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Achieving The Standards 1.0 - 135 press, 225 bench, 315 squat, 405 deadlift - is more important and useful than getting down to 10% bodyfat and it's not even close.
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By my rough estimate, 90% or more of the times that someone at the gym has proactively come up and asked me for advice, because they saw how much I was lifting or admired my physique or whatever, they haven't followed that advice.
It gets damn close to 100% when it's unsolicited advice. It doesn't matter how right you are, how little they know, how much more accomplished you are than them in the gym as far as lifting or physique or whatever other metric you want to use - even about matters of basic safety, not obscure high level optimization.
If someone isn't paying you to coach them, the chances of them listening to anything you have to say are extremely low.
It gets damn close to 100% when it's unsolicited advice. It doesn't matter how right you are, how little they know, how much more accomplished you are than them in the gym as far as lifting or physique or whatever other metric you want to use - even about matters of basic safety, not obscure high level optimization.
If someone isn't paying you to coach them, the chances of them listening to anything you have to say are extremely low.
At the gym last week. Guy tosses 2 plates & clips on bench. Gets under the bar. No spotter. Struggles on last rep. Gets it up & racks.
Subtly mention how I prefer to bench without clips if no one's around to spot.
Same dude back today. 2 plates on. Clips on. Hits a few reps. Pinned.
Reminder: You will never convince any one of any thing. They must always arrive at their own conclusions.
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It is very rare that a joint or area improves in the long run via as much avoidance of stress on it as possible.
Much more likely is that introducing the right amount of stress that the person is currently capable of doing and recovering from, using good biomechanics in a normal human movement pattern, and progressing upwards from there (slowly if necessary) - is what helps it the most.
This distinction is why most don't understand how we have regular people, not powerlifters, deadlifting 405 or 500+ and extolling the virtues of the deadlifts that fixed their longstanding low back pain.
The first group doesn't really think about it deeply; they conceive of the people in the second group just walking into the gym and deadlifting 500. They correctly surmise that trying to that today so would NOT be good for their own back, would cause pain and likely injury, and they continue thinking wrongly.
They don't comprehend that on Day 1, the second group person didn't pull 500; he deadlifted only 95 lbs, from a 6 or 8 inch raised block. A few days or a week later, he did 100 or 105. And so on, slowly lowering the block and raising the weight over time, to where 3 years later, the person from the second group is pulling 500 from the floor and living without pain, whereas the first person is still weak, still in pain, and trying yet another magic bullet solution that won't work.
Same idea for squats and knees, and presses and shoulders.
Much more likely is that introducing the right amount of stress that the person is currently capable of doing and recovering from, using good biomechanics in a normal human movement pattern, and progressing upwards from there (slowly if necessary) - is what helps it the most.
This distinction is why most don't understand how we have regular people, not powerlifters, deadlifting 405 or 500+ and extolling the virtues of the deadlifts that fixed their longstanding low back pain.
The first group doesn't really think about it deeply; they conceive of the people in the second group just walking into the gym and deadlifting 500. They correctly surmise that trying to that today so would NOT be good for their own back, would cause pain and likely injury, and they continue thinking wrongly.
They don't comprehend that on Day 1, the second group person didn't pull 500; he deadlifted only 95 lbs, from a 6 or 8 inch raised block. A few days or a week later, he did 100 or 105. And so on, slowly lowering the block and raising the weight over time, to where 3 years later, the person from the second group is pulling 500 from the floor and living without pain, whereas the first person is still weak, still in pain, and trying yet another magic bullet solution that won't work.
Same idea for squats and knees, and presses and shoulders.
No joke tho.
Busted up knees, arthritic knees, post knee replacement knees
A correctly performed and progressed low bar movement pattern squat is very effective for these things
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The notion that strength training for sports equals trying to mimic sport movements with some type of resistance instead of dramatically improving force production on core universal movement patterns first, remains one of the most persistent sources of error in the entire field.
The lack of understanding around Strength = general and sports = specific, has to be studied. Strength can be applied to any physical activity and enhance performance.
