Member
local gym does modified ss, only lets athletes clean
About 10 miles away there is a powerlifting/strongman/Olympic weightlifting gym that is about 3 stories. It has a floor dedicated to Olympic lifts that is just for the professional athletes that train there (Rugby, football, tennis players aswell as some olympic weightlifters) and those they take into the weightlifting club who show promise.
They give people looking for a general strength plan a few options but one of them is essentially your program modified to their own which has you squatting only twice a week using high bar and pulling one a week for 3 sets. Their last set has an AMRAP and they also encourage at least once accessory movement after the main movements are finished. Or an accessory day once a week.
But here is what I mainly wanted your thoughts on. When you join you pay a joining fee etc after a week trial to see if you rack your weights, stick to the program they give you (you sign in etc) and then they offer you membership. Once youve joined they give you some tests. They have a vertical jump test, they have some reaction tests using a colour board and based on that they allow you to try the Olympic lifts and then try for the weightlifting club. If you get under a certain vertical jump tyhey simply say don't bother with cleans etc you are simply not explosive and they get you to do rows instead and tell you it is a waste of time.
They have 17 year old rugby players coming in and doing 32 inch verticals and these guys are given a totally different program and essentially get to go in everyday and train with a class coach who has them squat, clean, pull etc. One of the kids apparently came in at 17 years old and they've worked him up to a 450lb high bar squat for 5 sets in 3 months. Apparently at his rugby club they had his balancing on a medicine ball and using club bells and other odd stuff. I asked about why only certain people are accepted and others are told don't even bother and the main floor coach said "some people are athletes and some aren't, we work a guy with shit genetics up to a 450lb squat over a year plus from nothing in one case and we have a 17 year old squatting 450 in a few months while playing rugby and sleeping 4 hours a night in the other, wasting time on the guy with bad genetics is a waste of our time period, he will never be fast".
I came in last week on my second week of SS I started at 55kg on my squat. I did the tests yesterday and he was like Bro you aint fast. Just get strong on linear progression and forget the powercleans and do the program until you can squat 450, bench 300 and pull 500. Then you will look good and be strong and that's the most you can hope for. They also seem really grumpy so I thought maybe you knew the guy. He says if you want to do keto or some other such thing go find a shitty commercial gym. If you come in in converse he literally growls.
What do you think of the general attitude? I know they've trained some of the best athletes in the world and some of the more noticeable physique changes in top "soccer" players in Europe was done through this training facility, lots of the really good rugby players also trained here over their own club training centres. Also what do you make of them doing high bar and increasing the pull volume? Seems a bit odd but the reason given to me was most people struggle to master a low bar squat and if left unsupervised will revert to lifting their chest, bombing the hole and other things, so simply making them high bar and increasing pulling volume does the job just as well.
Also thought on their novice program?
Bench 3x5+
Row from floor 3x5+
Squat 3x5+
Press 3x5+
EZ curls 3x5+ (once strong enough switch to weighted chin-ups)
Deadlift 3x5
Bench 3x5+
Row from floor 3x5+
Squat 3x5+
TMPHBITEU
What is the point of this shit? My thoughts on training are here:
Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, 3rd edition (Current Revision, Paperback) – The Aasgaard Company
Practical Programming for Strength Training, 3rd edition – The Aasgaard Company
Believe it or not, I am aware of the fact that people do things incorrectly.
Member
Man, so you mean that all you're going to wind up doing is looking good and being strong (his words)? Sounds awful.
Member
"only lets athletes clean" = "we don't know how to teach you to clean, so don't ask"
Member
Long on words, short on specifics, who exactly are these "world renowned" athletes and what is the name of this land of magic?
Member
Same goes for high bar vs low bar squat. I do not understand why you would inflict three deadlift work sets on anyone. I did that accidentally at 225 to 245, I forgot I should do a single work set. That was my only experience with overtraining.Originally Posted by anticausal
Member
It sounds like the “Treat you like shit, make you prove yourself worthy and you'll throw money at us system.” A lot of martial arts schools are quite successful using this system, don't see why it won't work with weightlifting.
TMPHBITEU
There aren't that many weightlifters. And what makes the OP think that their program is "modified ss"?
Member
Perhaps, my area supports a number of gyms, whether weightlifters or not, they're filling space at the racks.
Maybe the owners like to claim connection with the SS method, but want to sound as if what they do is better.
TMPHBITEU
Well, of course. Everybody does it better than we do.
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