Progress on pressing movements

[Devyn Stewart]

I sure do. You're coming from the position of Scientism. If you read The Journals, you're doing "science."

The Phenomenology of Barbell Training | Mark Rippetoe

The Problem with “Exercise Science” | Mark Rippetoe

I see that you have a very well-developed opinion on this subject, and I don't think I'm going to convince you otherwise with an opinionated philosophy of thought, but perhaps you'd humor me one last time before I drop it? In some aspects, medicine is very similar to barbell training. You're often working with certain stimuli in the hopes of causing an adaptation to improve the health of a patient. Surely pre-widespread research, there were plenty of doctors who had discovered that hand washing and clean drinking water were good for not spreading diseases. Perhaps if antibiotics were around they would have discovered their utility in treating infections. Do you think the world would be better off if those doctors rejected medical research because of bad methodologies of early medical papers? I'm sure there were an abundance just like there is now in exercise science. If you think there's something glaringly different about the two situations, feel free to let me know.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I do understand that there is a difference. I'll make an analogy to chemistry, as that's my area of study moreso than exercise science. With experience alone, chemically, you get blacksmiths and cooks. That's useful, but they may never become the best blacksmiths and cooks that they could be because they don't fully understand why what they're doing works the way it does. Without chemistry research, we never learn about the existence and charge of the electron. Perhaps that isn't necessary to the blacksmith right now, but many discoveries like that lead to models that lead us to a better understanding of how to program as a whole that we could have never discovered with simply experience alone.

Has it not occurred to you, having read both chemistry and exfizz published literature, that they are not equivalent?

I know I may be comparing apples to oranges with this case, but I think there are things that experience alone cannot tell us about strength training that research can. Exercise science is a particularly flawed area of research atm, I'll concede, but I don't think that warrants throwing it out completely.

And one more goddamn time, I'll ask for the paper that informs training better than the clinical experience. One More Fucking Time. The money shot.

I also think that heuristics based on experience can be useful but can also drive you off a cliff. The "lift heavy things to lift heavier things" mantra repeated around here ad nauseam clearly isn't true at all times for all people, but for some reason the idea of training with loads <70% for a good portion of your training is ludicrous.

And once again, the "lift heavy things to lift heavier things" mantra repeated around here ad nauseam clearly isn't true at all times for all people" straw man is such absolute bullshit that you cannot possibly have read the book we wrote about when you don't do this. Stop listening to what people say our programming ideas are, and read it for yourself.

Surely pre-widespread research, there were plenty of doctors who had discovered that hand washing and clean drinking water were good for not spreading diseases. Perhaps if antibiotics were around they would have discovered their utility in treating infections. Do you think the world would be better off if those doctors rejected medical research because of bad methodologies of early medical papers? I'm sure there were an abundance just like there is now in exercise science. If you think there's something glaringly different about the two situations, feel free to let me know.

The two glaring differences are 1.) medical research, although shitty at times, has been the purview of more impressive intellects than the Masters Degree candidates in the exfizz department, and has been of a higher quality (like you find in Nature, JAMA, and NEJM as opposed to JSCR), and 2.) medical advances facilitated by careful research with large cohorts and lots of money are more valuable to society than the amazing breakthroughs about creatine monohydrate we find in the Masters Theses in JSCR, and are therefore more prone to higher quality. And there are still lots of problems with them.

[Devyn Stewart]

Has it not occurred to you, having read both chemistry and exfizz published literature, that they are not equivalent?



And one more goddamn time, I'll ask for the paper that informs training better than the clinical experience. One More Fucking Time. The money shot.



And once again, the "lift heavy things to lift heavier things" mantra repeated around here ad nauseam clearly isn't true at all times for all people" straw man is such absolute bullshit that you cannot possibly have read the book we wrote about when you don't do this. Stop listening to what people say our programming ideas are, and read it for yourself.

I mean, I've read both books multiple times, whether or not you believe me. If you'd like a more direct quote, I've heard you say in Q&As that, "Lifting heavy things makes you stronger, and lifting light things necessarily makes you weaker." I know that programming isn't that simple otherwise we'd just run LP forever, but it's the philosophy that I'm concerned with, not the specifics. i.e. hitting a 5RM as often as possible vs. accruing adaptation w/o maximal efforts.

I don't feel the conversation about science has gotten anywhere productive in a few posts, so I think I'll stop. Any paper I find will have some flaws like all of them do, so I doubt you'll find that convincing. Rip, I'm sure you're already aware of this, but just in case anyone hasn't given up on this thread, feel free to check out Greg Nuckols' reports on the most current science, and perhaps they will be more convincing than I, an amateur, am.

