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Mark Rippetoe:
[Reading question] "I believe this is especially true for lifters in their late 30s and beyond. Can you please summarize where we would go from here?"

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, somebody ought to write a book about this...

Mark Wulfe:
From The Aasgaard Company studios in beautiful Wichita Falls, Texas... From the finest mind in the modern fitness industry... The One True Voice in the strength and conditioning profession... The most important podcast on the internet... Ladies and gentlemen! Starting Strength Radio.

Mark Rippetoe:
Welcome back to Starting Strength Radio. It's Friday. And who gives a damn really what you are? Right, you're here, that's all that matters. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
Thank you for being here. Every Friday, Starting Strength Radio blazes a trail through the insanity that we find ourselves engulfed in here in 2020. The year from hell so far. Has there been a worse year than this fucking thing? Do you remember one?

[off-camera]:
I don't.

Mark Rippetoe:
I don't. I certainly as hell don't.

[off-camera]:
As far as in the United States...

Mark Rippetoe:
As far as your personal shit is concerned, have you had a worse year than this? Like did you... Did one year, you lose your parents and all your aunts and uncles and grandparents and your dog and your cat. All that shit happened at one time. At any point?

[off-camera]:
You know, I would say that...what was it? Was '03 when 9/11 happened?

Mark Rippetoe:
No, it was '01.

[off-camera]:
'01. I would say that year was pretty bad, but honestly, the United States kind of bonded over that.

Mark Rippetoe:
That, yeah, that was nothing like this. Nothing like this. World War Two was not like this. In World War Two, you could go out and get a sandwich in a cafe and sit down and eat it and pay for it and not have everybody be an asshole. So it's... I don't know, this is just really a fucked up situation.

Mark Rippetoe:
But we're here to lend a little gaiety to the situation.

[off-camera]:
That's going to show up in the comments from haters.

Mark Rippetoe:
Speaking of comments from the haters, it's now time for Comments from the Haters!

Mark Rippetoe:
This week, and our lovely production assistant, Bre. Is she still the production assistant? Or I thought we promoted her assistant director.

[off-camera]:
Well we promoted her and then I demoted her and then we promoted her again.

Mark Rippetoe:
So what is she now?

[off-camera]:
I think she's a...

Mark Rippetoe:
Assistant director, assistant producer or some shit like that?

[off-camera]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, see that that's done. All right. See that that's done. And in the credits, you can get it fixed. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
She's selected several comments about Chase's 370 standing press. Now, this was... Was this the three sixty five for two singles or the 370, which one was this?

[off-camera]:
I think it was this is the 370, the one that was done here.

Mark Rippetoe:
One that was done here. All right. So here's... He's 22, right? At a body weight of two hundred and forty five pounds, and he's pressing 370s, 370 standing Press 370. There's not anybody yet strong in the country. 365 days is was? 365, he's since done 370.

[off-camera]:
Yeah, yeah, he did 370

Mark Rippetoe:
He did 370 in Houston when he got back.

[off-camera]:
No, no he did 365 in Houston. When he came here, he did he did three seventy.

Mark Rippetoe:
He did 370, but that was not the... well. But we're talking about five pounds. Yeah, right. So this is a real fucking strong. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
And as you might expect in the bottom point zero three percent of humanity has got something to say about that.

[off-camera]:
That's the covid death rate?

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, that's the covid death rate. We just calculated the covid death rate of the population of Harris County. We were having fellowship earlier and we we decided... We calculated the covid death rate, that the DRC19 is the actual name of the statistic. I named it. Right. The death rate from covid-19.

Mark Rippetoe:
And in Harris County, Texas - Houston - got a population of four point seven million and some change and five hundred and what did you say?

[off-camera]:
Five hundred and forty.

Mark Rippetoe:
Five hundred forty, some odd, omething to that effect, people in Harris County have that for a death rate of point zero zero zero two one percent of the population of Harris County has succumbed to the deadly covid-19 virus, the pandemic, as it were.

Mark Rippetoe:
And probably that point zero zero zero two one percent are these people right here [holds up the printed out comments]

[off-camera]:
Commented right before they died.

Mark Rippetoe:
You could... At least you could hope they were. They commented right before they died, which would be fine. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
So Bifff Tannin's dad says, "That's a standing bench press with backbreaker arch." Backbreaker, I've seen the boy. He's fine. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
"So what if your back snaps from leaning too much? That's a heavy standing incline press. That's more of an incline bench l m a o Horrible form." Horrible enough to do three sixty five, right?

Mark Rippetoe:
"How not to strict press exhibit A." Did we mention that this was not a strict press? You're talking to people that can't understand anyway.

[off-camera]:
And they probably can't even press 135.

Mark Rippetoe:
If you're talking to people that don't press the fucking 95 pound bar.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. "Seems really bad for the lumbar spine, overarching that way." Well, it seems that way, except that it's not, A and B, you don't what the fuck you're talking about, pineapple pizza. That's why I'm here and you're there.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Mark Rippertoe is not teaching him properly." Well, that may be, but he still did 365.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Ah, the standing bench press, my favorite."

