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Thread: Fiddling with barbells for the first time at 28

  1. #1
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    Default Fiddling with barbells for the first time at 28

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    edit: Decided to discontinue the program for the time being. Really need to work on my mobility for the squat and DL, as much as I want to keep adding weight, I think I'm gonna linearly progress myself into a back surgery if I keep at it.
    Last edited by rokpo; 07-08-2019 at 10:25 AM.

  2. #2
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    Welcome. When you are young you may be able to get away with eating a great deal of junk food...but don't press it. Start eating meat. Lower your carb intake. Drink more milk. Have a good share of vegetables and supplement it all with whey protein. You will not likely stall out too early and you will most likely gain more consistent strength than if you keep eating poorly. Heck I eat pizza once in a while but not often.

    On the less that parallel squats why no show some videos especially on the technique section. Go see a certified SS coach from time to time. I still don't always get below parallel. But when I do it's when I do frog legs and freeze them there. Then drop butt to position. Be patient and just do the program as written.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by carson View Post
    Welcome. When you are young you may be able to get away with eating a great deal of junk food...but don't press it. Start eating meat. Lower your carb intake. Drink more milk. Have a good share of vegetables and supplement it all with whey protein. You will not likely stall out too early and you will most likely gain more consistent strength than if you keep eating poorly. Heck I eat pizza once in a while but not often.

    On the less that parallel squats why no show some videos especially on the technique section. Go see a certified SS coach from time to time. I still don't always get below parallel. But when I do it's when I do frog legs and freeze them there. Then drop butt to position. Be patient and just do the program as written.
    Milk makes me farty, but I do get a bowl of cereal in anyway when I feel I need to squeeze in some calories. As for meat, I eat a lot of ground beef (tacos and burgers), bacon, and eggs. Like some people have "cheat" meals, I try to have the occasional "health" meal. I'm trying to find a way to make chicken that isn't terrible (or deep fried), pan fried chicken breasts are so objectionably bland no matter how I marinate them. Bought some thighs today, gonna experiment with them.

    The form check "readme" actually says to not post squats that aren't parallel, but maybe that applies to people who are doing less than parallel squats because of overload rather than mobility? I dunno. I don't think there's any form cue that can help me at this point anyway. I just don't have the mobility to get low, I could hardly do a quarter bodyweight squat when I first learned what a squat was. I was initially doing goblet squats (with dumbbell held out from chest) halfway to parallel. I can actually get below parallel with a goblet squat sometimes now, so I've come along a little.

    I would really like to be able to get low with a high-bar squat since it's directly translatable to a traditional bodyweight squat. I know SS coaches specialize in low bar, so maybe that wouldn't be the best choice. Can't really afford one at the moment anyway. Well I could, it's just I'm at a bit of a crossroads life-wise so I'm trying to run lean financially until I figure some stuff out. There is one about 1-2 hours away though (might be your closest one too, I'm a fellow Michigander), maybe when my depth is better I will look into a coach to hammer some stuff out. My deadlift could use some review as well.

  4. #4
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    Welcome!

    I'm with Carson that cleaning up your diet would be a good idea in the long run, but calories are your friend on LP, so I'm not going to sweat it too much right now. I'm a bit more concerned by your devil may care attitude towards squat depth. Why are you insisting on high bar? Most people actually find it easier to reach depth with good form squatting low bar. If you know your squats are high, and you keep adding weight, there's no way to tell if you've actually gotten stronger, or if you're just squatting a bit higher with each increase. You're right that Rip will probably put you on blast if you post obviously above parallel squats, especially if they're high bar. This is your log though, so you can do whatever you want down here If you post a video I (and probably others) will happily try to help you out as best we can. Make your best attempt at a low bar squat, shot as described in the technique forum sticky, and lets see if we can get you sorted out.

  5. #5
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    I fully concur with what Dillon wrote.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dillon Spencer View Post
    Welcome!

    I'm with Carson that cleaning up your diet would be a good idea in the long run, but calories are your friend on LP, so I'm not going to sweat it too much right now. I'm a bit more concerned by your devil may care attitude towards squat depth. Why are you insisting on high bar? Most people actually find it easier to reach depth with good form squatting low bar. If you know your squats are high, and you keep adding weight, there's no way to tell if you've actually gotten stronger, or if you're just squatting a bit higher with each increase. You're right that Rip will probably put you on blast if you post obviously above parallel squats, especially if they're high bar. This is your log though, so you can do whatever you want down here If you post a video I (and probably others) will happily try to help you out as best we can. Make your best attempt at a low bar squat, shot as described in the technique forum sticky, and lets see if we can get you sorted out.
    I don't see much of a point to switch to low bar squatting, it would just be adding technicality to my struggles. I can get slightly lower, but still not parallel. I find it a lot easier to round my back when pushing my mobility limits in the low bar position, whereas in high bar maintaining a set back comes fairly natural to me. It's very obvious when I lose it. Also, it's nice to not have to worry if my bar position is right or not.

    As for not being able to measure progress, I think you can mostly gauge your depth as you increase weight with warmups. I have never felt my depth restricted by weight. If I did, I would stop adding weight. I've recorded myself with a warmup set and work set in the recent past, didn't see much difference in depth. I could fret about depth and stop increasing weight, but I feel like that would be slowing progress to a standstill for not enough of a reason.

  7. #7
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    Rokpo,

    When you get serious about lifting the first thing to do is go see a coach. Mine is Dr. Sullivan whose gym in Greysteel in Farmington, Michigan. I also am friends with Chris Kurisko in Lansing. You can learn from them why doing the squats correctly will stop you from wasting time and asking for injury. Why bother doing things incorrectly just because you wish to be frivolous? Do you have the books, btw?

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by carson View Post
    Rokpo,

    When you get serious about lifting the first thing to do is go see a coach. Mine is Dr. Sullivan whose gym in Greysteel in Farmington, Michigan. I also am friends with Chris Kurisko in Lansing. You can learn from them why doing the squats correctly will stop you from wasting time and asking for injury. Why bother doing things incorrectly just because you wish to be frivolous? Do you have the books, btw?
    I don't think my squat form is really all that incorrect though (high bar ones, at least), just shallow. I've never read anything concrete that going less than parallel is inherently unsafe, I know a lot of athletes use less than parallel squats as an assistance exercise, and doing less than parallel squats seems to be one of the better ways to improve mobility to go deeper. There will probably be a point in the near future when I back off on increasing weight and just do more goblet squats and other things to increase my depth.

    Perhaps a coach could help me get deeper, but multiple sessions is probably out of my price range right now. Those coaches are both 1-2 hours from me, maybe I'll get in touch some other time. Honestly, if I get injured, it'll probably be the lower back during the deadlift, not anything from the squat. I have Starting Strength, and while I haven't read it cover-to-cover, I use it as a reference for when I get confused about things. Like, I've read the entire deadlift portion in conjunction with a bunch of youtube videos and articles.

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