Thank you for the civil conversation.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I mean, I've read both books multiple times, whether or not you believe me. If you'd like a more direct quote, I've heard you say in Q&As that, "Lifting heavy things makes you stronger, and lifting light things necessarily makes you weaker." I know that programming isn't that simple otherwise we'd just run LP forever, but it's the philosophy that I'm concerned with, not the specifics. i.e. hitting a 5RM as often as possible vs. accruing adaptation w/o maximal efforts.

And, to distill things, I am concerned with the philosophy that really isn't a philosophy at all, but rather a sales technique, that holds that it is possible to increase your maximal performance without maximal effort. Now, if that's a straw man, wear it around for a while and see how you like the feel of it.

I don't feel the conversation about science has gotten anywhere productive in a few posts, so I think I'll stop. Any paper I find will have some flaws like all of them do, so I doubt you'll find that convincing. Rip, I'm sure you're already aware of this, but just in case anyone hasn't given up on this thread, feel free to check out Greg Nuckols' reports on the most current science, and perhaps they will be more convincing than I, an amateur, am.

I give up.

Thank you for the civil conversation.

Sure.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

The fact that you think “hitting a 5RM as often as possible” is the basis of post novice programming means you are getting your information somewhere else. I’m pretty sure it states pretty clearly in PPST3 that trying to hit 5RMs for a prolonged period of time on the Texas Method is a mistake. I know it’s there because I wrote it. I wrote it because my observation over a prolonged period of time using TM programming on actual people informed me that 5RMs every week are not a good idea.

And what does PPST3 recommend when progression on a given lift becomes stagnant, in general?

[Devyn Stewart]

The fact that you think “hitting a 5RM as often as possible” is the basis of post novice programming means you are getting your information somewhere else. I’m pretty sure it states pretty clearly in PPST3 that trying to hit 5RMs for a prolonged period of time on the Texas Method is a mistake. I know it’s there because I wrote it. I wrote it because my observation over a prolonged period of time using TM programming on actual people informed me that 5RMs every week are not a good idea.

And what does PPST3 recommend when progression on a given lift becomes stagnant, in general?

You're right. I misspoke. My intention was to say "attempt PRs as often as can be sustained".

I understand that it is stated that volume must increase over time. Everyone agrees on that. The difference is that SS-type programs, from what I've seen, do everything they can to delay that as much as possible, whereas other organizations tend to welcome increases in volume without a direct lack of PRs initiating the change.

[Mark Rippetoe]

The difference is that SS-type programs, from what I've seen, do everything they can to delay that as much as possible, whereas other organizations tend to welcome increases in volume without a direct lack of PRs initiating the change.

Yes. We disagree with that.

Minimum Effective Dose for Maximum Strength | Matt Reynolds

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Do you understand that PRs are not necessarily maximal attempts in intermediate training? That my new PR triple is not necessarily a 3RM?

And yes, I do not believe that doing more work than is necessary (in terms of volume) for an early intermediate trainee is the best strategy. Because if volume must always go UP over time then we aren’t leaving ourself much wiggle room, are we? If I start with 15 sets per week at age 25, how many sets am I doing at age 35?

[Devyn Stewart]

Do you understand that PRs are not necessarily maximal attempts in intermediate training? That my new PR triple is not necessarily a 3RM?

And yes, I do not believe that doing more work than is necessary (in terms of volume) for an early intermediate trainee is the best strategy. Because if volume must always go UP over time then we aren’t leaving ourself much wiggle room, are we? If I start with 15 sets per week at age 25, how many sets am I doing at age 35?

Then perhaps you can explain this to me because I've never understood this idea. The reason you don't start a trainee at, say, 315 on the squat for 3x5 on NLP is because he can't perform it. If he could, perhaps he could perform 320 in a few days and be much better off than if he didn't perform the 315x5x3. In other words, the stimulus he needs to progress to 320 isn't available to him because he can't perform it yet. If the idea is to become more trained and volume at an appropriate intensity makes you more trained, why wouldn't we perform 15 sets if we can recover from it? I thought the idea was to build up to that point the same we we build up to 315 so we can perform 320 the next time. Of course your volume tolerance will decrease with age, but so will your strength. We're not saying things like, "We know that intensity must increase for progress. If we start with a 405 squat at 25, how much will you be squatting by 35?" Like, of course the older man will have a harder time recovering from the intensity the same way he has a harder time recovering from everything, but why shouldn't he perform as much as he can recover from without increase injury risk if he wishes to become more trained?

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

I truly have no idea what you are asking here. I mean that with all sincerity.