expected strength gain?

[Sean33]

Hey folks,

I started SS yesterday and had my first day in the gym (I'm 18, 5'10" and 140). I'm not at home right now so don't have the exact numbers but all my lifts were about 100-130 pounds with squat being the highest.

Ive set myself goals in terms of weight gain that I think hard to attain but not totally out of the question as long as I apply myself and I'd like to do the same with my strength gains. Now obviously everyone is different and we all progress at a slightly different rate but what sort of strength gains should I set as a goal for myself say over a three month period?



I searched the forum with the search function but could not find anything relevent- sorry if this has been asked before (I'm sure it has- many times).



All info is appreciated.

[veryhrm]

a) http://startingstrength.com/resource...ad.php?t=15737
try "expactations"

b) resources -> articles -> A clarification

c) SS is a process oriented rather than results oriented (and as such i guess it would be derided by the business world...). As such specific strength/time goals would not be appropriate. It seems that that would be a fairly obvious implication of how the program works. Have you, perchance, read SS, the book?

[slipshod77]

Those are pretty high weights to begin with. When I started I was 5'10" 177 and began at 95lbs each for deads and squats, 65lbs on OH press and 135 on the bench (bench centric before SS).

Start light so you can concentrate on form; when you are jumping 15lbs a workout for the first couple weeks you'll get there soon enough. Starting higher really just strokes your ego but it can negatively hurt your progress down the road when the weights start getting heavy and your form isn't sufficient to handle it. I speak from experience, my progress would have been faster if I didn't keep adding 45lbs a week to my squat for three weeks when I started. I ended up having to reset and build back up learning my form over again.
To give you an idea of what to expect:

April I was at
weight 177lbs
squat 95
dead 95
bench 135
OH press 65

My current 5 rep PRs ~5 mo later
weight 212lbs
squat 295
deads 350
bench 242.5
OH press 142.5

If you eat well, get good rest and DTFP you should get similar results; your actual numbers will vary.

[skipbeat]

Great progress Slip! im curious as to how your weight gain was like during that period?

[slipshod77]

I went from about 177 to 212. I was probably about 15% body fat before and now I'm probably about 18% or so. When I sit down I'm starting to get a roll to hold on to. I'll start doing something about that once I can squat 350+.