rip still assumes that you have certain equipment at your disposal. When you can never drop the weight, it's pretty useless to try working up to a level where you had to do it, isn't it?

I wouldn't take cleans out either. No one says you have to rep heavy with them. The power cleans you are doing are not for strength at all, especially when first learning them. Just keep the weight under a 100 and work on form above the knee the next 2 months. If you are straining something as it is, it would be greatly beneficial to fix the problem now with very light weight. Essentially all of your "problems" will go away with lots of repetition with very light weight.

I would do 15-20 power cleans of just the bar from the high hang position the next you lift. Work on standing up as hard and as straight as you can and then whipping the elbows around as quick as possible to catch the bar like you were doing a front squat, with elbows out parallel to the ground. I find that thinking about standing up straight works much better than thinking about jumping. The "jump" will naturally occur if you do it right. Its actually just more of a shifting of the feet.

I'm in my 5th week of SS.. it wasn't until last week that I started feeling comfortable doing PCs. "Comfortable" is probably stretching it. I'm an extremely tight person. Even in my youth when I was quite athletic, I was never very flexible, and now I have ~4 years of a mostly inactive lifestyle to correct. Tight wrists, tight tris. PCs were a nightmare to learn. And I'm still weak as hell. I'm only cleaning like 85lbs right now. But I'm not even worried about that. It's all about form. I'll keep doing 85 if I have to.

On a sidenote some dumbass trainer at the Y watched me doing it. When I finished my set I said, "You know anything about power cleans?" and he said, "sure, but you sure have an interesting style. Why are you jumping?" lol.

i did start out wrong, but eventually i did try from the top down. after deadlift one day, i spent 10 minutes just learning to hold the bar in the rack position and doing hang power cleans. then next time before power cleans, i did a bunch more hang power cleans. the last time i did cleans they felt decent. it's not that we're quitting because we didn't think we could learn. it's that after we learn completely, progression with ****ty bars and non-round plates is annoying and we don't have the desire to deal with this stuff to have strong power cleans.

i liked your advice on how to do them in the second paragraph, because those are the ideas i finally got into my head as i was learning power cleans, but i don't want to spend 2 months doing the same light weight when i could use that time for assistance (i weigh 235 so chins are a workout). also, this still doesn't account for them eventually getting heavy, which is the point. i don't want to drop 200lb from my shoulders to my legs. i don't want to hook grip the bars at my gym and have my thumbs bleed everywhere. i don't want to mess up a rep and have it drop from chest high or land awkwardly on my shoulder.

and thanks to everyone else for the advice. it's just something i don't think i want to do.

You don't need to drop the weight.

5/27

squat
3x5x300

press
3x5x157.5

deadlift
5x325 - going up by 5 from here

i decided on weights for the bench reset (230, 240, 245, 250).

5/29

squat
3x5x305 - it'll be soon when i'm not recovered enough to increase three times a week. i think i saw someone mention squatting lighter on wednesday and increasing weights monday and friday somewhere.

bench
3x5x230 - decided that i'll just go up by 5 from here.

was pretty exhausted so i did nothing else. this week hasn't been the best. i've eaten fine and gotten plenty of sleep, but i think i got some kind of weird stomach sickness on wednesday and i've dropped a couple runny deuces throughout the week.

jesus dude these are pretty impressive #s after only a couple months.

Agreed, we weigh about the same and Miles' # really make me feel like a bitch

like i said before, i lifted a lot in high school and a year or so into college, so it's not at all like these are my first two months lifting.

I think you have good genes for this too though. You're 6'1" but you don't look lanky at all, which means you naturally pack a lot of mass imo.

I'm pretty sure miles has been close to this strong before, so there's a little muscle memory going on there.

You may be stronger than me but I kicked your ass at runny deuces last week.

yeah i don't think i have any abnormally short or long limbs. maybe my legs are a tiny bit too long, but nothing crazy.

yeah i've been almost this strong in bench and squat but never close in deadlift or press because i had never done those exercises before. i was never this strong at both squat and bench at the same time, either.

i will try harder this week.

6/1 - started creatine today. will have a rounded teaspoon daily. the one other time i took creatine, it either helped a lot or i experienced a nice placebo effect. either way, hopefully it helps me keep from sticking.

squat
3x5x310 - felt really good today. only a couple reps slowed at all. will probably tape 315 for fun.

press
3x5x160 - first rep is no longer the hard part. i do this thing where i squeeze my lats and triceps together to get the bar started upward, and the first rep just goes right up. fifth rep on last set was tough.

deadlift
5x330 - first three reps done without releasing the bar except to quickly alternate mixed grips. last two reps were devastating and i felt my glutes and lower back doing tons of work. since i never deadlifted in the past, i guess it makes sense that it is just about as strong as my squat, if not slightly weaker. this set of 5 was a lot more taxing than 3x5x310 on squat.

beast.

