Suboptimal training for non-NLP son questions

[Adam Levine]

Posting about my son again. He's a busy and great kid - getting good grades, doesn't cause trouble, active on robotics team.

But, he's overweight, weak and has poor confidence and body image. He isn't going to do an NLP - I can't get his diet under control - lots of junk and not enough protein, and i can't get him into the gym more than once or twice a week.

However, he is going - once or twice a week, with long breaks when studying for the SAT or Finals or robotics build season. By no means perfect, but he can get some benefit from that. I've established that adding weight and making him stronger is possible under these conditions, just not nearly as fast as a NLP. I've also established that he doesn't decondition at all during a multi-week long break - he can just pick up where he left off.

I wanted to sanity check his plan and give a few follow-up questions.

First, he's 5'11", 16 years old, and about 250#.
His current lifts are Deadlift 115# and Bench 75# for sets of five, with okayish form (his deadlift form is better than mine).
He cannot do an unweighted squat with good form due to a strength issue - he knows how and went to SSC Kurisko and Sully's squat camp.
I'm not even going to try coaching him on the press - I can't do it right myself and certainly can't teach him.

His current program, once or twice weekly. The short-term goal is to get him strong enough to do a 45# barbell squat, after which the program changes.
- 3x5 Deadlift. I've been progressing him at 5# per session, which he's handling well. I'm thinking of asking him to go for six on the last set, and if he does it, add 10# next session. I know you aren't supposed to be able to recover from 3 sets of deadlifts, but at his age and deadlift weight, he can do it.
- 3x5 Bench. Progressing at 2.5#/session. Again, thinking of asking for six on the last set and doubling the progression if he hits it.
- 3x10 *#$ed up leg presses. I'm using this leg press machine - it has a weight limit of 138#, which he handles easily, so I push on the seatback to increase resistance. Not optimal - I have no idea how much resistance I'm providing, but it seems to work.
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Now the questions:
#1 - Does this plan make sense?
#2 - How high should his deadlift be before we attempt a 45# barbell squat again? I don't want to try again until he has a high probability of success. I figure the closest metric is to base it off his deadlift weight. Is waiting until he can deadlift 175# reasonable?

Any advice will be considered and appreciated.

[Dillon Spencer]

Do you have The Barbell Prescription? It has two options for increasing range of motion for trainees that are too weak for a full depth body weight squat. I know you're not dealing with optimal equipment at your boxing gym, but do they have boxes? Enough plates to stack? Can't remember if the rack you squat in is adjustable enough for you to use the bungee method. You can LP range of motion if you get creative with the equipment available to you. Once you get him squatting to depth with body weight, loading it with dumbbells (which I assume your gym has) as a goblet squat is probably advisable before jumping straight to the bar.

BBRx also has a deadlift-centric program for those who can't squat. It calls for up to 3 sets of 5 on the deadlift, and that's for much older trainees. If the deadlift is going to be your son's primary strength builder, I'm sure at 16 he can recover from 3x5 for a good while. I don't know that deadlift weight will be a great predictor of when he can squat with the bar though. While it trains all the same muscles to a degree, it leaves out the range of motion he can't currently attain. There are ways to turn a deadlift into more of a squat pattern, but if he already can't squat I'm not sure if these would be a better option.

[Adam Levine]

Yes, I have the barbell prescription (my favorite of the three books), and read about bunjee suqats. In fact, I use them myself to give me a "tap" reminding me I've hit depth and it's time to go up. Without them, I pretty much always cheat the rep.

There seems to be disagreement about their use though. It's advocated in BBP, but Rip doesn't believe in them, saying you can't train a ROM you aren't reaching.

YouTube

Unfortunately, that principle also applies to deadlifts - he isn't training the muscles used in the bottom section of a squat.

Coach Sullivan also backed this up as Squat Camp, recommending leg presses, so I'm thinking the bunjee-squat/box-squat recommendation might be out of date.

Maybe the 138# of resistance from the machine, plus another 70-100# of me pushing on the chair might be enough to get to an unweighted squat, and from there we can go to dumbbell squats.

-->Adam

[Dillon Spencer]

I was thinking of using it in combination with the leg press. One to strengthen the whole range of motion, the other to work on achieving it. Could be the recommendation is out of date, but I doubt Sullivan and Baker would have included it at all if they hadn't had success with it. I hear they have a bit of experience with these things I'm happy to be corrected though!