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When I was lifting my heaviest, I had almost as much satisfaction that pulling 600 became routine, something I could do on any given day if I wanted to and it wouldn't smoke me, as I did from pulling 700 a few times.
At a lot of well equipped strength gyms accross the nation you have a decent chance of seeing someone pulling 600-700 on a random Tuesday morning
hence 500 not being heavy
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Had a consult with the oral surgeon yesterday after my dentist recommended I get a wisdom tooth pulled
Guy asks if I compete, says I'm by far the biggest guy he's seen all year
My reaction
Guy asks if I compete, says I'm by far the biggest guy he's seen all year
My reaction
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“You built great legs. How much do you attribute to squatting in the beginning?”
“90%”
Everyone today wants to skip ahead to the advanced, complex training that already developed lifters do
Listen to the pros
Build your base ᵀᴹ
“90%”
Everyone today wants to skip ahead to the advanced, complex training that already developed lifters do
Listen to the pros
Build your base ᵀᴹ
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Guys like me and @sam_gzstrength have taught numerous unathletic late middle age and seniors to squat and deadlift without thinking twice about it, meanwhile many Top Minds in strength and conditioning say they can't do this with the most athletically gifted 20 year olds in the lternatives like the trap bar and bulgarian split squats. Weird. Let's talk about how this relates to the Wright Brothers.
Almost 125 years ago, the US Govt was in a race with the other world powers to invent the first airplane. They chose Samuel Langley to lead the project. You probably never heard of him, but in his day, Langley was a big deal. He had all the credentials: a renowned scientist and a professor of astronomy, Langley wrote books about aviation and was the head of the Smithsonian Institute. It was the kind of decision that managerial bureaucrats - and their "follow the science" acolytes - still make and support today. Give taxpayer money to the smartest guys in the room - defined as the ones with lots of degrees and credentials and government related positions - they’ll do the best job, and you mere plebs without degrees and credentials have no standing to question them, anyway.
The US Department of War gave him $50,000 for two experiments, and he got an additional sum from the Smithsonian, too. That was a lot of money back then. What did the citizens of the United States get for their investment? The Great Aerodrome! On October 7, 1903, the aircraft developed by Langley and his team of experts was launched from a catapult on a houseboat in the Potomac River. “It fell like a ton of mortar,” wrote one reporter. They managed to salvage the plane, and two months later on December 8, Langley and his team of government funded, credentialed brainiacs tried it again. This time, the airplane got caught up in the launching mechanism and dropped into the river.
The War Department concluded: “We are still far from the ultimate goal, and it would seem as if years of constant work and study by experts, together with the expenditure of thousands of dollars, would still be necessary before we can hope to produce an apparatus of practical utility on these lines."
Then what happened?
A mere nine days later the Wright Brothers had their first successful flight outside Kitty Hawk. With only $2,000 of their own money, these uncredentialed bike mechanics did what the entire apparatus of well funded credentialed experts could not. And the rest is history. But not quite. The part of the story you don't hear is the decades long fight that Orville had to endure (Wilbur died in 1912) to get credit for their invention. Between a fight for patents and the Smithsonian still wanting some credit, it took a long time until what every schoolchild knows today - The Wright Bros invented flight - to be accepted.
In some ways, we are like the Wright Brothers of strength coaching today. Don't get me wrong, I don't have delusions of grandeur that what we do is as impactful as what the Wright Bros did. Nor did we invent the squat. But we routinely do things that the majority of the fitness and strength coaching world, with all their funding and credentials and citations, think is impossible: we safely and efficiently teach people of ALL ages and athletic capabilities (or lack thereof) how to do all the big, fundamental barbell lifts. We successfully do with unathletic 53 year old accountants and 37 year old soccer moms - what many of the big brains, the D1 and pro coaches and their online fanboys, say can't be done with the most athletic people in the world: safely teach them to squat and deadlift with a barbell, and have them perform those lifts with increasing weight on a regular basis without any problems.
