Advice for Coaching Friend: Overweight, Flexibility Issues

[David A. Rowe]

SS Coaches,

I would like to ask for any help I can get with my current situation. The long of it is, I have a very good friend of mine that I've been trying to talk into weight training with me for nearly three years because I'm very worried about his health. He finally conceded to my constant invites and came over today. Here's how it all shook out:

His rough stats: 5'6", 280-300 pounds.

I have a garage gym:
-Power Rack
-Bar
-Econ Bumper plates
-Flat bench
-C2 Rower (mainly for warm-ups and HIIT)

I tried to run "Day 1" with him, including instruction on each lift and checking the usual things. Here's what I ran into:

Squat:
Was unable to even grip the bar correctly in the high bar position. Had to use a loose three finger, thumbless grip. Could not rack weight properly due to this grip as the pins and uprights on the power rack interfered. Safety was my principle concern, so we did not go past the empty bar with this exercise. In order to diagnose I first checked his shoulders/scapula- turns out, due to his highly sedentary lifestyle he had severe anterior shoulder rotation issues (with winged scapula). Pectorals major and minor are extremely tight. I advised how to stretch this twice daily and recommended him to my message therapist to help with the muscle adhesions and to try and loosen up his chest/front shoulders. His posterior chain flexibility left him about 5-10 Degrees short of parallel (his "abdominal protrusion" may have also played a factor). I could not load the bar heavy enough to check and see if a little extra weight could provide enough of a stretch in the hole to free things up gradually. Surprisingly his knees and toes had a tendency to push outward rather than collapse. He actually had very well developed (for someone with no recent training or exercise) control of his erector spinae.

Current course of action is unclear. My concern from a programmatic standpoint is that, without the squat at heavier weights, I'm not going to be able to help him develop enough lean mass to help with weight loss in any meaningful time period (months instead of years). I do not possess the money or space to support a leg press machine. The only thing I can think of is try and get him through the flexibility issues until he can begin to squat or utilize a safety bar (which I am willing to purchase for him).

Bench press:
Suffice it to say, the easiest exercise for the day. After fixing issues with a lack of shoulder control (to the extent flexibility would allow), his bar path and form was decent enough that I'd allow it for starting the program. Unsurprisingly, when asked, "Have you bench pressed recently?" his response was, "Yeah, 3 weeks ago." He could lift progressively to 135' without any difficulty, which leaves me to believe that I'm fighting imbalanced development on top of flexibility issues.

Course of action is that I'm not sure if he even needs to be benching with his anterior rotation issues.

Deadlift:
Unable to perform regular deadlifts. He could manage, with a lot of instruction to roll the bar back over mid foot, a sumo deadlift. Of the two heavier lifts (squat and deadlift) I think this may be the only one he can perform at all in his current condition.

Course of action is to potentially replace squats with sumo deadlifts until I acquire the equipment or he acquires the ability to perform squats and normal deadlifts.

My outlook for "Day 2" which I use the option of replacing power cleans with bent over rows, is that I can most likely get him through on the press and rows without too much issue. I may have to use a wider stance to allow for his back to get more parallel to the floor until he begins to lose weight.

This is important to me, as his friend, that I do everything in my power to help him now that he's decided to help himself. If you, as a far more experienced group, have ANY advice, methods, stretches, recommended program changes, etc. to offer I would be truly grateful. The look on his face today and the fact that he went deathly quiet (this guy never stops talking, usually) for the majority of the afternoon session tells me that this is almost life or death for him.

Thank you very much, in advance.

Sincerely,

David

[Tom Campitelli]

Can you give me the four or five sentence version of this?

[David A. Rowe]

1. Shoulder flexibility issues means he can't squat or perform overhead press.
2. Weight around the middle means he can only sumo deadlift instead of performing regular deadlifts.
3. I have since ordered an SS Yoke Squat Bar- the goal here is to be able to meaningfully load him with weight in case mobility takes more than a few weeks to achieve. More weight = more muscle = more fat loss.
4. Advice with programming and substitution work is appreciated.

[Tom Campitelli]

Before we get to too deeply into this, it sounds like you had to talk this guy into showing up. What do you think the chances are that he is dedicated to following through given the potential work you are looking at putting into this?

[ud2o]

Before we get to too deeply into this, it sounds like you had to talk this guy into showing up. What do you think the chances are that he is dedicated to following through given the potential work you are looking at putting into this?

This is a great point. I think what you're trying to do is admirable, but your friend has to want to do this first.

[David A. Rowe]

Tom,

I can't honestly answer that with any degree of accuracy. I've got him convinced on the science. I've demonstrated how it works on me. Recently, he lost out on the one time shot of being an NCIS FLEO, but was passed over due to weight. I think he's ready, but he determines how far he goes.

That, and I made him pay for the safety bar (skin in the game).

I understand if you're reluctant about helping (especially for free). That's the main reason why my first post was as detailed as possible. I didn't want this to sneak up on someone- it's gonna be a tough row to hoe.

[Tom Campitelli]

It almost doesn't matter what this guy does to start with. He could go for walks and provided he was eating properly, the weight would start falling off him. The first 50 pounds will be pretty easy. Have him squat with the safety bar and see how it goes. If sumo is what he can do, do that. Since I am not there to see any of this, we cannot do anything more than say, "Do your best, amigo."

[Sean Herbison]

2. Weight around the middle means he can only sumo deadlift instead of performing regular deadlifts.

If he can get close, you may want to have him pull conventional from a slightly higher starting position. A few inches higher may be better than using the sumo variation. Obviously this is not an option if he can't get within a foot of grabbing the bar, but it's something to consider.

Best of luck on what sounds like a very worthwhile endeavor.

[David A. Rowe]

OP, as objectively as possible, how well can you coach the lifts? do you have any experience with other lifters? form videos of yourself?

Im obviously not an SSC, just curious.

These are fair questions. I feel as if I can easily coach a beginner in the lifts on the major points, but mostly because I do my best to emulate Mark et al. as closely as possible while taking into account the specifics of the situation. So far, it has worked well for self-coaching, coaching my wife (which there is absolutely no book or video for) and my neighbor. These were fairly easy, but did provide me with a range of experience on different body ratios. All three of us were somewhat familiar with weightlifting, but sometimes improperly learned movement patterns were far harder to get rid of than establishing new.

At the end of the day I worried about this. After asking around, the majority of advice I got (including Rip's) was "Learn to coach by coaching. If you hurt someone, give them their money back." That's what I'm going off of currently (and I'm not charging yet). I've also let everyone know (including the two friends who just started last week) that I am not a certified coach, but I am working on it. The only thing keeping me away from a SSS is I want to gain more personal experience through the intermediate phase of my own training before I submit for testing at a seminar.

It almost doesn't matter what this guy does to start with. He could go for walks and provided he was eating properly, the weight would start falling off him. The first 50 pounds will be pretty easy. Have him squat with the safety bar and see how it goes. If sumo is what he can do, do that. Since I am not there to see any of this, we cannot do anything more than say, "Do your best, amigo."

Understood. I will be utilizing safety squats, bench press and bent over rows until he loses enough weight and gains enough flexibility to properly perform other lifts.

If he agrees and you are open to it, I can provide pictures of current starting positions with the bar that illustrate the issues I have outlined. If nothing else is necessary, though, I will continue doing basic mobility work along with the previously mentioned movements.

Thank you for the advice.