wow, that image is large, and the edit function has been removed, huh? guess it's staying that way...
wow, that image is large, and the edit function has been removed, huh? guess it's staying that way...
Here's another data point. I am a healthy adult male. I started LP at 39yo, 6'1" and 185lbs. Underweight, but not nearly as bad as a lot of people I've seen on the forums. I went to an SSC for a session to learn the lifts and get started. He started me at 135lbs. Is this low for a typical person in my situation? Probably. But I was also very detrained from doing silly bullshit all my life. Would you start warmups at 135lbs when that is your workset? I didn't think so. I started going to 135lbs warmups when I hit 225lbs for my worksets. Before this, I started with an empty bar on a rack at the top and did a quasi deadlift/RDL for my warmups until I got to 135lbs in the warmup progression.
I've written about this elsewhere, though can't find the post right now: forums like this are likely to self-select for people who are above average at this. Obviously not everyone, but to cwd's point, it takes a lot of mental fortitude to keep plugging away at something you know you're not good at. And that's if you don't hurt yourself first because of your poor movement and proprioceptive capabilities and inexperience with choosing correct loads. And then of those who do stick with it, how many actively post on a forum about it? You'll get your share of the n00bs who don't yet know that they're in fact below average, but most of them don't stick with it or last long.
OTOH, as a coach, you're more likely to work with a larger percent of people who are below average, because they're the ones who need and really benefit from coaching. And the smart ones usually realize this. Of course everyone benefits from coaching, but the worse "strength and athleticism genetics" you have, the greater the marginal benefit. So unless you're primarily working with competitive lifters/athletes, you're likely to work with a lot of people who are below average, even a full standard deviation below average.
I've worked with a bunch of people like this: some for 1-2 sessions (they really should have done more but alas I didn't convince them), some for 2-4 months, and others for years. While it's definitely fun getting some of my guys from 315 to 500 lb deadlifts, I honestly get more personal fulfillment out of taking a guy who starts with a 65 lb squat and DL to 275. Completely changes their lives.
Anyway, back to the original topic: like lots of minorities, they are a smaller % of the population, but there are still a lot of them, and I believe they are more likely to seek out coaching than those who have more natural aptitude for lifting. If you're going to coach people and only use your very narrow, above-average frame of reference instead of seeing what you're actually dealing with, you'll be ineffective at best and potentially harmful at worst.
Last edited by Michael Wolf; 09-13-2017 at 08:16 AM.
+1. Applies to a lot of dedicated forums (personal finance, strength training, guns, shaving, food, etc.) although I will say that some SS articles are guilty of saying stuff like "stop thinking a 315lb squat is heavy". I understand maybe it's a motivational tool but it can lead to the thinking and comments seen in this thread.
I understand why those things are written, but in the same sense that the strength tables are stupid and do more harm than good, I actually agree here. A lot of people can LP their way to well past 315 if they simply learned to grind and increased their testicular fortitude. But for a not insignificant number of other people, 315 is an achievable goal only after a few years, or maybe even a lifetime goal for the seriously far-left side of the bell curve people, or for regular left siders who start lifting later in life. Specific numbers are meaningless as they relate to the broad spectrum of people who read the articles and book, which I am pretty sure is a much broader spectrum than those who regularly post on the forum.
Yeah, the forum bravado was a problem for me. I bought into it 100% and thought I should be able to run novice linear progression into a 300+ squat. Instead I just hurt myself. Over and over.
I'm not dumb, and not young, but was so inexperienced in athletics of any kind that I had no basis for judgement.
As coach Wolf says, people like me especially need coaches.