Mark Rippetoe:
I seem to detect a pattern. All these people call each other before they first post on the.. and then die of covid-19 in Harris County.

[off-camera]:
They're all in the ICU talking to each other.

Mark Rippetoe:
They're in adjacent beds in the ICU.

[off-camera]:
One posts, then dies.

Mark Rippetoe:
One posts, succumbs. The next one posts, succumbs. The third one posts... Until the ICU is empty. And then what are we going to do? Who's the hospital going to make money off of? Stay...well.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. "Weird bench press. Is he pressing or incline pressing? I prefer to use a bench for my inclines. To each his own, I guess. Might as well just bench press it."

Mark Rippetoe:
And that's Comments from Haters!

Mark Rippetoe:
Our favorite people.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, so how's your week been, huh? Yeah, we're asking anybody that wants to respond, you know. I mean, here we are, every major corporation in the United States has decided to ignore the facts and ignore the analysis in favor of the appearance of making everyone wear masks before they go into the fucking store. Every major retail outlet in the United States has decided to do something even if it's wrong. So that's our new motto. Do something even if it's wrong.

Mark Rippetoe:
Ok. Amazing.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right, here's a comment: Matteo says, "I offered to translate. Starting Strength 10 years ago. Rip basically told me to fuck off."

Mark Rippetoe:
I don't remember that. Of course, it's been 10 years, I don't remember what I had for dinner last night. No, I had sausage and kraut last night. That's what I had for dinner. So I... But 10 years ago, I can't tell you what I had for dinner, so I don't remember telling this guy to fuck off.

Mark Rippetoe:
"I ended up translating large chunks of it while training people in Mexico." I guess he's talking about translating it into Spanish. "Glad he finally got off his ass about this. Not that they'll sell. Most Hispanics don't read and even fewer will pay for any media they can pirate."

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, this is racism. Now, is there any other interpretation? Either of you see another interpretation of this? "Most Hispanics don't read and even fewer will pay for any media they can pirate."

Mark Rippetoe:
That is a blatant, racist comment. And I, I don't know about you guys, but I don't appreciate this. You don't either. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, Bre why did you put it on the fucking table here then if you... You you wanted me to agree with that didn't you? You wanted me to appear to be racist. That's the only explanation. Racism is the only explanation for anything.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right? What is the escape velocity of a rocket going into low earth orbit? Racism. It's the only answer. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
OK, now let's get into the questions, because we're going to question and then answer for a while. I'll get through as many of these as I can today. You know, whenever I lose my attention span, I will assume that you've lost yours and we'll go to that point or maybe one question afterwards. And we'll just see what happens. All right?

Mark Rippetoe:
"Mark, I've noticed that the majority of bicep tears that occur during a deadlift happen with an alternate grip. It also appears that the tear almost always occurs on the supinated side."

Mark Rippetoe:
Man, you're a careful observer, Chad.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Is this injury inherent to using an alternate grip or the result of incorrect technique?"

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, no, it's not an incorrect technique. There is a risk of doing heavy deadlifts with a supine grip because the... On the supinated side, the biceps is under tension, because the primary supinator of the forearm is the biceps. And if both sides are prone, the biceps is not loose, but it is not quite under the tension that you normally find in an alternate grip.

Mark Rippetoe:
The alternate grip is used in the deadlift because it's... You know, if the bar is rolling out of one set of fingers, it's rolling into the other set of fingers. And so it's a much more secure grip. You guys all know that already.

Mark Rippetoe:
If you're going to use an alternate grip on the deadlift, you have to be sure that your elbow is straight. But even with a straight elbow, you run the risk on a heavy deadlift of avulsing - and it's usually distal, down at the elbow - avulsing the bicep tendon.

Mark Rippetoe:
Then that's got to be repaired. You know, hospitals are involved, orthopedic surgeons are involved, people who think squats are bad for the knees are involved in it, and you don't want that.

Mark Rippetoe:
So I recommend that if you're going to do your heavy deadlifts, that you either learn how to make damn sure your elbow is completely straight and the bicep has not got any flexion tension on it, or that you learn how to do a double-overhand hook grip.

Mark Rippetoe:
Some people that are not going to do a meet can probably get away with straps on their heavy work set of deadlifts. I don't really like that idea, just doesn't seem clean to me, but there's no real reason why, you know, you can't do that.

Mark Rippetoe:
And see, the damnest thing about that injury is you're not going to know it's about to happen until it just jumps off of the bone. There's no warning, there's no pain to ignore for two or three weeks. It just comes loose. Bing!

Mark Rippetoe:
Tell you what's real bad about that is strongman because the tire flip. Because everybody who flips one of those heavy tires does it with bicep flexion, elbow flexion. Lot of guys been hurt real bad doing that.

