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

[stef]

Rip answers questions from Starting Strength Network subscribers and fans.

• 03:06 Comments from the Haters!
• 08:34 The Worst Advice Rip Received
• 10:54 Passing Out After Heavy Lifts
• 17:19 Losing Weight and Keeping Muscle
• 21:02 I’m Happy With My Weight
• 24:25 Safety Squat Bar
• 28:09 Any New Lift, Fight, Shoot Camps?
• 30:08 New News Source
• 41:16 Avoid Surgery Until You Can’t
• 46:40 Nicotine Use
• 54:46 Your Labs Aren’t Bad
• 1:04:32 Flexible Means Injury Proof? No

[Railbob1776]

During this show Nick started to discuss a couple things I found interesting but he didn't get it all out in the podcast. I was hoping he could address those things here.

1) There was a discussion about shoulder issues and the person said they were using the SSB and didn't want to go back to a straight bar. Nick mentioned there were better alternatives to a straight bar than the SSB, what are those alternatives?

2) Another question involved shoulder issues on the bench press and Nick said he had he same issue where at a certain weight on the bench press his shoulder would start to act up. He started to explain the details on how to deal with that and he was cut off and never got back to it. What was he going to suggest?

[Nick Delgadillo]

During this show Nick started to discuss a couple things I found interesting but he didn't get it all out in the podcast. I was hoping he could address those things here.

1) There was a discussion about shoulder issues and the person said they were using the SSB and didn't want to go back to a straight bar. Nick mentioned there were better alternatives to a straight bar than the SSB, what are those alternatives?

2) Another question involved shoulder issues on the bench press and Nick said he had he same issue where at a certain weight on the bench press his shoulder would start to act up. He started to explain the details on how to deal with that and he was cut off and never got back to it. What was he going to suggest?

Better options to the SSB are curved bars like the Yukon or Buffalo bar. Or the Marrs Bar, which at least gets the bar in a low bar position. Most people, most of the time need neither one of these options, though.

As far as the bench goes, I can get my bench up heavier using a Shoulder Saver pad. I'll also use a Slinghot periodically. Probably the best thing I've done to be able to bench heavy, on Will Morris's recommendation, is to get a wide pad for my bench. I bought the 14" from Rep Fitness.

[Martin Shenfield]

Better options to the SSB are curved bars like the Yukon or Buffalo bar. Or the Marrs Bar, which at least gets the bar in a low bar position. Most people, most of the time need neither one of these options, though.

If you don't mind me asking sir, would you still use one of those options with older people over an SSB? Only reason I ask is Byron told me I would likely need an SSB for training given I'm seeing older people. I'm in the land of Oz so getting a Mars bar is pretty limited to edible chocolate ones.

If one of those is a better option overall I'd love to know. Obviously, if I can get them to use a normal bar that would be ideal.

[Railbob1776]

As far as the bench goes, I can get my bench up heavier using a Shoulder Saver pad. I'll also use a Slinghot periodically. Probably the best thing I've done to be able to bench heavy, on Will Morris's recommendation, is to get a wide pad for my bench. I bought the 14" from Rep Fitness.

Thanks Nick, but I think you were also about to explain a programming strategy for dealing with the shoulder pain from benching. You told the person to press more often because that would help the shoulders and I was wondering what that looks like. Does that mean to bench once a week, every other week? If you could lay out the specifics of what you were getting at here I would really appreciate it.

[Jason Donaldson]

Better options to the SSB are curved bars like the Yukon or Buffalo bar. Or the Marrs Bar, which at least gets the bar in a low bar position. Most people, most of the time need neither one of these options, though.

As far as the bench goes, I can get my bench up heavier using a Shoulder Saver pad. I'll also use a Slinghot periodically. Probably the best thing I've done to be able to bench heavy, on Will Morris's recommendation, is to get a wide pad for my bench. I bought the 14" from Rep Fitness.

Thanks for these details, Nick. Working through some shoulder weirdness myself, I definitely find this helpful, especially as I'm saving up for monolift attachments on your and Rusty's feedback from my paper Q&A question recently.

What's the advantage to using the Shoulder Saver instead of setting the safeties higher to restrict ROM and making sure not to rest the bar on them between reps and turn it into a pin bench?

For the Slingshot, would you say that their stated numbers for top weight is about right for selecting a model? Or do you end up needing more than one as you warm up?

[Nick Delgadillo]

If you don't mind me asking sir, would you still use one of those options with older people over an SSB? Only reason I ask is Byron told me I would likely need an SSB for training given I'm seeing older people. I'm in the land of Oz so getting a Mars bar is pretty limited to edible chocolate ones.

If one of those is a better option overall I'd love to know. Obviously, if I can get them to use a normal bar that would be ideal.

I would want to have a light SSB on hand for when the situation dictates that you'll need one.

[Nick Delgadillo]

Thanks for these details, Nick. Working through some shoulder weirdness myself, I definitely find this helpful, especially as I'm saving up for monolift attachments on your and Rusty's feedback from my paper Q&A question recently.

What's the advantage to using the Shoulder Saver instead of setting the safeties higher to restrict ROM and making sure not to rest the bar on them between reps and turn it into a pin bench?

For the Slingshot, would you say that their stated numbers for top weight is about right for selecting a model? Or do you end up needing more than one as you warm up?

I can never set the bar on the pins evenly and it doesn't feel like benching when I use pins. For my clients, it's very difficult to get them to not slam the bar onto the pins, screw up the bar path, or rest it on the pins as it gets heavy. The pad makes it so that it's more like actually benching. For how much they cost, it's worth having.

I'm not really sure about the stated numbers on the Slingshot website. I have the red one and it works really well. I've tried the blue and it's not enough "assistance." I've never messed with the black one, but I'm not benching much more over 300 anymore.

[Martin Shenfield]

I would want to have a light SSB on hand for when the situation dictates that you'll need one.

Thank you very much. I'll get on to that. Fortunately, for some reason there are a lot of SSB's available in Oz.

[Jason Donaldson]

I can never set the bar on the pins evenly and it doesn't feel like benching when I use pins. For my clients, it's very difficult to get them to not slam the bar onto the pins, screw up the bar path, or rest it on the pins as it gets heavy. The pad makes it so that it's more like actually benching. For how much they cost, it's worth having.

I'm not really sure about the stated numbers on the Slingshot website. I have the red one and it works really well. I've tried the blue and it's not enough "assistance." I've never messed with the black one, but I'm not benching much more over 300 anymore.

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.