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Thread: Squat rack on its way, best use of time

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2021
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    6

    Question Squat rack on its way, best use of time

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
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    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    I have my bar + plates. Squat rack + bench ship on Oct 1. What's the best use of my time until then?
    • read the very friendly manual
    • watch technique vids
    • technique work with an empty bar, record my technique, review recordings

    There's obviously plenty I can still do with what I have. Deads. Clean the bar for front squats and presses. Power cleans. Thrusters for that old timey crossfit feel. Barbell rows maybe? Something like A: fsquat, press, deads, B: fsquat, rows, pclean? Is that dumb?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2021
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    149

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    Just deadlift and clean + press. Do the oly lifts if you've been doing them or use the chance to learn them.

    Clean and front squat makes zero sense unless you're a skilled oly lifter and are good at the clean, otherwise it won't be heavy enough.

  3. #3
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    Sep 2021
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    Thanks for the feedback. Makes sense. I should have provided some background. I am very much in a detrained state but I can clean well enough. I spent a few years doing (non-competitive) oly lifting at a local gym. I'm not saying I was every any good! My best full clean 1RM was 97kg. But that is going back a few years.

    Unnecessarily detailed background:

    - I have always been skinny fat even in my best shape. I've never properly submitted to a progressive strength program AND the diet required to support it.
    - I'm 5'8" and currently ~190lbs, down from a high of ~210lbs back in Feb of this year. 49 years old.
    - Avid runner til 2009 when I pranged the articular cartilage in my left knee training for a race. I did not know it was cartilage at the time ... thought it was tendon or some such.
    - Somehow this injury led me to researching strength training, initially started doing StrongLifts and then SS.
    - Bought the SS book, 2nd Edition. Despite the cartilage damage stopping me from running, I had no trouble squatting ass-to-grass, deadlifting etc. This is 2009 - 2010.
    - Late 2010: After a few months of SS I joined my local CrossFit gym. At the time it was the only option I knew of that had some association with strength training.
    - Aside: The coach at my CrossFit gym was great. Not given to the sillier aspects of CF and I'm pretty sure he was mainly using the CF gym revenues to fund his real interest which was oly lifting.
    - This CF gym had a small group, myself included, that mostly focused on oly lifts.
    - Eventually had an MRI done on my knee, identified the damaged cartridge. Solution was surgery + stem cell therapy + 6mos. on crutches and 6mos. on a stationary bike "training" the stem cell tissue to turn into cartilage hopefully (I have no idea what the success rate of this is)
    - I did not do the surgery. Again I had not trouble squatting etc. and I did not want to loose 12 mos. on a chance the stem cell therapy would fix my knee.
    - Did a few months of Wendler's 5/3/1 program in there somewhere.
    - July 21, 2014 I set my still current squat 1RM at 315lbs
    - July 25, 2014 I set my still current clean 1RM at 97kg. That night my lower back spasmed when I leaned over to untie my shoes after I got home from the gym.
    - That back spasm event set off years of shitty, slack behaviour WRT my training. I slowly drifted away from the gym and eventually my coach stopped texting me to get my ass in gear.
    - I admit was waiting for motivation when the solution was discipline (hat-tip Jim Wendler)
    - Somewhere in there I resolved to start training at home and bought myself a very nice Eleiko Sport Training bar + plate set. I tooled around with it on and off but never anything consistent, never a proper program.
    - I've been plagued with occasional back spams since ~2001 - 2002. First time it happened when picking up a server (alas, the computer kind, not the waitress kind).
    - Since then, back spams maybe once every 18 months on average, almost always when doing some innocuous.
    - My possibility of my back spasming while training terrifies me.
    - For reasons that don't matter I suddenly find myself following a disciplined routine of healthy behaviours. Eating right, exercising bordering on training, getting proper rest, etc.
    - I finally ordered myself a bloody squat rack and bench which should be here mid October and I plan to start from the beginning with the 1A or 1B program from The Barbell Prescription, including sufficient calorie intake to support the program.

    What a narcissist.

  4. #4
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    Jan 2011
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    You could always rewatch The Wire or The Sopranos

  5. #5
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    Feb 2020
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    the best use of your time would be to read or re-read the blue book.

  6. #6
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    Jul 2019
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    Quote Originally Posted by drumboots View Post
    I have my bar + plates. Squat rack + bench ship on Oct 1. What's the best use of my time until then?
    • read the very friendly manual
    • watch technique vids
    • technique work with an empty bar, record my technique, review recordings

    There's obviously plenty I can still do with what I have. Deads. Clean the bar for front squats and presses. Power cleans. Thrusters for that old timey crossfit feel. Barbell rows maybe? Something like A: fsquat, press, deads, B: fsquat, rows, pclean? Is that dumb?
    Start eating

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2021
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    6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Frankie View Post
    You could always rewatch The Wire or The Sopranos
    I have never watched either of those shows. I should really do that.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sturw View Post
    Start eating

    Sous vide cooker arrived just today ... off to buy some ribeye.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jovan Dragisic View Post
    the best use of your time would be to read or re-read the blue book.
    Working on it ... I've re-read the general + programming sections of SS (I have the 2nd Ed) and I am reviewing the lifts. Also bought The Barbell Prescription and I have read all the general sections of that. I definitely need to review and practice my deadlift technique which I know is way off.

  8. #8
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    Jun 2016
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    I don’t understand at all why anyone would discourage you from doing dead’s, c+p, and whatever Olympic lifts you want. I get the front squat argument made in the books so maybe not that, but how the hell is sitting on your ass, reading and watching the Sopranos better than getting your deadlift, press and Olympic lifts up?

  9. #9
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    Jan 2016
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    Quote Originally Posted by drumboots View Post
    [*]technique work with an empty bar,
    In my experience, this is just about the worst thing anyone can do. Next worst, too light of weights.

    You can think you have good form with light weights when it is shit. Put enough weight on the bar to "force" you to have some semblance of the correct form.

    Better yet, get a coaching session to determine proper starting weights.

    Read the book every night. Reread it. You will find something new in it every time you read it as you progress through NLP.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
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    starting strength coach development program
    Quote Originally Posted by Johnsonville View Post
    I don’t understand at all why anyone would discourage you from doing dead’s, c+p, and whatever Olympic lifts you want. I get the front squat argument made in the books so maybe not that, but how the hell is sitting on your ass, reading and watching the Sopranos better than getting your deadlift, press and Olympic lifts up?
    Because since the starting strength novice linear progression program is primarily based on the squat, taking a week in which one will read and re-read the squat chapter as many times as possible is by far the best thing one can do for a successful program. I would even go further than that and suggest that the squat is the key to discovering the meaning of life. The other lifts are fine, but in order to do the program successfully, one needs a monk-like devotion to the squat. I can’t be the only one who understands this.

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