Mark Rippetoe:
Strongman's kind of a stupid sport anyway, so. You know, it's just that much craziness.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. Let's see... "Mr. Rippetoe, first off..." He appreciates the podcast. Who doesn't? "Your books, programs made a big difference in how I feel every single day.. 36 year old man who needs to gain 30 pounds.

Mark Rippetoe:
I wonder how we do that. Let's continue.

Mark Rippetoe:
"I'm 5'10, 170, and just got back on the program after a six week layoff due to my work schedule. I'm easing back into it because my body is pretty beat up and won't embarrass myself in listing my current numbers." Probably a good decision.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Real issue is deadlifting. One shoulder sits a solid inch lower than the other, which leads to a noticeable difference in the bar coming up. I use a straight grip and no straps." I can I don't know what he means by a straight grip, but... "I can try to compensate while I'm working back up but at heavier weight it just feels a little dangerous. Should I just let the sucker hang as it will, try to keep the bar a level and hope my musculature evens out?"

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. Oh, and he also says 20 years ago he had a car wreck, fucked up his shoulder.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. Why would you think that if you didn't keep the bar a level, that your musculature would even out? Correct form is the correction for an asymmetry. Because if you use correct form, the whole pull is symmetrical and then the musculature, the musculature will get that way due to the differential stress that causes the weak side to catch up. Right.

Mark Rippetoe:
But see, we started off needing to gain weight. 5'10, 170. Yeah it's kind of.. It's kind of reed like don't you think? Kind of willowy. He's a willowy young man at 5'10 170.

Mark Rippetoe:
How do we...uh... How do we gain weight? I guess we gotta... Eat more. We eat more. Is there another way to gain weight? I don't know of one. Caloric surplus requires that you eat more.

Mark Rippetoe:
I just thought of something. How about if he does something like oh, I don't know, maybe drink a gallon of milk a day. You think that'd work? I don't know, I just now thought of it. Well, it might. Might work, mightn't it, don't you think? It's worth a try.

Mark Rippetoe:
How about a gallon of olive oil a day? No, no, that's no, that wouldn't work because they don't have any protein in it, doesn't have any carbs in it.

Mark Rippetoe:
How about a gallon of apple cider vinegar a day? No, not enough calories. I don't know, the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe a gallon of milk a day would wouldn't work. You know, it's not something you do the rest of your life, but until you've gained the 30 pounds, you know, god, maybe maybe we're on to something here.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Mr. Rippetoe, thanks for the Cannonball Run episode." He's referring to our friend, Fred Ashmore. And we interviewed him recently and talked about his insane Cannonball Run across the country.

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, I was reading a comment from the hater about that. I can't remember where I read that. Did you show me this? It talked about how irresponsible Fred was, he was gonna kill somebody and he shouldn't put his fellow man in danger and all this other shit.

Mark Rippetoe:
This guy typing this while he was wearing his mask at home by himself, no doubt.

Mark Rippetoe:
"I am curious about the cars you've owned over the years. What have been your favorites, least favorite, dream cars, and are there any cars you plan on purchasing soon?"

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, I had a bunch of cars. I had a I had a '65 Corvair one time. That was a fun-ass little car, man. Those things were highly overrated, I mean, highly underrated as cars. They had a gas tank in the front and Ralph Nader didn't like that. So he wrote a some kind of an exposé on the Corvair called "Unsafe at Any Speed" and shamed the Pussy General Motors Corporation into taking it off the market when it was a great little car.

Mark Rippetoe:
The rear engine and a flat six - boxer motor essentially, like an aircraft engine. In fact, a lot of those engines have been pulled out of the junkyard and repurposed for home built aircraft. They're great little engines.

Mark Rippetoe:
And the thing was... Had a wide footprint and it cornered like a Porsche. It was an amazing little car, really was. And I just... they made them for... 62 to 69, I think. Something like that.

Mark Rippetoe:
You don't need to look that up! Don't jump to look that up!

Mark Rippetoe:
But I had one of those. I had fed several little beat up trucks. And had a '66 Chevelle, a four door '66 Chevelle. That was my hand-me-down car when I was a kid. Four door white, '66 Chevelle sith a two eighty three in the damn thing. And, well, that was that was a fun little car. That back seat got some use. I'm telling you.

Mark Rippetoe:
And let's see what else. I've had I've had three Nissans. Three Nissan 300ZXs. And those are great little cars. Oh, my God, they're so good. They're not particularly fast, but they just don't break. There's just nothing wrong with those cars. My God, if you want fun, dependable transportation, find one of those things. What a great little car.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's a pretty car too. The the generation that they stopped producing in '95 or 6. A beautiful car. You know, by today's standards, you're not terribly fast. I thought they thought they were pretty quick.

