UK Starting Strength Coach Carl Raghavan

Recently I noticed my bench press sessions were beginning to use almost the same weight as my squat sessions, and my squats were already lagging well behind my deadlifts.

I knew something was very wrong.

I have been a follower of Starting Strength and a lurker on the forums for a couple of years and I was very pleased when I found Coach Carl Raghavan, based in London, in the Starting Strength Coach Directory.

http://startingstrength.org/index.ph.../raghavan_carl

During my visit earlier this week I received exactly the expert advice I was expecting from a Starting Strength Coach.

He was able to immediately identify the bad habits I had developed with my squat and we even had had time to discover problems with my deadlift I did not realise I had.

I thank Carl and will be returning regularly to continue my development.

I just got home from a day travelling to London and visiting Carl Raghavan.

Just wanted to say my thanks for an excellent training session. Carl is a thoroughly nice bloke.

My workout with Carl's help felt really good today in fact I hardly feel like I've worked out at all despite doing all PB's today. I might have to email him to check we actually put the right amount of weight on the bar.

Looking forward to adding some more weight now and making more progress then I'll certainly be going back to see Carl in a few months time for more help and guidance.

Regards
Dan

After lifting on my own for a while I suffered a back injury while squatting. To prevent further injuries I decided to visit a Starting Strength Coach. Unfortunatly there is no SSC in Germany - the closest one is Carl Raghavan in London.

I met with Carl at Crossfit Evolving in London (which is a really nice facility) and in the course of 1,5 hours we worked on all the lifts used in the SS novice progression. In all the lifts, Carl made adjustments that made the lift immediatly better! He taught me how to properly set my back on the deadlift, how to not bend the arms on the power clean, how to properly use the hips in the Press 2.0 and a lot more. Although I have read some of the cues and adjustments already on form checks in this forum, it doesn't compare to having a knowledgeable coach in person forcing you in the right position or yelling at you ;)

After a week of training on my own again I have to say that the coaching session made a big differnce: all the lifts feel smoother and while I still have a lot of work to do on my own, I now feel really confident in progressing my lifts. The session was definitly worth every euro/pound (including costs for flight and hostel) and Carl even offered me to send him videos of my future lifts!

So if you are in Europe: Go fly to London and train with Carl, you won't regret it!

Adding another thumbs up for Carl after an excellent session with him yesterday. I wanted to get a health check on my squat form and get my deadlifts fixed, which he did an excellent job with.

He adjusted a couple of things with my squat form and showed me a really useful stretch for my creaky shoulders. On deadlifts, he gave me a totally different way of thinking about the lift which had immediate impact. After a heavyish set of five (which felt light) I was able to work up to a smooth single just 20lbs below my lifetime meet PR, with a hook grip. Pretty certain I could have hit a new PR on the day.

Well worth the time and money - definitely recommended if you're in the UK (or Europe!) and want some world class coaching