Temporary Alternate Exercises

[Tony Patriarca]

Greetings:

I did a search and I am surprised that I could not find a thread on this. Could you please link me to any thread on this subject? I went to my local gym today at a time and day that I thought was sure to be nearly empty. Well, I was very wrong. Today I was supposed to do Squat, Bench, and Deadlift on the LP. The one bench and the one squat rack (which is the only place we are allowed to deadlift) were being used. I sat and waited, and then my ADHD kicked in and I decided to find alternate exercises. Seeing as to the fact that I know more about the surface of Pluto than I do about weightlifting, I am pretty sure that there are better options than what I came up with. I ended up doing Incline Bench and T-Bar Row.

I have no desire to modify the Standard Novice Linear Progression, but is there an approved list of emergency replacement exercises?

I already know the first answer is going to be either go to a different gym or work out at home. There is not a plethora of gym options in my area. And to be completely honest, I will likely never buy my own workout equipment. I really could not give a tinker's cuss about getting stronger. The only reason I chose Starting Strength is because the concept was simple (I can learn 4 exercises), and it did not involve a complex system of bouncy balls and stretchy bands. I fully understand that this revelation is going to make me persona non grata on this forum, but I did not want to lie to anyone.

[Ivey]

is there an approved list of emergency replacement exercises?

Rip has yet to approve any. The last I saw presented for his approval was the heavypantslift (hex bar) and he didn't go for it.

[timelinex]

You wait for the station you need to be open and you do the exercise. If they are always that busy, you need to go at a different time. Even if that means waking up before work.

Honestly, if you are asking if there are alternate exercises you can do on days that the gym is busy, you are pretty damn far from even beginning to understand the program. READ THE BOOKS. They are cheap and you will learn alot.

There are 4 core lifts that must be done. Equally as important, The pounds on the bar need to go up on the lifts EVERY SINGLE TIME. Kinda hard to go up in weight if you didn't do the prescribed lift that day? There are alot of things you can change in SS that will technically be "you're not doing the program". Most of the things are looked down on here (like replacing powercleans with rows or replacing low bar squats with high bar squats), but in reality you will still make great progress with the "minor" changes. But if you are not doing the 4 core lifts and adding weight all the time to them, you might as well find a program that suits your actions (SS aint it).

[Charlie Davies]

I really could not give a tinker's cuss about getting stronger. The only reason I chose Starting Strength is because the concept was simple (I can learn 4 exercises), and it did not involve a complex system of bouncy balls and stretchy bands.

What are your goals, if not getting stronger? This forum is pretty tightly focused on getting stronger.

The other benefits (health, injury prevention, sports performance, aesthetics) are valuable, but hard to measure.
Strength is easy to measure and track, which is important for the sort of person who carries a notebook and pencil around in the gym, and make spreadsheets about their lifting progress. We're strength nerds here.

If you are too impatient to wait 15 minutes for a squat rack, I'm guessing you won't get advice you can use here, unless telling you "don't be so impatient" is actually helpful.