Mark Rippetoe:
Uh. Let's see... My favorite car, he's wanting to know my favorite car. I'd have to say my favorite car was that white 300ZX. The 1990 modezx. I had a lot of fun in that car. It was a great car. Never stranded me one time anywhere. It was beautiful. Worked like a charm. Nothing wrong with it. Great little car.

Mark Rippetoe:
And incidentally, all these cars, I don't know, the last time I had an automatic transmission in a vehicle was in a was... In that little blue short, wide bed Chevy truck I had bought from a friend of mine.

Mark Rippetoe:
That's the last automatic transmission I've had. I hate them. Don't Like automatics. And... I kind of regard automatic transmission is like a housewifes's car. Is that sexism or misogyny? Which one is it?

Mark Rippetoe:
Ok, yeah, I don't like automatic transmissions. I want to drive the car. You know, and you just need more input than an automatic transmission. So all of my vehicles right now, every one of them have got a stick.

Mark Rippetoe:
You realize this makes them hard to steal. Right, you can't drive a stick and you can't drive a stick.

[off-camera]:
I can, just not well.

Mark Rippetoe:
Could you drive it in a situation where you had to get the car out of the parking lot before I shot you out of the front seat?

[off-camera]:
Probably not.

Mark Rippetoe:
Probably not. So you can't steal it, can't you know, you can't steal it. Right?

Mark Rippetoe:
So, yeah, I like like sticks, like manual transmissions. And I think the estimate now is that something like four percent of the national fleet has got three pedals on the floor and that's all. Four percent. There are 40 year old people that don't... That have never driven a manual transmission.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's just amazing to me. It's absolutely amazing. That Corvair I had was a was a stick. You know, I've been driving them from since I was 15, 16 years old. It is... It is a lost skill. I think we lose too many skills.

Mark Rippetoe:
But I have to say my favorite car was that white.. That white Z car. White 1990 model Z car. I had a... in tact that eighty four model Z car I had. I bought that thing with two hundred thousand miles on it didn't bat an eye. Two hundred thousand miles.

Mark Rippetoe:
I drove that thing and up to three hundred and twenty five thousand miles. Sold it, pretty cheap, to a buddy of mine's son. And he wrecked the car with three hundred and sixty five thousand miles on it. Now, that's how good that car was. You know, that's that's pretty damn good service, you know.

Mark Rippetoe:
They just they made great little V6s. That three liter V6, a great little engine. I.. Probably still making the damn thing, who knows. They were balanced from the factory, great little cars.

[off-camera]:
OK, enough of that shit. Can you think of anything else I need to...

Mark Rippetoe:
Talk about your current ones?

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, right now I've got that... I talked about both of those with Fred. Nobody wants to hear about that again. Two Dodge trucks. Five nine Cumins, the amazing five nine Cumins had replaced the engine in both of those truck.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right. "Dearest Ripplelodeon, I am a 32 year old retail manager from the UK." What's a retail manager? Do you know?

[off-camera]:
Does that mean manages a retail store?

Mark Rippetoe:
He's got a store. He's got people who work for him for ten dollars an hour or whatever the hell it is. Sells things, right?

Mark Rippetoe:
"Having previously exercised since I was 16, I came upon Starting Strength two years ago, quickly made progress, but would expect to see on the program from following NLP... Changed my life... View towards training, quickly realized that the many hours of sweating pain, repeat injuries were nothing but an absolute waste of time and opportunity." Well, good.

Mark Rippetoe:
But he says he has celiac's disease and no... and although not life threatening, I've seen within the community of fellow sufferers a plethora of those treated as an excuse to seemingly rot away into dust. They do not realize the potential they have to improve their lives through the opportunities give given us from strength training. Without giving you my life story."

Mark Rippetoe:
But you've already done that.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Which what I would like to do now is to shift my career into the following... Into following the steps to become a Starting Strength Coach.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Being from the U.K., I do not have access to the seminars or the SS/affiliate gyms that would be an option stateside. No specific qualifications in this field and assume completing a ten a penny generic personal training course would be counterproductive as its teachings will presumably be in stark contrast to what we know from Starting Strength. Any specific qualifications or experiences that I should wish to seek before pursuing certification online with yourselves?"

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, we talked about this on the podcast just a couple of times, so I thought I'd go over this again. If you want to be a Starting Strength Coach, the first thing you have to do is do the program. You cannot coach effectively that which you have not done yourself, you can't do it. So before anything else is done, you have got to give yourself the experience of what it is you're going to teach, you have to do that. It's mandatory.

Mark Rippetoe:
This cannot be an exercise in theory to you. You have to actually train and you've got to learn the things that everybody learns when they get under the bar and start working through heavy weights they don't know they can lift. All right. So that's the first thing you need to do.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, given the fact that every time we do a seminar here in the United States, we have people from Europe in attendance, so there is access, you do have access. You just have to spend some money to do it. And that requires you assessing the value of the certification. Right?

