Practice technique before starting program?

[newguy32]

I understand first months of my weight training will see the biggest gains I will probably ever make while lifting. I am trying to plan to maximize those gains during this time as it seems like a great opportunity. I have never squatted even my body weight, and have never done power cleans at all. (Why the heck didn't my gym teachers or football coaches teach this stuff?) I am a very technical and disciplined person and I am confident that I can learn the correct form. Would you recommend taking a week or two and just work on form with the bar before beginning the program, or should I just jump right in balls to the wall?

In the book it talks about learning the lifts the first day and progressing from there. Seems to me that if I go into the program with decent form (which I do not currently have), I’ll be able to go farther before stalling? Or am I just over thinking things?

My background: I have weighed 175-180 my entire adult life. I’m 32 years old and have always considered myself “athletic” and “in shape”. I have always been in martial arts and I am now in a weight class sport (Jui-Jitsu) and started thinking about competing seriously. My first step was to lose body fat and see where I would fit in. Long story short I now weigh 155 at about 7% body fat (I’m 5’10”). I now realize that I was not “in shape”, I was just skinny. I have decided to put competition on hold for a bit and focus on strength, although I’ll get back to it eventually. I have not lifted for about 10 years, and back then I did it all wrong anyway.

I understand you're busy for the next week, but I'm anxious to get moving so I'll take an answer from anyone on this really.

P.S. this site and your book are a godsend for me. I almost bought a smith machine!

[moonshot]

I think most people jump in and start--sure you want to practice your form and get it right, but my interpretation of the SS materials was that you might just throw in some extra warmup sets for the lifts that need more practice, you would still be finding your initial working set weight on day 1, and progressing that weight as you go.

I think if you spent a lot of time with just the empty bar for example, your form actually might not improve as quickly, because there's no real resistance there, and you're not causing your body to adapt--not just muscle growth, but neural/motor pathways that help activate the right muscles in the right ways. Generally speaking, your initial gains will come pretty easily, so even though you're progressing the weight, for the first couple of weeks it won't be heavy enough to hurt yourself even with less than perfect form, and your body will be adapting quickly enough that you should be able to keep/improve good form.

This is very much a "see how your body responds" program, so if your form is suffering, sure maybe lighten the weight a bit and work back up, but I expect that won't be necessary right away.

[hbriem]

Just start.

Read Incremental Increases and The Novice Effect by Mark Rippetoe.

There are more articles in the Resources section that you may like.

[MikeC1]

I am a very technical and disciplined person and I am confident that I can learn the correct form. Would you recommend taking a week or two and just work on form with the bar before beginning the program, or should I just jump right in balls to the wall?

Well don't get too confident, it can take quite a while to really learn all the technical nuances, even for a detail-oriented person. You don't really need to take a week or two practicing with the empty bar, and it likely won't do any good for your technique anyway, since 'good technique' really means 'how do you look when the weight is heavy'. So do what the book says and get started adding weight from the first workout. On the other hand, "jump right in balls to the wall" isn't exactly what you want to do either. For someone very new to this, it may be difficult at the beginning to intelligently regulate how much weight to put on the bar. For the first few weeks, probably the first couple months, you should definitely be going hard enough to work up a sweat and get out of breath each workout, but you really don't want to be working at full 100% intensity, failing on work sets, etc.

[LimieJosh]

If you select your initial weights properly (i.e. as described in the book) the first several workouts will not require the all out efforts to compelte that latter workouts will require. This will give you the opportunity to get in some good technique work before the weights become too challenging, which itself will provide a unique challenge to your form. Do it the way it is written, because that tends to be the way people have the best results.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

All of these questions are answered in the book. You do have the book.

[newguy32]

Thanks everyone. I've jumped right in. Feels great. And the good news is there seems to be a LOT of room for improvement. HAHA.

[RobCor]

Thanks everyone. I've jumped right in. Feels great. And the good news is there seems to be a LOT of room for improvement. HAHA.

Post some form check videos.

[newguy32]

I'll try to put up a couple videos for a form check this week. And thanks for the offer Rob. But for now, is this the proper position for a low bar squat? Until recently I wasn't even aware that there was more than one way to squat.



I apologize if that pic didn't work, I'll see what I can do....

[MikeC1]

That's pretty good, better if you straighten your wrists. Ideally, your hands will be on the top 3/4 of the bar instead of behind or under the bar. Watch the wrist and hand placement in this video to get an idea what it looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVKEl4Wxoqc