Heraclitus,
I was not a rank novice when starting SS. I've been lifting for about 11 years with 1 year off when I was like 18-19 to party. I had done alot of seated DB pressing, and benching which have some carryover (but also lead to the torn labrum I think). I only mention back to last July because that is when I finally started to train intelligently (I never used to squat. I know, gay).
I'm not trying to say that anyone can hit a BW press in a year, I am just saying that since you are making progress still, you might as well keep it simple as long as possible. And don't be scared to gain weight, I was about 200 when I had a 180 press. I thought gaining weight would screw up my BW press goal since it would raise the number I needed to hit (damn cf mentallity). Fuck that, just get stronger in an intelligent manner.
I have these moments often.
I'm sure you realize that you just need an enormous surplus of barbell strength to do similarly weighted stuff that isn't as nicely balanced and able to be gripped as a barbell: something on the order of double the barbell strength. If you could press, say, 250 with a barbell, THEN a 120-lb girl won't present a problem.
This is also when I realize that "raw" really isn't that raw. Lifting rocks and large mammals is raw. Barbells make things artificially easy.
End of thread jack.
115-120 is probably in the neighborhood of an 8-10 rep max for me with a barbell (my 1 RM is higher than would be predicted by repping out for whatever reason), which works out to pretty close to a 1 rep max people press at the same weight, seemingly, so you're definitely looking at a pretty steep dropoff in "real world" strength between the two. If you define "real world strength" as picking up girls in a bar, I guess. That might have been a double entendre.
Last edited by blowdpanis; 08-09-2010 at 09:26 PM.
I feel the same sometimes. Its sort of different but I am really slow and weak uncoordinated when trying to do something like throw a punch. Sometimes I feel so weak that I feel like could be pushed over. I cant bench and squat about 225, Dip 45, chin 25, which isn't that impressive but I should feel less like 5'7 180 pound piece of shit.
I tried to floor press someone who weighs about 80kg, couldnt lock out though. I think if i'd loaded it a bit differently, i woulda got it, because my strong hand was doing less work than the weaker one. It is interesting how different it is than a barbell which I could rep at that weight.
Ive also tried squatting someone much less than what I can squat with a barbell, if you hit depth it's exceedingly hard.
This should be a seperate thread..
Last edited by msingh; 08-09-2010 at 10:40 PM.