Mark Rippetoe:
Once you have read the books a couple of times apiece, watched all the videos that you have access to on the on the Starting Strength channel, on YouTube, on our website, various places around the internet. Once you've read all the articles we've written about the correct implementation of Starting Strength as a method. Once you have done your homework and prepared, then it's time for you to show up and show us the combined effects of your experience and your. research and your information, the material that you've absorbed, that we've provided for you.

Mark Rippetoe:
The combination of understanding, the theoretical basis of this programming and having experienced the effects of that programming yourself are what properly equip you to be a coach.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, given that not everybody can be a coach, given that if you are one of these people that is reserved, you know, that doesn't like to to talk in front of other people, that's kind of shy about sharing your opinions and things, you're not going to be an effective coach. Not everybody's an effective coach. Not everybody can play the guitar. Some people who play the guitar are not musicians. Right.

Mark Rippetoe:
So being an effective coach requires that you have some innate talent for expressing yourself, and I think that some of that to, to an extent, can be learned, some of it can, some of that reticence can be overcome just with brute force. You know, you just make yourself talk, even though you'd rather not.

Mark Rippetoe:
Some reserved shy people just can't do it. But if you're reserved and shy, I'm sorry, you can't be a coach. So the preparation involves your training and your reading and absorbing all the information.

Mark Rippetoe:
And since you are sitting for an examination of our material, other people's training material is not going to help you because we're not examining you on the basis of you knowing their shit, we're examining you on the basis of you knowing our shit.

Mark Rippetoe:
And I've always said that a background in science, in science education and background that consists of science education is far, far better a preparation for this than is an English degree. Right. People with English degrees and people with chemistry degrees think differently.

Mark Rippetoe:
And you need to learn how to think in chemistry degree fashion instead of English degree or sociology degree or women's grievance studies degree, I think. All right. We're not we're not concerned with critical race theory here. We're concerned with physics and chemistry and their derivatives. Physiology and biomechanics.

Mark Rippetoe:
Those are the things we're concerned about. We're concerned with the logic that comes along with ordering your thoughts along a science background. So all of that stuff goes into becoming a Starting Strength coach.

Mark Rippetoe:
But the you know, you're going to have to come over here. I'm sorry. We're not there yet. We may never be. You want to be Starting Strength Coach, you have to come to us.

Mark Rippetoe:
We have in order to help you do this, we have an online Coaching Development Course with a with a course of study, a definite curriculum, reading assignments, coaching assignments, video recording assignments. This is designed to get you ready to do this. I don't think from your question, you're that far along yet, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to go ahead and enroll in this product.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's not a lot of money and it it is designed to save you time. It is designed to teach you the things in the order that you need to learn them so that you can better pass the exam the first time you come over here and take it. That having been said, most people that pass this pass it the second time because it's very rigorous and we pass about 15 percent.

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, the one thing about us is we're some pig headed motherfuckers and we're just not going to we're not going to make this easier for you. By making the material simpler, by lowering our standards, because we're pig headed motherfuckers and we like it this way.

Mark Rippetoe:
We're not just going to let these fucking wombats in that the, you know, National Strength and Conditioning Association proudly refer to is the "gold standard certification" holders of the the fitness industry. We're not going to do that. We're not going to do that.

Mark Rippetoe:
Most people with a CSCS... Well, here's how you know that. People who. Will show up to the to the to the seminar, and I will ask him fairly early on in the process on Friday afternoon, how many people in the audience have a certified strength and conditioning specialist certification? And there's always a couple of people there.

Mark Rippetoe:
And I will ask the following question: Have you been contacted this week about using that certification to train a new client? And I have never in the 10 years now that we've been doing our version of this of the seminar, I've never had one of those people tell me that they had been contacted by someone this week about their coaching as a CSCS. Not one time is anyone call them seeking that particular certification.

Mark Rippetoe:
But without fail every week a Starting Strength coach gets called about coaching. This is the difference in the two certifications, one is valuable and one is not.

Mark Rippetoe:
OK now. "What's your opinion of multivitamin, multimineral supplements? I have found research for and against it." I don't know what research there is against it. I mean, I've been taking vitamins for a long time. Because, you know, why not? Might be a hole in your diet. They're not that expensive. You're training your ass off.

Mark Rippetoe:
You're... It stands to reason if you're training your ass off and you need more protein and you need more carbs and you need more fat, then you also need more micronutrients too.

Mark Rippetoe:
This isn't this is not illogical. So I think that a good multiple vitamin, a multi mineral, especially if you're in a hot environment with twice the calciu, it has magnesium and all the rest of the index follows in line with that. Probably an extra gram of C a day. I think everybody needs to take a little fish oil.

Mark Rippetoe:
Most people probably need to supplement vitamin D, especially if you live in some urban shithole like New York City. You know, San Francisco, some urban shithole like that, Seattle, you know, anywhere antifa lives, you need vitamin D, right?

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, I don't see any reason not to. They're not that expensive and they're filling in the holes in your diet. And I'm unaware of any argument against it that makes any sense.

