My Strength goals, SS, body weight and squat depth..

[cskolnick]

A couple questions i am hoping some could chime in on:
-having had 3 workouts already and still unable to achieve what i think is a proper below parellel low bar squat (losing arch, major pelvic tuck), i have yet to really add weight to the bar. I have not lifted more than 65lbs due to not feeling confident in my form. with that said, i have gotten sore and do "feel" stronger still. Should i stay were i am at weight wise until i get textbook or should i conservatively add weight and only go as low as i can while maintaining my arch and expect the depth to come in time?
-I want to be a man who can squat 1.5bw, DL2x and press bw. I am 6'2'' 180lb and while i am willing to add body weight for this, i have something i am unsure of, sorry if this sounds like a silly question: How is it that at my weight i would need to put on MORE weight to hit these numbers, according to some of the post here? I have had some oposts mentioned gains of up to 20-25lbs to get "strong" (then dropping down to 190 "in-season"). How is that people my size are able to hit my respective goals and greater at my same weight or even less?
I have heard that SS sort of self selects your bw for you. if you need to gain, you gain. if you need to lose, you lose. Is this true? If one needed (metabolically) to stay the same, would he?
Furthermore, i am a mountain biker and my season will start in April/may 2011, i absolutely will not need or want to weigh 200lbs as far as i can tell. If i am able to get my lifts up to where i want them, what will happen to all the newbie strength i gain? Where will it go if my bw drops back to 175-185? If the i just lose my lifts and have to eat big once again to get them up this makes me wonder...
-Is SS the right program for me if i want to be strong and maintain an active sport lifestyle that maaaaay not be best served by being a "big" guys (200lbs and up)? Is SS right for me if i said i did NOT want to get any heavier but wanted to hit my lift goals? I assume that how LONG it will take me/available time frame factors into this, no?
The more i am reading the more it seems like SS seems like lift, eat and get big strong. of course, but what if there is a limit to what i want to reach, then what or, maybe, what now?
Thanks for the time

[Regin Smidur]

Your squat and deadlift goals are a little too low in proportion to your press, if you want to be strong 2x bodyweight and 2.5x bodyweight is more appropriate. 2x bodyweight at 180 is only 360 anyway. And I think the trick is to be lean at 180. Like, 10% bf lean.

[LudwigVan]

That's a lot of questions man.

What I think you're missing is that the strength of a muscle is determined to some extent by its cross-sectional area. So a given muscle will be stronger if it's e.g. on a shorter limb rather than a longer one. Dudes that are really strong at 180 are generally a lot shorter than you. At 6'2", you have a large frame to fill out, and you need to do so in order to be your strongest. You will have a harder time hitting those goals without gaining some bodyweight. I'm 6', and the first time I pressed my bodyweight was after about 2 years of training when I weighed 196.

[gzt]

At 6'2", I don't think you could possibly weigh less than 200# and have anything resembling strength. Taller people need to gain more weight because taller people are bigger. A lean-ish strength trainee who's 5'4 and weighs 180 is obviously going to be a lot stronger than somebody who's 6'2" and weighs 180. When you lose weight, you lose strength. You won't lose all of it, because you don't seem to have any right now, but you'll lose some of it. You won't even get very strong in just 4 months (you might get your squat into the 300s).

Add weight to the damn bar, "pelvic tuck" be damned.

[cskolnick]

Thanks guys, sorry for the all the questions at one time..
In regards to the comment that i would not get "strong" in 4 months or so, i remember reading a awhile back that a conjugate style program-for off season athletes-might be better then a linear model if the person training has only a limited time frame to make gains.
Any truth to this?
And part of the training i am doing is, of course, for the "core" and i would like to do SS because something instinctual tells me it is more effective at this then lots of planks and isolated stabilization until i do in fact get some strength. My low back and anterior core is absolutely the weak link in this chain for sure.

[cskolnick]

Your squat and deadlift goals are a little too low in proportion to your press, if you want to be strong 2x bodyweight and 2.5x bodyweight is more appropriate. 2x bodyweight at 180 is only 360 anyway. And I think the trick is to be lean at 180. Like, 10% bf lean.

That is actually what i was going for, thanks. This is something that i gathered through reading that i think makes sense to aim for.

[cskolnick]

Add weight to the damn bar, "pelvic tuck" be damned.

I just get worried about my back; i think my tuck is bordering on obscene. More importantly, i think, is when my tuck breaks the arch in low back i lose what feels like all the tension in my hamstrings (or the tension is just carried with the pelvis as it rotates posterior) and i get no pop on the way up.
And i get my squat up to the 300s i will be ecstatic considering how much stronger i feel after 3 days of mediocre lifting 65lbs...

[srcuster]

I used to wonder about the correlation of food / weight to SS myself. I've found that as you start lifting heavy, your progress (or lack thereof) will efficiently point out to you what you need to be doing: eat more, better recovery, fix your technique or some combination. I think you'll find you'll stall at a low weight relative to your goals at your BW and the feedback provided by the program will be: eat more. Just lift and trust yourself to interpret your progress... be strict about your form and rest so you can limit your variables to food / calories. Take this for what it's worth, though, from a very new lifter (on program since October).

[ZKP]

Concerning squat depth....

You're a 6'2 man at 180 lbs. Get in the power rack. Put 135 on the bar get under it and go. Go as low as you can. Don't over analyze this. Dont worry about goin to low, just go as low as you can. Something a little greater on your back will help this. Keep adding 5 lbs a workout. You'll be fine. Good luck.

[Rezart Erindi]

Most of the things have been covered by the guys, but I suggest you record your squating and post a video.