Couple more questions

[grover]

1) As a 40 year old man, with my goal being "functionally better throughout life", am I missing out on anything by incrementally increasing my weights by less then the recommended amount during the novice phase? That is, will I end up as strong and it'll just take longer, or am I missing out on some strength gain?

2) I'm a bit confused about timing of the hip movement on the press. In the Press 2.0 video here on the site it looks like you drive bar up at the same time as you rebound from the hip thrust. But in the book it says in several places something like "push your hips forward and drive the bar up straight. As soon as it crosses the top of your forehead, get under the bar." (SSBBT 3E Pg 87) or "You have to get in the habit of slamming your body forward under the press just as soon as the bar passes your forehead." (SSBBT 3E Pg 91).
I interpret this to mean I don't start to "rebound" from the hip thrust until the bar passes the forehead. Can you clarify this for me?

[Steve Hill]

1) Yes, it will be slower. You may or may not reach the same numbers. Why? Because you're aging. I'm not saying 6 weeks makes a difference from aging, but people all the time will try to do it the easy way and end up making no progress at all. One of the reasons for big increments early on is to place a higher level of systemic stress, cause hormonal changes, etc. Less stress = less progress. Then there's the whole mental aspect of learning to be mentally tough and do hard workouts. But yes, if you take too long, you'll end up missing out on some strength gain. And you're essentially saying "I don't want to get away from being weak as fast as a possibly can."

2) The rebound initiates the drive of the bar up. You are confusing what starts the bar up (the rebound), the fact that the bar has to pass the chin and nose before the forehead (body moving forward) and the finish (head / trunk gets under the bar) aspects of the lift. Did you take geometry? If so, you should be able to reason it out.