Also, since you have BBRx, and it sounds like you're having your son be a Deadlift-Bench Specialist, that program is on pg. 221-222. Probably best not to tell him in from the Novice Over 70 chapter

[Andrew Jackson]

You may not be able to train strength without getting to the full range of motion, but I believe there is a psychological benefit to working your way down to full depth. It may be a strength issue, but may also be compounded by fear of failure. Keep pushing the deadlift and leg press for strength development, but you can use the box squats as a sort of test/confidence booster to gradually work the ROM down to a full squat. Start with a height that he can complete and then peel away layers until you find the end ROM. This way you can test each session until full depth is achieved rather than waiting until some arbitrary weight number that may or may not be sufficient.

[Dillon Spencer]

Go check out that Deadlift-Bench Specialist program. Calls for deadlifting every session, dropping sets before lowering frequency. And that's for +70 trainees. It basically takes on the role of the squat as the primary strength developer, and should therefore be done every workout for as long as possible. Not sure swapping it out for bungee squats is optimal. Might be better to do them in addition to, not instead of. If they replace anything it's probably the leg press, depending on how close he can get to depth.

Just my $0.02! Again, happy to be corrected.

[Adam Levine]

I was thinking of using it in combination with the leg press. One to strengthen the whole range of motion, the other to work on achieving it. Could be the recommendation is out of date, but I doubt Sullivan and Baker would have included it at all if they hadn't had success with it. I hear they have a bit of experience with these things I'm happy to be corrected though!

Also, since you have BBRx, and it sounds like you're having your son be a Deadlift-Bench Specialist, that program is on pg. 221-222. Probably best not to tell him in from the Novice Over 70 chapter

You may not be able to train strength without getting to the full range of motion, but I believe there is a psychological benefit to working your way down to full depth. It may be a strength issue, but may also be compounded by fear of failure. Keep pushing the deadlift and leg press for strength development, but you can use the box squats as a sort of test/confidence booster to gradually work the ROM down to a full squat. Start with a height that he can complete and then peel away layers until you find the end ROM. This way you can test each session until full depth is achieved rather than waiting until some arbitrary weight number that may or may not be sufficient.

Okay, so I'll try this (alternating workouts):

Workout A: 3x5 Deadlift, 3x5 Bench, 3x10 LegPress/Adam'sChestPress
Workout B: 3x5 Deadlift, 3x5 Bench, 3x10 Remedial Squat

Remedial Squat Progression:
- Bungee Squat, starting at about 10 pads (7 pads is to-depth for me, my son is probably close to that)
- 7-pad bunjee squat with dumbbell, progressing to 30#
- Barbell squat

I haven't faded out the bunjee for myself yet, so no reason to make him do it. It's not like it changes the movement...

-->Adam

[El Rojo]

How can he be so weak? Not trying to be rude or anything, it's just that I cannot fathom it without further explanation such as sickness, injury, etc. which you haven't provided. Are there really a lot of 16yo out there unable to squat an empty bar?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Have I missed the part about how you are addressing his dietary situation? Why have you allowed a sedentary 16-year-old living in your house to be 5'11" and 250? What is his Tanner Stage? Was he badly injured at some point? Because unless he's injured or something is wrong with his maturation/hormone profile, this is ridiculous.

[Adam Levine]

Rip/El,

Really not helpful. Yes, he's weak and it's an issue. No health issue or injury - just an extreme sedentary geek. No, I'm not discussing why or posting the size of his junk on a public forum (really?). I was the same at his age, had the strength of a kitten (but I was 110#, and got stronger as I got older, especially in college).

I suppose I could drag him into the house, force him on a diet/exercise program, and take him from his friends. At 16, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work out well. He's a good kid, gets good grades, is active in non-sports extracurriculars, on track to going to a very good college. Overall, I'm pretty proud of how he's maturing. He doesn't deserve that, and if I go hardcore on him, he's bound to rebel who knows what I'll end up with.

He has an issue with strength and body image, he recognizes it, and he's willing to work on it. He doesn't have the time or the maturity right now for an NLP (or to really diet), but I don't think it's totally necessary - if he can add a measly 2lb to his lifts every workout, and gets 50 workouts in before he goes to college, he'll at least in a "normal" sedentary/unfit strength range. At the pace he's going, he can beat that easily, maybe even getting to Rip's "Level 2" strength level.

Maybe as he sees improvement, he'll try to do more and do an NLP. Honestly, he probably won't - that's his choice, but he'll see me doing it, and he understands that at 16, the whole process will work way better on him than on me.

Any productive advice on how to design his program is still appreciated, but I think I have it figured out. The bunjee squats were a very good idea - it may not directly lead to strength, but it will tell me when he is ready better than deadlifts will. It's strength testing cleverly disguised as strength training.

-->Adam