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, here's the argument against suppliments: lazy people take supplements in lieu of correct training. You know how many you know, these supps people, they call them supps. That's s-u-p-p-s right, what are your supps?

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, if you're taking supps, you're wasting a bunch of fucking money. You're taking supps instead of actually finishing the last rep of the set of five. OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
What I'm talking about is just multiple vitamin, multiple mineral fish oil, vitamin D, vitamin C. OK. If you're taking an NO booster... mand you've just been you're awfully susceptible to sales. Sales campaigns work real well on you. OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
Oh, my favorite one. My favorite stuff is the testosterone boosters. And they sell those on on the radio all the time. Andro 400 or is it 500 or 600. Thousand now. We're up to andro 1000. Boosts his testosterone. How much did it boost your testosterone?

Mark Rippetoe:
I mean, you can have that measured, you know. You you're not taking Andro 400, right, and you go in and your testosterone's 178. You know, you start taking Andro four hundred and two months later, your testosterone is 941. Did that or did that not happen? All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
If you want to prove the effectiveness of a testosterone booster, get your testosterone checked before and after and let's just see. Did that not occur to anybody? You notice that's conspicuously absent from the advertising.

Mark Rippetoe:
Oh Shit.

[off-camera]:
Here's the thing: if those testosterone boosters worked, you would know it pretty...

Mark Rippetoe:
If those testosterone boosters worked, they'd be illegal.

[off-camera]:
Yeah, right.

Mark Rippetoe:
Is what they'd be. The USAPL would have rules against taking them, and as far as I know, they don't. Oh, did you know that the USA USA powerlifting disqualify the guys total the other day because he was wearing his mask wrong. I shit you not. I shit you not. Big meet, guy's total's a big nice fucking total, you know, up up close to 2000 total. Disqualified it because his mask was on wrong.

Mark Rippetoe:
I don't understand it. People lift for them because they're the only organization in the United States that actually judges depth on the squat. And that lends a little bit of legitimacy. But when you make a stupid goddamn idiot-assed decision like that, that's got nothing to do with the squat, the bench, and the deadlift how do you intend to retain respect for your organization?

Mark Rippetoe:
You're just idiots. Can you people not understand that we go to, apparently, if they may not be preached to about covid-19. We go to a powerlifting meet to fucking total. And you disqualified the total because of the way the guy was wearing his mask? The fuck is wrong with you goddamn idiots?

Mark Rippetoe:
I just don't understand it. I don't understand, you know what, I don't know what you're thinking about. You know. Would you would you have disqualified his total if you'd found out that he'd fucked around on his wife? You know, like Friday before the Saturday meet. You know, would you disqualify total because you found out that at one point in his in his life he'd been arrested for shoplifting or something like that? You know what... Where does your purview stop?

[off-camera]:
It was "endangering lives"?

Mark Rippetoe:
Apparently that's what it was. He's endangering lives because everybody was was, you know, within six feet.

[off-camera]:
Because power lifters are dying left and right of covid.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. So this is what I'm unsure of: does "social" distancing work or not? If social distancing works, then why do we need the masks? If masks work, why do we need social distancing? Why do we have to do both? They're no making any fucking sense. That makes just about as much sense as disqualifying a powerlifting total since the guy had his mask down below his nose.

Mark Rippetoe:
I mean, how are you supposed to breathe? How are you supposed to take a great big breath and valsalva before a squat if you've got a piece of fucking cloth over your mouth. If you guys are so terrified of being around somebody and catching the deadly covid-19 pandemic virus, then don't go to the meet.

Mark Rippetoe:
Nobody made your ass show up at the meet. Nobody made you "endanger" yourself by being like... OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
OK, now... "I'm thirty seven. I'm five seven, one fifty five. Starting date 18 March 2013 at a body weight of 145. On the last day before the lockdown, which was 20 January 2020, he was at a body weight of 155. So in a total of 10 months, he had gained 10 pounds. It's what I'm seeing here [holds up printed out email]. OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
His starting numbers. Ok. Last day of the lock... his starting numbers are - just to illustrate - squats 245, and on the last day before the lockdown, he squatted 445. So he added 200 pounds to squat with only a 10 pounds of bodyweight increase. And that's pretty impressive.

Mark Rippetoe:
But he's five seven. What could he have squatted at a bodyweight at 5'7 of 200? Well, more than four or forty five, right? 445, two hundred pound increase in the squat is impressive, but I'm just thinking of all of the potential he lost.

Mark Rippetoe:
His goal is to squat five hundred, deadlift five hundred, bench 275, press 185.

Mark Rippetoe:
"I had to eat more and gain weight. It's really hard for me to gain weight." It is if you don't eat more. There's no doubt about that. He used eat thirty five hundred calories per day and some days he went all the way up to 4000 calories. Well, that's unbelievable.