6/3

squat
3x5x315 - well, for sure monday's workout affected me (i think more deadlift than squat). 310 was way easier on monday. i'm really starting to consider making deadlift a once per week thing on friday so i have two days before i have to squat. i'll have videos up soon. you'll see my form beginning to break down. going to do 317.5 friday and keep increasing by 2.5.

bench
3x5x235 - reset going well. tiny shoulder pain i had a week or so ago during bench is almost gone. i'll most likely drop to 2.5lb increments before i try 250 again.

too drained for anything else.

first set: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZrcYO9x0o - first two reps are bad. watch how far forward my knees go (you can use the rack behind me as a reference point). the last three are much better imo.

third set: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tc7K2okEj0 - didn't realize he taped me from above like this. it's hard to see anything except how i have that bar jammed into my back so sweetly.

didn't tape the second set.

friday's workout will be done on saturday 6/6

6/6 - lots to talk about

squat
pretty big scare here. going down on the second warmup rep of 225, i felt a sharp pain in my left knee and shifted to get the weight off it. i came up with most the weight on my right leg. after this, i tried doing bodyweight squats, and at about 90 degrees of knee bend, the pain came back. i tried a few more, and the pain came always in the same spot. pain was right in the center of my knee, directly under the center of the patella.

next, i tried squatting down with no weight on my left leg and coming up from the bottom on both legs. oddly enough, no pain. tried squatting down on both legs, same pain. wtf?

a couple more minutes of doing this, and the pain on the way down went away. a few more bodyweight squats, no pain. now the bar for a few reps, no pain. 95lb, 135lb, all okay. so i decided to do 5x185 and call it a squat workout. i feel no pain as of right now. so, i guess on monday i'll try 315 again with extra care to warm up really well.

press
3x5x162.5 - so i posted a question to Rip, which i posted in the June thread here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=272 (or at strengthmill here: http://strengthmill.net/forum/showthread.php?t=5164) regarding bouncing the weight at the bottom.

he said do it whichever way you could do more weight. so tonight i did every rep from a dead stop at the bottom, and it was easier than last time doing 160 with a bounce. i think my problem is that my elbows don't fully extend to 180 degrees, so holding the weight above my head is quite draining during the set, if that makes any sense.

also did 4x3 chins. program gets a makeover next week to include a light squat day on wednesday and deadlift once a week on monday, so we did not deadlift today.

Good to hear the knees are feeling better, I had a similar occurrence after some heavy (for me) front squatting. Couldn't do bodyweight squats without pain the next day. Took a few days off and its fine.
I also managed to blow out my boxers in the hole attempting a PB squat today, boy did it make me stand up fast fearing the worst.

did it only hurt on the way down, too? i'm pretty sure i'm going to be okay, it was just pretty damn scary.

haha, my buddy did the same thing. i heard a rip right at the bottom and i thought it was a muscle tearing or something. just a rip right down the crack. he doesn't wear boxers anymore.

From about a 1/4 squat to the hole and back up it hurt. I was front squatting so my knees were sticking out like bejeesus. I went back to a wider stance low bar squat, they are a bit iffy today but not overly sore. I was stupidly trying to do Smolov Jr for front squats so maybe it was an imbalance thing. I'll come to my senses and go back to SS soon. I just hate the fact that I can bench as much as I can squat so I avoid upper body like the plague.

6/8

squat
3x5x315 - warmed up well and focused on keeping my knees from sliding. went down a little slower out of fear, but i was ok. knee is a little tight but not bad at all.

bench
3x5x240 - felt extremely good today. like, i could have done 5,5,7 imo.

chins - 3x4xbw

ran out of time (friend had to work), and we decided it makes some sense to deadlift wednesday so we never squat heavy and deadlift on the same day, so now the schedule is
monday: heavy squat, press/bench, chins
wednesday: light squat (~75% of monday), bench/press, heavy deadlift
friday: heavy squat, press/bench, something else, maybe just more chinups

6/10 - went to six flags, ate terribly, and made it to the gym at 1am

squat (light)
3x5x235 - pain came back again during a warmup rep, but went away minutes later. it basically happens when i descend pretty fast and "catch" the weight further down. so i can't do that any more.

press
3x5x165

deadlift
5x335 - kinda sat my gut between my legs. for the first time, i really felt it hard in my hamstrings. also, i have to lower the weight pretty slowly at my gym so i need rest after 3 reps, making 5 reps take a little over a minute.