A vast swath of articles, blog posts, and videos have been dedicated to explaining how to do other exercises that kind of, sort of mimic the squat, press, deadlift, and bench press - based on the assumption that most people lack the ability to do them, usually citing something like lack of mobility or safety. "Sure, squats are great, BUT..." is an entire genre in this field. Sad! I suspect one of the reasons we get so much hate and people call us dogmatic in that we "force" everyone to do these movements is because deep down, they don't like that we can teach these movements to your 68 year old gramma in one session, and they can't even correctly teach them to a 20 year old college athlete.
It's a skill issue. It's trivially true that you can "work the same bodyparts" without ever doing these movements, but can you achieve the same complete results in ~an hour, 3 days a week, using only 5-6 movements that can be progressively loaded in perpetuity? No. But we can teach you how to do that.
All the accolades, social media followers, credentials, peer reviewed citations, before and after progress pics, super ripped jacked selfies in the world - can't buy you that. But one or two sessions with us, can.
Almost 125 years ago, the US Govt was in a race with the other world powers to invent the first airplane. They chose Samuel Langley to lead the project. You probably never heard of him, but in his day, Langley was a big deal. He had all the credentials: a renowned scientist and a professor of astronomy, Langley wrote books about aviation and was the head of the Smithsonian Institute. It was the kind of decision that managerial bureaucrats - and their "follow the science" acolytes - still make and support today. Give taxpayer money to the smartest guys in the room - defined as the ones with lots of degrees and credentials and government related positions - they’ll do the best job, and you mere plebs without degrees and credentials have no standing to question them, anyway.
The US Department of War gave him $50,000 for two experiments, and he got an additional sum from the Smithsonian, too. That was a lot of money back then. What did the citizens of the United States get for their investment? The Great Aerodrome! On October 7, 1903, the aircraft developed by Langley and his team of experts was launched from a catapult on a houseboat in the Potomac River. “It fell like a ton of mortar,” wrote one reporter. They managed to salvage the plane, and two months later on December 8, Langley and his team of government funded, credentialed brainiacs tried it again. This time, the airplane got caught up in the launching mechanism and dropped into the river.
The War Department concluded: “We are still far from the ultimate goal, and it would seem as if years of constant work and study by experts, together with the expenditure of thousands of dollars, would still be necessary before we can hope to produce an apparatus of practical utility on these lines."
Then what happened?
A mere nine days later the Wright Brothers had their first successful flight outside Kitty Hawk. With only $2,000 of their own money, these uncredentialed bike mechanics did what the entire apparatus of well funded credentialed experts could not. And the rest is history. But not quite. The part of the story you don't hear is the decades long fight that Orville had to endure (Wilbur died in 1912) to get credit for their invention. Between a fight for patents and the Smithsonian still wanting some credit, it took a long time until what every schoolchild knows today - The Wright Bros invented flight - to be accepted.
In some ways, we are like the Wright Brothers of strength coaching today. Don't get me wrong, I don't have delusions of grandeur that what we do is as impactful as what the Wright Bros did. Nor did we invent the squat. But we routinely do things that the majority of the fitness and strength coaching world, with all their funding and credentials and citations, think is impossible: we safely and efficiently teach people of ALL ages and athletic capabilities (or lack thereof) how to do all the big, fundamental barbell lifts. We successfully do with unathletic 53 year old accountants and 37 year old soccer moms - what many of the big brains, the D1 and pro coaches and their online fanboys, say can't be done with the most athletic people in the world: safely teach them to squat and deadlift with a barbell, and have them perform those lifts with increasing weight on a regular basis without any problems.
A vast swath of articles, blog posts, and videos have been dedicated to explaining how to do other exercises that kind of, sort of mimic the squat, press, deadlift, and bench press - based on the assumption that most people lack the ability to do them, usually citing something like lack of mobility or safety. "Sure, squats are great, BUT..." is an entire genre in this field. Sad! I suspect one of the reasons we get so much hate and people call us dogmatic in that we "force" everyone to do these movements is because deep down, they don't like that we can teach these movements to your 68 year old gramma in one session, and they can't even correctly teach them to a 20 year old college athlete.
