Rip's Worst Advice, Passing Out, and Nicotine | Starting Strength Radio #288

[Nick Delgadillo]

That all makes sense - thank you, sir.

EliteFTS bills their two sizes of Shoulder Savers as equating to one-board and two-board presses. Should I expect it to be accurate enough to throw together testing with one and two boards to see the smallest amount that doesn't bother my shoulder, and then plan on ordering accordingly, or do you think the fact that it's a pad and not a rigid piece makes it different enough from the boards to make this approach not worth it?

For increasing the width of the pad, do you find that the padding itself is a factor? I'm thinking it should be easy enough to make one out of a couple of layers of framing lumber ripped and trimmed to make it 14" wide at one end, 10" at the other. (To give an option for benching at the regular width, for me and for others...) There would be no give to the surface this way, so I would want to make sure that doesn't come into play with how the greater width interacts with the body.

Unless you have short, stubby arms, just get the black one and be done with it. Although it looks like they're discounted almost 50% on the EliteFTS website right now. So if you want to be maximally neurotic, get both and conduct your experiments.

Yeah - I think the padding is a big factor. But try it out and see, if construction projects are no big deal for you.

[Jason Donaldson]

Unless you have short, stubby arms, just get the black one and be done with it. Although it looks like they're discounted almost 50% on the EliteFTS website right now. So if you want to be maximally neurotic, get both and conduct your experiments.

Yeah - I think the padding is a big factor. But try it out and see, if construction projects are no big deal for you.

Well, what do you know - they sure are...thanks for that heads up! I do have have short arms, but at those price, I've ordered both to see how it goes.

Good to know on the padding. I'm by no means skilled or experienced at such projects, but doing them is the only way I'll get better at them. I'll keep the option in mind as I see how the Shoulder Savers work. Just like with programming, I only want to change one independent variable at a time without good reason.

Thanks again for all your help with this, Nick. I don't generally care about the bench that much, but having gotten 380 so far, four plates is just too close to give up on for me. And the local, annual push/pull meet is a lot of fun, as well...