Could I benefit by treating myself as a "novice"?

[jjlek]

Hey Michael,

Hope this is the right place to post this, but I was looking for some advice.

Background/History information:
-25 y/o male, 210-212 lbs
-Recent best lifts:
-bench: 250x1 squat:440x1 deadlift:530x1 (all within the past 2 weeks)
Training History:
-In high school (2008-2011) I basically did the workouts that my high school football and track coaches had us do.
-From 2011-2016 I trained as a collegiate thrower (discus, hammer, weight throw).
-When I graduated undergrad I "trained" crossfit for a year and a half before going back to school and for the past year and a half I have not really followed a set/specific program... a little bit of screwing around has happened in this time.

So my question is, do you think I would benefit at this time from doing the novice linear progression or a variant of it? I haven't not been lifting but I have not really had any structure for training since I left undergrad.

[Michael Wolf]

Yes, do the LP. The default position is that you're novice unless proven otherwise. You may indeed prove otherwise, but hey, we recently had a guy come in to SSOC who had done an LP on his own ending with a 415x5 squat and he achieved 495x5 by running the LP properly, with coaching. 80 lbs on your top set of 5 is nothing to scoff at.

Based on your background, you're going to need to do some adjusting to the new technique, which you'll find in painstaking detail in the book - which you should read - and great example videos on the SS and Barbell Logic youtube channels for tutorials and examples and tips. It's going to take you weeks or more to get good at doing things this way. The best way to do that is to start at a just barely challenging weight - light enough to focus on what you're doing and fix it, but heavy enough to feel gravity's pull - and go up a little each time, getting better at the new style of doing the movements more efficiently as the weight goes up.

Worst case scenario you perfect your form while working up to roughly the strength you had before. If that happens, don't force the issue and try to stay in LP forever, just move on. Best case, you make some additional gains on top of what you've already done and grab some low hanging fruit before moving to more complex intermediate programming.

Random side Q: Aren't you a little small for a thrower? Or were you bigger in college?

[jjlek]

Thanks for the quick response!

I have a copy of the book and have read it; going to get started ASAP.

For your random question, I competed weighing between 240-245 during college. Guess I should have probably included I am 6'2" as well in my initial post.

[Michael Wolf]

Awesome, glad to hear it. And ya, that makes more sense now.

[Les Hahn]

Yes, do the LP. The default position is that you're novice unless proven otherwise. You may indeed prove otherwise, but hey, we recently had a guy come in to SSOC who had done an LP on his own ending with a 415x5 squat and he achieved 495x5 by running the LP properly, with coaching. 80 lbs on your top set of 5 is nothing to scoff at.

I do agree that the TS should do an LP. You make a good point that he needs to learn the SS techniques, and starting lighter to nail that down is a good thing.

But for the guy that went from 415 to 495, that is not really how it happened I don't think. He ran his first LP up to 415x5, but then moved onto other programming. I don't know how long it took, but eventually he worked up to a 600 squat. 495x5 was probably already there. Maybe not the 3x5, but I think it's important to mention everything. I don't know his situation, and maybe a restart of LP was for the best (time off, learning new techniques, etc.).

[Michael Wolf]

That's just one example I picked off the top of my head. I personally have worked through this with people so many times I've lost count, not sure if it's dozens or hundreds at this point, and most of them got past where they had gotten before, so the details of one particular example aren't important to the main point.

I related the story based on my understanding of it, if there's other details I didn't know, fine with me. I've seen it so many times that any single example isn't really important. Hell, I myself am a decent example. My squat was 385x1, and I got to 440x5 at the end of an actually well run LP, which I hadn't done before because I assumed I had already trained my way to more advanced status. Too bad I was so stubborn and egotistical that I didn't snag up those ~100 lbs on my 5 rep squat sooner and younger.

[Les Hahn]

That's just one example I picked off the top of my head. I personally have worked through this with people so many times I've lost count, not sure if it's dozens or hundreds at this point, and most of them got past where they had gotten before, so the details of one particular example aren't important to the main point.

I related the story based on my understanding of it, if there's other details I didn't know, fine with me. I've seen it so many times that any single example isn't really important. Hell, I myself am a decent example. My squat was 385x1, and I got to 440x5 at the end of an actually well run LP, which I hadn't done before because I assumed I had already trained my way to more advanced status. Too bad I was so stubborn and egotistical that I didn't snag up those ~100 lbs on my 5 rep squat sooner and younger.

That's a fair point. I thought I saw this one example somewhere online, which is why I mentioned it (maybe SS facebook page)? But I know you've worked with a lot of people (and I've too have trained a few people) where doing an LP did help.

[Michael Wolf]

Ya, I certainly don't want to use false examples, so if that particular one wasn't as clear cut as I was led to believe, I wouldn't have used it. This is the first I've heard of there being more to the story but maybe you're right, I really don't know. Accuracy and truth as important, and if I'm actually right about this, I won't need to make up or use false examples. Totally agreed.

That said, if I go through my old records - geez, now I realize I'm not sure where those records are, I hope they made the move with me! - I could pick out some other great examples, and people like me and Nick D'Agostino also provide some pretty good examples of squatters close to or over 400 who thought they were past all that Novice stuff, but once we did it, we put on a bunch more via an LP.

[Rich Pauley]

I was the one that got my second LP to 495. After my first LP I screwed around with some bodybuilding type stuff for a few months but then stopped training for well over a year or two.

After a training break of three weeks or more it is always a good idea to LP back up. How long of an LP will always depend on how long of a break you've been on. The single biggest reason for this is detraining.

Now make sure you understand what detraining is, detraining is a degradation of skill and neural efficiency. You may have lost "some" muscle but if you've been relatively active with some resistance training you probably haven't lost any. Neural efficiency from a lifting perspective is nothing more than how good your body is at recruiting motor units "aka muscle fibers".

As Les pointed out I did do some other programming for a few months after my first LP and it is my firm belief that part of the reason for my success with my second LP was I had more muscle mass to train and make efficient.

If you haven't been focused on strength with progressive overload in a systematic approach you may have more muscle mass but you've definitely lost neural efficiency.

Even if you are an advanced world class athlete, if you've haven't been training for any extended period of time an LP is always your best bet when coming back because it is the proven way to get you stronger faster than any other method.

So don't be surprised if you run a proper LP you make some PR's, and as everyone knows PR's are always fun. I hit my 600lb single at the end of my LP after finishing 3x5 at 495.