diddy can clarify which interpretation is closer to what he meant.

Never mind, looks like he did.

how is it possible that with so many people following Starting Strength recommended and styled programming (SSNLP, TM, HLM, DUP) why have statistical outliers NOT BEEN PRODUCED.

IPB

[Erik Y]

Sidebar--to people reading this. Stop thinking you have bad genetics. If you're 6'1 and 200 lbs there's no set of genetics bad enough to where you can't squat 500. Put in the work and stop making "woe is me" excuses.

...

Not what I am claiming but you are on the right track. You would think that a genetic freak could follow the exact outline you describe, do everything right and become an elite lifter. But that has not happened, why? They are called outliers for a reason--but to NEVER produce an outlier seems more unlikely than the presence of outliers themselves.

On the first part - good comment. You’ve made good use of your soapbox in saying it. If you put in the work, you can get farther than you think with time. I remember I used to think I would never pull over 300 pounds. That seems ridiculous to me now.

On the second part - maybe it’s because those other people have outlier genetics, too. There’s a paradox where the more skill determines a competition and the more highly skilled the players are, the more luck determines the outcome, and vice-versa. In the elite level of strength sports, everybody has elite genetics, so it’s no surprise that a very small number of coaches who are very good at optimal programming for elite lifters have so many champions. Even if LP and basic Texas Method are very good for novices, adding five pounds every workout / week is less than optimal to say the least when the top set of five is 600+ pounds. That doesn’t mean that in the infinite possibility space there’s no one who could win while programming in such a sub-optimal way, but they’d have to be a freak among freaks among freaks. Again, not impossible, but definitely not expected either.

That’s my take, if I’ve understood your question correctly.

[chrisza]

I am happy for your strength gains. It is truly a novice expectation that you will out total most gym goers. Do a meet and quit talking about what you think you can do. Period. Championship level powerlifters programming is the ONLY thing. Why do you think 75% of people who won titles at USAPL nationals were coached by 3 people and PPST is so heavily discussed on these boards. Programming helps with long term successful outcomes. When everyone is a genetic freak--this is the only factor that seperates good from great.

Sidebar--to people reading this. Stop thinking you have bad genetics. If you're 6'1 and 200 lbs there's no set of genetics bad enough to where you can't squat 500. Put in the work and stop making "woe is me" excuses.

I have no great desire to compete. (although I have considered it.) I realize serious competitive lifters need to put more time into getting stronger which I do not have. I'm a father of 3 who plays rec baseball, basketball, snowboards and involved in my kids youth sports as well. The SS based programming has allowed me to get respectively strong while living life and still making process in the gym. That's plenty good for me.

[Les Hahn]

To the OP

Are you upset that SS didn't turn you into a world class powerlifter? That requires freak genetics, drugs in most instances, and programming is much less a factor for those outliers. SS, it's books and practices get you really strong if you follow along. I don't compete but I'm confident I can out total most commercial gym goers and 45 year old dads I run into by following the program and that's plenty good for me. I thought I had peaked at 25 years old and on before finding SS and I've more than doubled my strength in the last 3 years due to SS.

I disagree with the part in bold. It's true that at first they could probably train however they want to make decent gains. But those genetic freaks are the ones that are maybe squatting 600-700 with hardly putting any thought into it. They aren't they guys squatting 1k. For instance, if Ray Williams (squats 1x per week with leg assistance work on other days) adopted another elite lifters program that had him squatting 3x per week, he would probably regress. Over time Ray has figured out what works for him. These same genetic freak lifters often hit plateaus on the way up too. They got stuck at 700 for a long time before adopting programming and technique changes to help them progress to that next level. I was just listening to a podcast with Dan Green, and his conventional deadlift was in the 7's, while he could sumo in the 8's. After making some technique changes to his conventional deadlift (pulling with a rounded back) and adding assistance work to strengthen his back, he was able to hit a 900 conventional pull. So even super elite lifters are always trying to find new ways to get strong. They just didn't blindly train there way to elite lifts.

[Les Hahn]

I was listening to a podcast recently where the host was talking about the strength of gorillas and they said “we will never know how strong a gorilla really could be as they have never ran starting strength”.

While humorous in nature it got me to thinking for people that are objectively strong (e.g world champs, top tier lifters) NONE of them use starting strength based programming, or for that matter starting strength coaches’ programming. I don’t see how this could be statistically possible. Starting strength is the best selling strength training book of all time. The organization says that the programming works for everyone who tries it and has a rather large community and following, so you would think there would be some instances of some insane lifters here.

Any thoughts on why this is?

Hey Diddy, it is probably a few things.

Starting Strength is for novice lifters. And while PPST does outline some more advanced training, it can be pretty easy to get lost trying to create really advanced programs. So I would say most of the training material here is geared to the the novice/intermediate trainees.

Lifting at a more advanced level requires customized programming. And then I guess you could ask why doesn't SSOC or many SSC's have lifters like that. There are probably a few, but I think the super elite lifters are going to gravitate to coaches that already have success with lifters of that caliber. Like if you wanted to be the most bad ass geared powerlifter, there are a few gyms like Westside and others that cater to that sort of lifting. The programming they do seems to also be very specific to that kind of lifting. Same goes for Strongman or whatever.

[chrisza]

I disagree with the part in bold. It's true that at first they could probably train however they want to make decent gains. But those genetic freaks are the ones that are maybe squatting 600-700 with hardly putting any thought into it. They aren't they guys squatting 1k. For instance, if Ray Williams (squats 1x per week with leg assistance work on other days) adopted another elite lifters program that had him squatting 3x per week, he would probably regress. Over time Ray has figured out what works for him. These same genetic freak lifters often hit plateaus on the way up too. They got stuck at 700 for a long time before adopting programming and technique changes to help them progress to that next level. I was just listening to a podcast with Dan Green, and his conventional deadlift was in the 7's, while he could sumo in the 8's. After making some technique changes to his conventional deadlift (pulling with a rounded back) and adding assistance work to strengthen his back, he was able to hit a 900 conventional pull. So even super elite lifters are always trying to find new ways to get strong. They just didn't blindly train there way to elite lifts.

Those are good points and you have more knowledge about elite lifters than I do. I can see where at some point to reach elite numbers, you have to have some decent programming.

Some of my thinking on this matter comes from first hand experience. My younger brother who basically has the same genetic makeup as I do, competed in powerlifting for a few years. He was using " special protein powder" and managed to rapidly get to a 450 bench and 600 Dl at 260 BW. He virtually had no structured programming and would just join in random workouts with other lifters. Injuries and life issues derailed him. Now off the protein and still at 225 bw, and using the same random training, he is sub 400DL, 275B and 300 S. A huge difference without the assistance. I also have had some genetically gifted friends that have great numbers without putting much thought into training or programming.