A few words of thanks to the authors of the books and the SS community.

Thanks to Starting Strength I seem to have found a long term solution to my back/shoulder/neck area pains which plagued me for several years.

I’m on the tall side (6 ft 2 or 187cm) and have very flexible joints, in combination with a mostly sedentary job, less than ideal sitting posture and my weight (back then) of +/- 154 lbs (<70kg) caused me much pain in the back/shoulder/neck area.

I consider myself lucky to have found Starting Strength early on in my quest to gain some strength to relief back pain, and not lose many years and money on useless exercices/gyms/…

Bought both books and started the novice program on my own, posting some questions and form checks here.

After as little as a few months of novice training my pain complaints were dissappearing, I continued to have a good uninterrupted run of 18 months, 3 sessions per week enjoying doing the program, albeit with very slow & steady progress. 1 year ago I stopped lifting overnight (not ideal, I know), I feared the pain was going to come right back, perhaps within months, but to my amazement, at this moment after not touching the barbell once in 12 months, I’m still 95% pain free!

As a bonus, squats also seem to have fixed my bum right knee!

So a big thank you for the SS community for offering me (and numerous other people) a way to improve health/quality of life through physical training i.e. lifting weights, as an alternative/addition to classical practice of medicine.

Best Regards,

Kris

PS: If it could be any sort of help or indication to people in a similar position, all it took for me was to reach stats of about SQ 308lbs/140kg - DL 340lbs/155kg - BP 200lbs/90kg - P 128lbs/57kg and increase bodyweight from +/- 154lbs / 70 kg to a more healthy 205 lbs / 93 kg to stay pain free...