It's a skill issue. It's trivially true that you can "work the same bodyparts" without ever doing these movements, but can you achieve the same complete results in ~an hour, 3 days a week, using only 5-6 movements that can be progressively loaded in perpetuity? No. But we can teach you how to do that.
All the accolades, social media followers, credentials, peer reviewed citations, before and after progress pics, super ripped jacked selfies in the world - can't buy you that. But one or two sessions with us, can.
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I know you're all waiting with bated breath to hear another hot take about the midterms with pure speculation presented as insider knowledge, but instead I'll remind you that if you can't press 135, bench 225, squat 315, and deadlift 405, you should get to working on that ASAP.
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I've seen a lot of lifters get wrapped up in micromanaging and technique-paralysis-by-analysis where they focus so much on little tiny things they did wrong that they start to overthink every rep and lose the ability to just push, pull, and brace hard against heavy weight.
Yes, technique matters. But:
- There is a difference between bad technique and a minor imperfect execution of a single rep.
- Driving hard also matters, and if technique is good enough then it probably matters more than losing drive to improve from good enough to great.
The order of operations for new lifter or someone really learning to do things well for the first time is:
1. Get basic technique down pat, to the point that it's your default setting.
2. Add weight in small, manageable increments so both nervous and muscular systems improve at a to which pace they can adapt. This will require you to drive progressively harder.
3. While adding weight, continue to work on reducing the delta between 'basic technique' and 'excellent technique,' but not at the expense of #2 as long as basic technique stays solid.
There can be a little individual variation where someone has a unique case, but that covers the vast majority of situations.
Yes, technique matters. But:
- There is a difference between bad technique and a minor imperfect execution of a single rep.
- Driving hard also matters, and if technique is good enough then it probably matters more than losing drive to improve from good enough to great.
The order of operations for new lifter or someone really learning to do things well for the first time is:
1. Get basic technique down pat, to the point that it's your default setting.
2. Add weight in small, manageable increments so both nervous and muscular systems improve at a to which pace they can adapt. This will require you to drive progressively harder.
3. While adding weight, continue to work on reducing the delta between 'basic technique' and 'excellent technique,' but not at the expense of #2 as long as basic technique stays solid.
There can be a little individual variation where someone has a unique case, but that covers the vast majority of situations.
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The definitive proof that I am right about The Standards 1.0 being for a single rep and @sam_gzstrength is wrong about them being for fahve is that, using a standard 1RM estimate, doing them for fahve yields an estimated 1RM of
155 press
260 bench
365 squat
470 deadlift
And even er way of leeway for the estimate, those are too close to the actual Standards 2.0 to be a meaningful barrier and differentiation between what almost everyone can do in 1-2 years vs what some people will never get to in a lifetime.
Chessmate
155 press
260 bench
365 squat
470 deadlift
And even er way of leeway for the estimate, those are too close to the actual Standards 2.0 to be a meaningful barrier and differentiation between what almost everyone can do in 1-2 years vs what some people will never get to in a lifetime.
Chessmate
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It’s true that a fair number of people will do some or all of the standards 1.0 for five the first time they do them at all, doesn’t change my analysis
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Stole the picture for this one from @DisaffectedPod , whose post today reminded me of an article I wrote a few years back. Lightly edited and updated for today.
Generalizations are good, actually x.com/i/article/2115…
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Generalizations are good, actually x.com/i/article/2115…
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A good program executed with high consistency and high effort is better than the perfect program executed with inconsistency and low effort.
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It’s astounding how many coaches will attribute these kind of problems - the hips are shooting up at the start of the lift! - to various muscular or positional weaknesses and prescribe complex programming to solve them, when the problem is simply that they do not know basic he standard pulling position
There are certain aspects of the main barbell lifts that exist no matter what you do, when the weight is relatively heavy for the lifter.
Your hip position in the deadlift is one of those things. I don't care what you think you can do, or what you think would be better for x, y or z; when the weight is heavy (something you can do for 1-5 reps, let's say) you CAN'T keep the hips artificially low.
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