Testimonial On Unfucking Yourself

"Yes, if you squat wrong it fucks things up. If you squat correctly, those same fucked-up things will unfuck themselves." - Rippetoe.

Some basic history... discovered SS & bought the necessary material from you a couple of years ago, got my lifts up to where I was feeling like a confident novice (squat 340, deadlift 415, bench 255, press 165, cleaned 155 at 220lb bodyweight). I allowed some severe personal/marriage problems to stop me training for a minute, now I'm restarting a novice SS program & in a few weeks I've gotten myself back in the groove (squat 220, deadlift 220, bench 155, press 120, clean 120). Nothing spectacular yet BUT...

During the months I wasn't training, I developed some irritating & often painful lower back & hip tightness. I also started noticing some kind of "tendinitis" sensation in the area of my hip flexors, which would be constant, and sometimes irritating enough to keep me awake at night.

When I started training again recently (gingerly & with some concern about potential pain & injury for the first few training sessions), I looked back at some old training videos, and noticed that my old squat was all over the fucking shop (particularly bar too high, knees shooting forward at the bottom). I wondered if this had something to do with this constant hip/glute/lower back irritation I had been suffering during my layoff. I've re-studied SS book & DVD and I have been working VERY hard at correcting those problems, with some success, and it feels like a miracle cure. The pain & aggravation I had been suffering has been almost completely alleviated.

In fact, after the first few training sessions back, I could tell if I'd nailed my squat form because I'd perform the lift, rack the bar & feel like ALL tension or pain had gone from my hip area the moment I stepped away from the bar. If I'd fucked the lift by reverting to my old form, I would have felt like I fucked own my hips & ass too.

A few weeks down the track & I don't suffer ANY of that familiar hip/ass discomfort. I have successfully unfucked myself.

So Rip this is mostly a note of thanks, for continuing to offer us your deep knowledge amid a sea of misinformation & gibberish, for helping to improve people's quality of life, and for showing us, step by invigorating step, how to fairly comprehensively unfuck ourselves. It has certainly worked for me.

I also have a question. At the racetrack the other day, I had a conversation with a guy who had evidently had some "success" in Upper Body Building, i.e. had probably never even put a barbell on his back, let alone try to squat it, and probably did 5 days per week of chest/tris. I was extremely uncomfortable during this conversation. He enthusiastically talked about going into the gym & "one day just totally mixing things up" because it "keeps your muscles guessing" and other stupid bullshit that almost forced me to spit coffee on his face. But it made me curious... in your experience with advanced programming, does a rational version of that idea ever have any validity regarding strength training? Is there ever a time in an advanced trainee's progression where, for example, a random one-off variation in training can assist progress, or is planned & steady progression the most efficient method?

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Originally Posted by DCMusic

I also have a question. At the racetrack the other day, I had a conversation with a guy who had evidently had some "success" in Upper Body Building, i.e. had probably never even put a barbell on his back, let alone try to squat it, and probably did 5 days per week of chest/tris. I was extremely uncomfortable during this conversation. He enthusiastically talked about going into the gym & "one day just totally mixing things up" because it "keeps your muscles guessing" and other stupid bullshit that almost forced me to spit coffee on his face. But it made me curious... in your experience with advanced programming, does a rational version of that idea ever have any validity regarding strength training? Is there ever a time in an advanced trainee's progression where, for example, a random one-off variation in training can assist progress, or is planned & steady progression the most efficient method?

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There will come a time when variations in volume and intensity of various levels of complexity will be required to maintain an adaptive stress. These variations will never be random if they are to function as training stresses.

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Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe

. These variations will never be random if they are to function as training stresses.

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that's gold right there

Thanks Rip.

So it's just more counterproductive rubbish.

Couple of observations:

1. Most serious guys I have ever trained around (PLers, BBers, Strongmen) occassionally do something "off the wall" in the gym for reasons that don't necessarily make sense and that aren't part of their planned out program. I think sometimes this is out of boredom, and other times, out of curiosity from something they read or heard about. Some guys might do it because they are impulsive, others, just to see if they can. Certainly if whatever "random" thing you throw at yourself is too crazy, it might screw up the rest of your program and seriously screw with your short term progression. In the long term however, sometimes episodes like this are how we experiment and learn new shit.

2. There are plenty of strong guys who operate off loose plans, where there isn't necessarily a plan for every exercise, set, rep. Some call it auto-regulation, some call it listening to your body, etc. This tends to work for very experienced lifters who actually have the judgement to listen to their body and can objectively make smart training decisions on the fly. I kind of do this now in my own training. The only thing that I HAVE to do that day is the planned out working sets for the main lift that day. So on a bench press day I know I have to go in and hit 3 heavy doubles. When I get done with that, if I feel good I might do high volume of assistance work on things like dips, tricep extensions, etc. If I don't then maybe I do nothing or I do a lower volume of work. For the past several months this has been an effective way of training for me on all my lifts. I wouldn't recommend it to a novice or an early intermediate.

Maybe if Reynolds is around he could expand on this further???

Thanks for the reply Andy. I'm starting to get the sense that, at the advanced level, an "intuitive" approach can be useful or effective (along the lines of your and Tommy Suggs suggestions for example) when incorporated into a larger training plan, but that the reasoning & logic behind the bodybuilding method of random stimulus is suspect.

In other words, a random stimulus would not be significant enough to act as a training stress & cause any measurable adaptation. I wonder why this myth is so common among bodybuilders?

I also need to add something about deadlifting.

The source of info is so vast that I can't remember whether I read this somewhere in the book, or on the Q&A forum, but Rip makes mention of the pull from the floor feeling "shorter" when the proper set-up is maintained. This is TOTALLY true in my situation. I had fallen into a bad habit of starting with my ass too low, and always felt the start of the pull really hit my lower back. I've recently tried very hard to correct this, and the move feels SO much shorter. It's not easier... the set-up actually feels harder. I've worked my way back up to 285 & it feels like I'm traveling half the distance from floor to lockout, as a result of my hips already being in the correct position from the start. My lower back also seems to recover a lot quicker from deadlift sessions, surprise, surprise.