Mark Rippetoe:
"I keep losing consistency in keeping the calories high. For example, when I eat around 4000 calories on the following day, I can't repeat that. I tried to drink milk. It helped, but fucks up my stomach and I cannot drink it consistently."

Mark Rippetoe:
So he wants my advice. You know you know what you got to do, kid, you know what you got to do. You just not you're not willing to do it. You're not willing to do it. You have to eat more than you want to. If you want to weigh more than 155, you've got to eat more than you're eating at 155. And you got to do it all the time.

Mark Rippetoe:
It's just... Once again, let's refer back to what I said earlier. It's your job to decide how important this is to you and then act accordingly. If you want to gain weight, then you'll do what it takes to gain weight. And so far, you haven't done it.

Mark Rippetoe:
Uh...You want me to read that? [Holds up another paper]

[off-camera]:
No.

Mark Rippetoe:
You don't want to see this?

[off-camera]:
No.

Mark Rippetoe:
This is, you know. You guys...don't... [Throws paper off the table] All right just ask a question. I don't want to hear...I don't need your book report. OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
OK, "live in a smallish town. The only decent gym I can find within reasonable distance was one bench...has one bench without safeties, one rack often used by people squatting or pressing." Well, that's what it's supposed to be being used by. "Getting a competent non-bro spotter is basically impossible, so there's no safe way for me to train the bench. I have tried to make it work for a couple of years. I decided to switch to dumbbells. I'm not happy with it, given the limitations, but at least I don't risk orphaning my three kids."

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, that's important. I mean, you made him, you've got to raise him. Right? You can't raise him if you kill yourself.

[off-camera]:
I think think is more important, but that's just me.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, well, I can sympathize with that. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
He says, "I tackle the issue and continue productively. I live in an apartment so a gym is unfortunately not an option. Any tips on how to set up for heavy dumbbell presses? I watched your video, but I can't quite get the hang of it."

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, I would suggest that. A) the bench press, the bar is the superior exercise for incrementally loading the bench press, it's very hard to incremental incrementally load a dumbbell bench press, isn't it? Those kind of dumbbells are expensive. A whole bunch of dumbbells at two pound increments, is terribly expensive.

Mark Rippetoe:
Right, and when you get up to where you are benching 135 pound dumbbells, you're going to have problems getting them in position. You just are you're going to have a lot of problems getting them in position. This is why the book does not use dumbbell benches as the exercise of choice for the bench press movement.

Mark Rippetoe:
The the barbell bench press is much more manageable. It's much safer for your shoulders because you're going to hurt your shoulder with 135 pound dumbbells, you know. Unless you already benching 500, you're you're going to hurt your shoulder with with the 135 pound dumbbells. That's just what's going to happen. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
So really, what this what what what I selected this question today was for we can't change the fundamental nature of the program and have it be the program. Somebody says, I don't want to do squats. What do I substitute for in the novice linear progression because I don't want to do squats?

Mark Rippetoe:
And the answer is, don't do the novice linear progression, it's based on squat.. I'm sorry, I can't alter the basic reality of the situation just because it's inconvenient or undesirable to you. All right, you need - if you're going to bench press - you need a barbell. You need a safe place to do it. My suggestion is figure it out. You've got to figure it out. All right.

Mark Rippetoe:
"One of the questions that I know you address in Practical Programming, but not so much on this podcast is how a lifter should continue his training after LP runs its course. I don't mean to when a lifter gets artificially stuck by ignoring your famous first three questions, I mean, how at some point between squatting 135 for sets across and squatting 495 for sets across a lifter will likely no longer be able to progress every single workout. I believe this is especially true for lifters in their late 30s and beyond. Can you please summarize where we would go from here?"

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, somebody ought to write a book about this. You know, I think I'll call Andy Baker and write a book about this. And I think we'll call it Practical Programming for Strength Training, third edition. You think that's a reasonable title for that book?

[off-camera]:
I think it's pretty good title.

Mark Rippetoe:
I think we'll get right on that because, you know, this is a very good question. What do you do after the novice linear progression?

[off-camera]:
Can we make the cover grey?

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, let's make a grey cover and let's put that graph on it. You know that the training advancement chart.

[off-camera]:
That's a fantastic idea.

Mark Rippetoe:
And that's that's what we'll do. OK, well, we'll have that ready for you in just a couple of minutes.

[off-camera]:
Bre, write that down.

Mark Rippetoe:
All right, here is an interesting thing. It's not really a training question, it's just sometimes people send me stuff, just out of frustration. This has to be one of these must be one of these things. OK.

Mark Rippetoe:
"Attached is an order. Sorry. Attached is an article from the LA Times regarding the treatment of a boy with a diagnosed behavioral mental disorder. Outlined in the article is some of the doctor's thoughts that his slightly high levels of testosterone produced behavioral issuesin adolescent boys."

Mark Rippetoe:
Now, this is unbelievable what I'm about to read to you. You're not going to believe this...

