Starting Strength for male cheerleader

[TossCupie]

Hi everybody,

I'm 25 yo, 90kg, 180cm, decided to try adult cheerleading a year ago. More specifically I do partner stunts - basically throwing 40-55kg flyers up in the air then we catch them - I do (more like trying to do) things like this: toss to hands cupie and basket tosses.

3 weeks ago I started Starting Strength finally because I had a 2 week period without any partner stunt practice. This is where I'm at right now (I had some experience before - but it was pretty much just f**king around in the gym):

Lifts:
- Front squat: 100kg x5 (I did FS instead of BS because I thought that it would be more useful for partner stunt - we hold the flyer in almost a front rack position - I'M not sure anymore, will switch to BS probably)
- OHP: 51kg x5 (I really want to get this over 60kg because that's more than the average flyer's weight - would make it easier to handle flyers)
- Bench: I don't bench press because my shoulder hurts if I do - need to sort this out
- Deadlift: 120kg (just started doing it two weeks ago, never really did it before)

So my question is this: I have 2-3 partner stunt practice a week (~2 hours of throwing girls in a session) - usually Mon/Wed/Thu. How can I progress with Starting Strength? I don't see how I can do SS on Tue, as I will do partner stunt on Wed +Thu - no time to recover. I can definitely do SS on Saturday (rest on the day before and after) but that's 1 workout per week. I was also thinking of just trying to do SS 3 days a week, eat a whole lot and sleep a lot (not an issue, I'm willing to go to 100kg tomorrow if it helps) and because I'm still novice I can recover quickly hopefully? Or squeeze in a light gym day (80% of max) a few hours before partner stunt session and have one "heavy" day where I actually progress?

Any idea is appreciated. I would rather not go away from partner stunts for 1-2 months to get my strength up because partner stunt is very technique-heavy and I'm already strong enough to do basic things but more strength would make learning technique easier..

[heinz83]

Why not lift after practice?

[Jason Donaldson]

Hi everybody,
How can I progress with Starting Strength?

Short answer: By doing the novice linear progression as written.

Slightly longer answer: Order the blue book, and read the Novice, Basic, and Sport section articles linked here (and none of the Intermediate/Advanced ones, since they do NOT apply to you) while you wait for it to arrive: FAQ Programming . Then read the blue book when it arrives.

Some more thoughts for you:

If you're worried about your Wednesday/Thursday practices being two days in a row, can you lift Sunday/Tuesday/Friday, treating W/R as your "weekend" for purposes of strength training?

Can you stick to skill practice during your cheer practices? By this, I mean just learning and practicing tricks, not any calisthenics that are thrown in as "strengthening" exercises. If that won't fit in with the structure of practice, then it would behoove you to engage in some carefully disguised sandbagging on those exercises.

I was also thinking of just trying to do SS 3 days a week, eat a whole lot and sleep a lot (not an issue, I'm willing to go to 100kg tomorrow if it helps) and because I'm still novice I can recover quickly hopefully?

Bingo.

Or squeeze in a light gym day (80% of max) a few hours before partner stunt session and have one "heavy" day where I actually progress?

Certainly not- at your age and level of fitness, as a rank novice, you won't have to start deviating from the NLP like this for some time.

Get strong. Get as strong as you can. You're in a most enviable situation in life, so take advantage of it.

When you read the articles, especially the one on the Two-Factor Model, you should be able to answer why you should low bar squat and not do the front squat, and why you should figure out the bench press so you can train that. If you don't have an SSC nearby, then avail yourself of the form check forum.

You should also definitely be looking to add in the power clean right away when it's time. The timing and the rationale are also in the blue book.

[Maybach]

Your sport will probably not impact your recovery if you lift Tuesday. The workouts won't be so heavy that you are incapable of doing anything the next day. Just lift Tuesday/Friday/Sunday.

Replacing the squat with the front squat was incredibly stupid. The exercises are not chosen to train a specific movement regime, they're chosen to produce a general strength adaptation. Your back squat makes your front squat go up faster than a front squat does. The front squat is a heavily underloaded assistance exercise for the squat, and an overloaded assistance exercise for the clean.

Get the grey book and read up on intermediate programming around sports. None of the weights you are handling currently are going to prevent you from performing the next day. All your cheerleading efforts will do is mean you will exit the novice phase a little sooner than you would otherwise, but you still have plenty of linear gains which can be made.

[TossCupie]

Awesome thank you all that's all I needed!