Advice for skinny fat

[CCR]

Coach Rip,

Could you please elaborate an intermmediate routine for skinny fats?

I started strength training 2 months ago following the SS routine, after reading your book and after a brief bodybuilding experience. Now I got to a better strength level, and since the weekly progress stalled on all lifts, I am planning to move to an intermmediate routine.

A few details about myself and the progress. Please skip the paragraph if it is too much detail, the conclusion is that I got to an intermediate strength level in lower body lifts, but I am weaker in upper body:

Myself: 30 yo, 5.7 ft., 167.5 lbs.; skinny-fat look with modest torso and arms

Why I train: I like the strength inside, it makes me feel healthy and energetic; and I want to achieve an athletic look. I wouldn't mind getting bigger, but it is almost impossible to eat accordingly, because I have high cholesterol and a fatty liver that I am trying to cure, and a high protein diet + carb cycling improved it a bit. Also, if I eat much, I gain fat on chest and belly quickly, but gain muscle to a much smaller degree.

Squat: in the beginning of training was 132 lbs; now: 1 series of 5 reps at 242.5 lbs
Deadlift: beginning 154; now: 4 reps at 264.5 lbs
Bench press: beginning 110 lbs; now between 143 and 154 on 3 sets of 5
Press: started at 88 lbs; now: between 99 and 104 lbs
Power clean: started at 88 lbs; now: most was 132 lbs x 3 x 5
then added chinups with every A workout, started with 5 reps first set, 4 second; now I can do 8 + 4; and dips every B workout: started with 5 reps + another 2, now I completed 12 with a second set of 5

Thanks a lot in advance!

CCR

P.S. Is it possible to get individual feedback and coaching by e-mail from your team, as a paid service?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Read these four things:

A novice is someone who keeps asking himself if he is a novice. An intermediate is someone who is sick of training with weak people and an advanced person doesn't give a shit anymore. - Jim Wendler

http://startingstrength.com/index.ph..._clarification

http://startingstrength.com/resource...play.php?f=165

http://startingstrength.com/resource...ad.php?t=34131

[poppunk]

I want to achieve an athletic look.

Take up swimming instead because you're not committed to this. You can look all skinny sexy or whatever that way.

[iamgmo]

Go drink some milk, squat and feel happy about yourself for what you've become instead on relying on what you think others see.

Or at least be happy that they don't see you being as weak as a gurl.

[CCR]

Take up swimming instead because you're not committed to this. You can look all skinny sexy or whatever that way.

Poppunk, you read my message selectively and put me in the wrong category. To me, a rugby player has the athletic look. it's about proportions, not size. You know, skinny fats have thin arms, narrow shoulders, etc... I definitely don't like the skinny look, but nor am I concerned with the look in the first place.

I was trying to find a way to still keep some degree of progress without fucking killing my liver.

[Subsistence]

Take up swimming instead because you're not committed to this. You can look all skinny sexy or whatever that way.

Rip claims SS is the place to start even if you hold bodybuilding aspirations

[CCR]

I read the clarification three times today, and will probably read it again a few times, then continue with the Q&A. :-) I guess that studying (when a coach is not available to supervise your training) may be the best way to make sure you're on the right track.

[David Lee]

Read these four things:

an advanced person doesn't give a shit anymore. - Jim Wendler

Does this imply that at some point he did?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Poppunk, you read my message selectively and put me in the wrong category. To me, a rugby player has the athletic look. it's about proportions, not size. You know, skinny fats have thin arms, narrow shoulders, etc... I definitely don't like the skinny look, but nor am I concerned with the look in the first place.

I was trying to find a way to still keep some degree of progress without fucking killing my liver.

Strength training kills your liver? This ought to be fun...

Rip claims SS is the place to start even if you hold bodybuilding aspirations

A baseless claim, no doubt.

Does this imply that at some point he did?

Ask him.

[Subsistence]

A baseless claim, no doubt.

I wasn't saying that, in case you misunderstood me.