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Thread: The Skinny Fat Lifter | Robert Santana

  1. #21
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    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    I'd like to preface my question with the following information: I'm new to the forum, but I have read, annotated, and re-read Starting Strength repeatedly.

    My question is a somewhat simple one, should I consider myself a skinny-fat lifter or just a lean lifter? I'm 5' 9'' tall, and I weight 165lbs. I messed around with exercise for about a year, injured myself (back), and on the advice of my chiropractor (Hopefully this doesn't shock Rip too terribly much.), picked up both Wendler's 5/3/1 and the Starting Strength books. Full disclosure - I am not participating in the Starting Strength program at this time. I started with 5/3/1 first (currently two cycles in), and I would like to see how I progress with the program before I 'jump ship'.

    My current estimated 1RM for my lifts are as follows: Press, 123lbs; Bench, 173lbs; Deadlift, 266lbs; and Squat, 194lbs. Estimated 1RMs were calculated using the following formula provided in Wendler's book: Weight x Reps x .0333 + Weight. If it would be helpful, I can provide actual rep numbers and weights for my working sets.

    So, am I skinny-fat or just lean? Thanks!

  2. #22
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    You didn't mention your fat percentage. Your 1RMs are not that heavy and unless you have serious recovery issues (e.g. job, insomnia, medical condition etc) you should get off Wendler, run the program, and gain at least 20 lb to start out.

  3. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Santana View Post
    You didn't mention your fat percentage. Your 1RMs are not that heavy and unless you have serious recovery issues (e.g. job, insomnia, medical condition etc) you should get off Wendler, run the program, and gain at least 20 lb to start out.
    I’m not sure how to accurately calculate my fat percentage. I don’t have calipers or anything along those lines. In my year of ‘exercise’ that I completed previously, I went from a 36” waist to a 32” waist. So, I’m guessing I lost quite a bit of fat. Is there some way I can calculate my body fat percentage?

    I don’t have any serious recovery issues, but I do have some serious time constraints as far as training time goes. I have 1 hour a day, 5 days a week to lift. My schedule doesn’t allow for any flexibility in that particular way. I have thought seriously about trying SS, but I’m not sure that I would be able to fit the workouts in. People have mentioned 7-8 minute rests between work sets. If I include proper warm up sets, I don’t know how I can fit a workout that does the SS method justice into an hour a day. Am I just overestimating the time the workouts take?

  4. #24
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    You won't have that problem initially. When you do you could superset the squat and the pressing motion and either do the deadlift the next day or shortly after. You should be done in one hour initially though. See if you can find a body fat scale if you really want a quick and dirty number. If your waistline is 32" you are probably somewhere in the teens. If it's higher it's because your LBM is low.

  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brackish View Post
    I’m not sure how to accurately calculate my fat percentage. I don’t have calipers or anything along those lines. In my year of ‘exercise’ that I completed previously, I went from a 36” waist to a 32” waist. So, I’m guessing I lost quite a bit of fat. Is there some way I can calculate my body fat percentage?

    I don’t have any serious recovery issues, but I do have some serious time constraints as far as training time goes. I have 1 hour a day, 5 days a week to lift. My schedule doesn’t allow for any flexibility in that particular way. I have thought seriously about trying SS, but I’m not sure that I would be able to fit the workouts in. People have mentioned 7-8 minute rests between work sets. If I include proper warm up sets, I don’t know how I can fit a workout that does the SS method justice into an hour a day. Am I just overestimating the time the workouts take?
    Never did I have to rest that long during my last NLP and according to standards that have been laid out by Rip and the other experts here I very successfully completed it (until I injured my arm overdoing something on HLM programming). I rested 5 mins maximum near the end of my NLP. I also thought of doing what Robert suggested, but with warm ups for the next exercise. For example, I was going to superset my working sets of the squat with warm up sets for the press, that way I'd be ready to dive into those working sets next when done with squats. That was in case I was both pressed for time, and super setting full work sets was going to interfere with performance. But it never came to that. I don't remember my workouts ever going over an hour at any time, anyway.

    My only exercises were the squat, bench press, press, chin ups and deadlight, the latter two which I alternated. When you start adding more exercises into the mix is when you're going to start having to get innovative.

  6. #26
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    I think the rest interval varies for different people and different lifts. I lifted alone and had a lot of time yesterday so I experimented with 10 minute intervals on my bench press, which had been stuck at sets across. Ended up with a new PR for three sets of 5, where I'd originally planned to just do a PR for a top set and two 5% backoff sets. Previously I'd usually been doing only 5 minutes. But with my squat, even though each set makes me feel like death afterwards, I can recover to do another quicker. But this might change as the weight keeps going up.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Santana View Post
    You won't have that problem initially. When you do you could superset the squat and the pressing motion and either do the deadlift the next day or shortly after. You should be done in one hour initially though. See if you can find a body fat scale if you really want a quick and dirty number. If your waistline is 32" you are probably somewhere in the teens. If it's higher it's because your LBM is low.
    Thanks! I appreciate the information. I'll definitely consider giving the novice program a shot then. Time was definitely my biggest concern.

    I will say that although my lifts are not that heavy, I have seen some increases in my e1RM in the two cycles of 5/3/1. I plan on doing some testing this week to see what I can lift for sets of 5. I'll use that information as either my base for SS, or as data to adjust my training maxes for the 5/3/1. I'm still in negotiations with my training partner about swapping over to SS. She has some serious reservations about moving over to a program where you increase the weight every time you lift, but I ordered some smaller plates (set with .25, .5, .75, and 1lb plates) in an attempt to get her to at least give it a shot.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brackish View Post
    Thanks! I appreciate the information. I'll definitely consider giving the novice program a shot then. Time was definitely my biggest concern.

    I will say that although my lifts are not that heavy, I have seen some increases in my e1RM in the two cycles of 5/3/1. I plan on doing some testing this week to see what I can lift for sets of 5. I'll use that information as either my base for SS, or as data to adjust my training maxes for the 5/3/1. I'm still in negotiations with my training partner about swapping over to SS. She has some serious reservations about moving over to a program where you increase the weight every time you lift, but I ordered some smaller plates (set with .25, .5, .75, and 1lb plates) in an attempt to get her to at least give it a shot.
    Tell her she need not worry. It's not that heavy right now

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Santana View Post
    Tell her she need not worry. It's not that heavy right now
    So, my next question would then be where should we start out with the SS program weight wise? I don’t think an empty bar would be appropriate for either of us at this point in time, but I don’t want to start out too heavy and plateau quickly either. Are we talking 60% of our 1RM, lighter, heavier? I don’t recall that being addressed in the SS book anywhere in the programming section. Thanks!

  10. #30
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    starting strength coach development program
    You start by warming up with the empty barbell and then titrate up until you arrive at a set of 5 th at can be performed correctly while still being fairly difficult. For my online clients I just tell them to select a load they can do for 8 and do it for 5. There are several ways to approach it and none of us coaches can make a judgement call off of a board post. So just be responsible with it and make it hard enough while still correct.

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