SS For Individuals Who Already Has Good Barbell Training Base but with Novice Stats.

[Amos famous]

Hi Rip, I just bought your SS and PPFST. Please be easy on me as I am just new to this forum and would really appreciate you replying to what I have to ask. I'm going to give SS a shot tomorrow and would like to have some clarifications before I start.
I've been working out for 10 months following a non-starting strength type program which incorporates some form of weekly linear progression. My current stats are the following.

1. 125lbs to 150lbs @ 12.5% body fat, 174cm (5'8.5")
2. Squat: 65kg to 87.5kg for 3 sets of 5 @RPE 8.5-9.5
3. Deadlift: 80kg x 5 to 105kg for 5 reps @RPE 10
4. Bench Press: 50kg x 5 too 65kg for 3 sets of 5. @RPE9-10
5. Press: 30kg to 42.5kg for 3 sets of 5 reps @RPE 9.5-10
6. Power Cleans: 30kg to 50kg for 3 reps @RPE7.
7. Pull Ups: 14 reps.

I need your advice on the following questions below:
1. Will you still consider me a candidate for the gallon-of-milk per day or will you put me into the conservative approach of eating at a 500kcal surplus a day, since I already gained most of my weight during the first 10 months of training?
2. Will you still consider me a candidate for the novice progression or have I wasted my novice capabilities of adapting on a training to training basis?
3. What should my starting weights need to be for each lift needs to be in order to prevent myself from stalling too early and so that my weekly bodyweight increase can keep up with my lifts? A 10-15% load drop?
4. What would be the ideal bodyweight for me to have, given my height?

Thanks!

[I_iz_a_fatass]

1. No. Just eat more.
2. Yes; novice is defined as the ability to put weight on the bar every session.
3. Read the book.
4. More.

[Ryaan]

4. More.

[Diddyin94]

I guess I am confused. How can you have a good barbell base and also have novice stats? Isn't having a good base by definition--not a novice? Also, how are you measuring RPE. As a novice, you have no perception of fatigue.

[chrisd]

It's taken 40 weeks to add 22.5 kilos to your squat. As the reverend Spooner once said "Duck Fat!"

You have weights the yield three sets of five and a set of five. Assuming that your form is not appalling and you aren't grinding out every rep, why deload ? You could retest to find the weight at which the bar speed slows on the last rep.

Unless you re 92, then you might as well do the program as it is written.

[Ryaan]

Isn't having a good base by definition--not a novice?

Actually, no. Novice refers to the ability to go through a full stress-recovery-adaptation cycle from one workout to the next, so that you can make linear progress on lifts from workout to workout without needing more complicated programming than "add some weight to the bar every workout".

It has nothing to do with how much the trainee can lift right now—you can imagine a situation in which an athlete has trained for years with less productive programming, discovers starting strength, and is still capable of workout-to-workout linear progression. That guy is a novice, even if he starts the program with a 315 lb squat, which we might call a "good barbell base". It just may be the case that his genetics are such that he can run the novice LP up through the low 400s.

(And the logical conclusion of this line of thought is that there's no such thing as "novice stats" if we define novice this way; everyone exhausts his or her ability to use the novice linear progression at different weights, depending on genetics, lifestyle management and recovery, etc.)

[Diddyin94]

Yes I understand the term novice as defined in PPST. Is what I am saying is to have a base in barbell "training" not barbell "exercise" there will be some component of LP incorporated in there. Basic Barbell training as defined in the book is running the novice LP. Picking up a barbell every once in a while does not constitute a base.

As a side note, I really hate it when people give these examples of people walking into the gym with a 315 squat and running an LP into the mid-400s. For the purposes of this board, most trainees will not fall into this scenario. The reason why you read about these people is because they are so rare. The value in the SSLP is that literally your grandmother could do it and get results.

[Ryaan]

Yes I understand the term novice as defined in PPST. Is what I am saying is to have a base in barbell "training" not barbell "exercise" there will be some component of LP incorporated in there. Basic Barbell training as defined in the book is running the novice LP. Picking up a barbell every once in a while does not constitute a base.

Oh, I completely misunderstood your post then, sorry.

As a side note, I really hate it when people give these examples of people walking into the gym with a 315 squat and running an LP into the mid-400s. For the purposes of this board, most trainees will not fall into this scenario. The reason why you read about these people is because they are so rare. The value in the SSLP is that literally your grandmother could do it and get results.

The rhetorical value in this kind of example is that it's extreme—by appealing to the notion of a guy with a 3 plate squat who's still a novice, you move the discussion completely away from novice possibly having any connotation of a given strength standard or of light weight. I suppose you could as just as easily construct a more realistic scenario of a guy who starts training later in life and uses intermediate programming with a squat of less than 225, but it's a less dramatic example.

Also, how are you measuring RPE. As a novice, you have no perception of fatigue.

This, 100%.

[Diddyin94]

The rhetorical value in this kind of example is that it's extreme—by appealing to the notion of a guy with a 3 plate squat who's still a novice, you move the discussion completely away from novice possibly having any connotation of a given strength standard or of light weight. I suppose you could as just as easily construct a more realistic scenario of a guy who starts training later in life and uses intermediate programming with a squat of less than 225, but it's a less dramatic example.

Also out of curiosity, what do you think is the risk of prescribing numbers to novice programming? I do believe there are certain squat numbers that would be applicable to about 80% of the training population and I think it would prevent a lot of people from moving to intermediate programming too early. I think that was my biggest mistake in my strength journey. As a novice, I really had no perception of what I should of been possible and I cut my novice progression off too early.

[Ryaan]

Also out of curiosity, what do you think is the risk of prescribing numbers to novice programming? I do believe there are certain squat numbers that would be applicable to about 80% of the training population and I think it would prevent a lot of people from moving to intermediate programming too early.

I don't have enough experience to answer this with anything but a wild guess, but I suspect that there is a much wider range than you think. The ability to recover from training is affected by a tremendous number of variables: sex, age, hormonal profile, genetic potential for strength, amount and quality of sleep, amount and quality of food, etc.: all of these factors (and more!) will affect at what point a trainee can no longer recover from workout to workout. Might be an interesting question for the SSC Staff Q&A, since those guys have experience with a lot of trainees. Or you could poke around intermediate logs and take a look at people's starting weights. Even controlling for sex, I bet you'll see a wide range.

Sorry, OP, we've completely derailed your thread. Do the program, as written, and eat more. Read Jordan Feigrnbaum's To Be A Beast article on his blog if you want a more nuanced opinion on how to eat for strength gains.