Mark Rippetoe:
"The doctor" - and after all, he is a doctor - treated the boy with an estrogen pill and he subsequently developed gynecomastia."

Mark Rippetoe:
And his comment is, "This is the direction our country and medical professionals are headed towards with dangerous thought processes, that hormones should be manipulated in any human being on their whim. The child was not given any long term study of hormone levels. His treatment was preposterous, illegal and dangerous to the teenager's development during this crucial time. The doctor tampered with one of the most important, if not most important, hormones for a male. I want to share this with you because your platform could shed light of how dangerous this mentality can be."

Mark Rippetoe:
And here's an article. And just in case you don't believe this, and I can understand how you would be reluctant to believe that someone was this motherfucking irresponsible. So is kid, you know, is in fucking juvenile hall, he's a problem kid and everything. Young teen. And they took, apparently, some blood from the boy, determined that, uh. Determined that he was, in fact, had a elevated testosterone.

Mark Rippetoe:
This thing appeared in the LA Times on July 15th. Apparently, the doctor in the situation's name was Donny Wayne. Wang? WAN. Donny Wang. All right. I don't know if it has anything to do with the decision to treat or not, but...

Mark Rippetoe:
What? Let me ask you people question, what would you think the testosterone level in an adolescent boy ought to be? What do we remember about our adolescence? It was a time when our bodies changed. What do you suppose changed our bodies? Could it possibly have had something to do with elevated testosterone levels?

Mark Rippetoe:
Do you understand that there is a wide range of individual hormonal responses to every situation? You understand that some people are elevated beyond others? You understand that these are perfectly natural processes that have been happening for millions of years without Dr Wang's intervention.

Mark Rippetoe:
This is this terribly disturbing. Doctor Wang ought to be beaten to death with a hammer, with a two pound maul. Just beaten to fucking death, however long it takes, because you just fucked this kid up. From now on, you fucked him up. Because your little 120 IQ medical degree didn't prepare you to do anything except react to a reference range number.

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, rot in hell, Dr. Wang, rot in hell, you piece of shit. God Almighty, is there no supervision for people like you? I just...this is horrible, it's one of the most horrible things I've ever heard.

Mark Rippetoe:
I know doctors, especially pediatrician types like Doctor Wang, are... You know, often some of them are good, but most are dumb asses. You know, and this kind of thing. It's just, you know, just to see what'll happen, let's just let's just put a little estrogen in him. You know.

Mark Rippetoe:
The drug wasn't disclosed, but there are oral forms of estrogen, just like there are oral androgens. And I'm sure one of those is what was administered by this guy. And... I you know, I'm... I don't know, I just don't know what to say.

Mark Rippetoe:
Bill Law sent that in, and I appreciate your calling our attention to that, but goddamn!

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, maybe it has to do with California. What do you what do you think? You think it's got something to do with California. Does anything sane happen in California?

[off-camera]:
You should also name David Oh, that's O-H. He's the medical director of the Juvenile Court Health Services. He is also to be held responsible.

Mark Rippetoe:
And he thought this was a good idea, too.

Mark Rippetoe:
Well, OK, Dave. Why don't we give you some estrogen? Maybe that'll help you get along at work.

[off-camera]:
Problem is he probably has too much already.

Mark Rippetoe:
Yeah, I think he's probably estrogen poisoned already if he thinks the testosterone is the problem in an adolescent boy.

Mark Rippetoe:
God damn. That's so irritating to hear shit like that. It really is. You know, just it just reaffirms my low opinion of pediatrics. Most of it is just, I mean, veterinary guys are way sharper than pediatricians.

[off-camera]:
At least they care.

Mark Rippetoe:
They seem to care about the animals. You know, you got a little kid here that's at your mercy and you're going to give an adolescent boy estrogen. You know, in what alternate reality do these fucking people live?

Mark Rippetoe:
I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be this upset about it, but...

Mark Rippetoe:
And, you know, at this point in time, nothing in California surprises me. Nothing out there. I do not understand what the hell those people think. I think they don't think, I think they feel, and that's all. That's all they do is feel things. They emote.

Mark Rippetoe:
Instead of expressing themselves, instead of communicating, they emote. And it's a it's a goofy fucking place, man, it's a goofy place.

Mark Rippetoe:
Nobody wants them to secede more than me. I know they think they want to secedee real bad, but I want to vote on it too. Let's put that up to a national vote. What do you want... What do you want to bet we'd get another map out of the deal?

Mark Rippetoe:
All right. Well, we don't have time for the rest of the shit [holds up stack of papers]. This would take another hour and you guys are tired of listening to this shit anyway. And I'm tired of being here. Coffee's cold.

Mark Rippetoe:
What else?

[off-camera]:
I think we're good to go.

Mark Rippetoe:
You know, I need to pee. So let's just let's just wrap it up and call it a day here on Starting Strength Radio. We do appreciate your being with us every Friday at this time and we'll look forward to talking to you next week on Starting Strength Radio. Bye!

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