Can someone explain to me why Scott Herman got flamed so much for this squat demonstration?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lhua...eature=related

I find most of his explanations helpful and he usually gets good feedback but obviously not here. From my take on other demonstrations I believe he is not getting low enough, not keeping a good spine angle, and looking up.

Edit: Also on my way to the gym to do my first ever squats and dead lifts, I'm terrified. If I don't post within the next 4 hours change my title to "Died squatting 85 pounds".

Correct - appreciate the responses nonetheless, but I'm wondering if there is any benefit to using the perfect pushup vs. regular pushups.

hippo,

as long as you get enough protein you can just stop working out altogether and maintain your muscle mass.

love, hardball47

I'm now an elite gym member, I've officially done squats.

Squats
Starting off with just the bar since I've never done any squats what so ever, not even with a broomstick. First rep goes well but I realize I'm not going low enough, so on the second rep I commit to going low and I get the leg wobbles, I'm officially scared but I'm able to finish my set of 5 easily minus the leg shakes. I Kick it up to 65, and all goes well minus the leg shakes and some trouble keeping my weight on my heels. I then do a set at 85 and can't seem to keep my weight on my heels, maybe due to fear of falling backwards but not sure, need to figure this out before Friday. I decide 85 feels like a good starting weight and do one more set.

Deadlift's
I look around and can't figure out where the deadlift station is, and walk around confused for a minute or two trying to figure out what to do. I give up and move on to the bench press.

Bench press
I've done plenty of bench press through out high school and college but its been a while and I've never done it without a spotter so I don't know what to expect. I start off light at 65 and knock out my set of 5 easily. I then do 85 and 105 with no trouble so I decide to do one more set at 115 and settle on this as my starting point since I don't want to start to high and it felt like a decent amount of weight.

Deadlift's take 2
I decide I'm not leaving without doing a complete day 1 so I pull out my iphone and start googling "Where to do dead" and it auto completes what I'm looking for, so I know my problem is not a rare one. The answer seems to be to pick a spot with enough space and grab a barbell from one of the stations. I find a decent spot grab a barbell and load it up to 105. I then start my set and after two reps I realize I'm paying almost no attention to form and have been arching my back, hopefully my spinal cord forgives me. I focus on my form and finish off the set and it feels like a good starting weight, but I decide to do one more set of 5 with proper form all the way through.

After finishing the main exercises for day one I realize it only took me about 30-40 minutes to do them, but was surprised that just these 3 exercises caused me to break a sweat. I finish up with some sit ups and try my hand at chin ups but I am only able to knock out 2 1/2. Overall It was a great learning experience and I'm now 100x more comfortable with starting strength and the gym in general, I wish I would have started this 3 years ago when I first heard of it.

Glad you're liking everything, man. Deadlifting is really, really fun, tied with press for my favorite exercise.
i lold so hard when you googled where to DL -- and when it auto completed it.

I'm still a super gym kneube myself so no big deal.

And yes, SS will make you sweat like a pig, though sometimes I don't come close to breaking a sweat.

He is high, his stance is too narrow, his knees are caving. He looks like a beginner squatting for the first time.

Freddy--good job. Just to put your mind at ease, you're highly unlikely to **** up your back rounding it with that little weight (although now is the time to get your form rock-solid before it gets heavy), nor should you have any issues w/o a bench spotter for at least the next hundred pounds or so...just make sure that if you fail, you bring the weight back down to your chest, roll it down to your waist, and sit up. The real problem comes when you fail mid-rep and decide to make a heroic attempt at racking it; that's when people wind up taking a bar to the face.

can someone explain why it's better to eat whole food that has the same protein/fat/carb breakdown as, say, a protein bar?

Cause a ****ing steak is so much more enjoyable to eat than the equivalent macros in smoothie or bar form

I'm still doing SS, but I'm thinking about changing up my program. It's not so much that I'm at the end of linear gains, but I'm finding the recovery from heavy squats/deadlifts to be brutal. I'm considering switching to the following as a midway point between beginner/intermediate:

M: Squats, Bench/Press, PCs/Pendlay Rows
W: Light squats, Press/Bench, Deadlift
F: Squats, Bench/Press, Rows/PCs

If anyone has a better idea for programming, I'd love to hear it. Also, what % of your 5 rep max is reasonable for light squats day?

From a body composition standpoint, it's pretty debatable that the above is true. Protein quality in protein bars is pretty poor, and a diet heavy in highly processed foods is probably lacking in essential fatty acids, but in the grand scheme of weight loss or muscle gain these are very minor components compared with macro-nutrient breakdown and total calories.

From a long term health perspective, micro-nutrient content, essential fatty acid balance, and abundance of heavy metals / toxic chemicals present in protein bars is probably worth thinking about though.

Looks good to me. Any alterations you make would probably lower the efficacy of the program, unless you started addressing specific weaknesses. 75% of your 5rm is probably a decent place to start for recovery squats.

At what weights did you guys start stalling on SS?

So far none of these stalls have been permanent (i.e. after resetting, I've managed to overcome them) but I had trouble at:

265 squat
315 dl
170 bench
120 press
170 PC

(I know, my upper body is relatively weak). I weigh just over 200, fwiw.

Quick question, will doing push ups every other day affect my bench progression?

DrunkHamster, that's pretty much exactly what Rip recommends in Practical Programming - it's called the advanced novice template. Although he's got chins in place of rows.


freddy, push-ups will probably help your bench more than anything. Make sure to don't overdo it though. Start out with e.g. 4 sets during the day at 50% of your max. Then add reps for each week, add a set after a while etc.

Perfect, I'm not completely on the wrong track then. One more question: would it be counterproductive to add chins on M and pullups on F? It's just that I'm slightly disappointed with my upper body gains relative to my lower body.

Standard for SS...I'd try it. Or if you want some more upper body work, switch to GSLP which includes daily GTG chins and push-ups for some sweet upper body development. From my limited experience that might be a bit much to add to SS. Then again I'm old and that might be why I had trouble recovering (eating at a pretty small surplus too).

Ok, so the last two workouts I've experienced a weird sensation while doing Romanian deadlifts. I started doing RDLs instead of DL about 3 weeks ago and this is the second workout in a row it has happened.

Basically, when I go to lift the bar off the bottom of the squat rack (off the safety bars in other words) to begin my set, I feel a sort of twinge in my left trap. It's kind of between a shock and a muscle spasm and lasts like half a second. After that happens I am able to complete my set without any irregularities or discomfort. My traps have been pretty sore after the last two workouts but there is no real pain in the spot I feel the "twinge." So to be clear, it is happening when I lift the bar up and begin to walk backwards with it to clear the rack.

Since I am able to complete my sets and there is no significant pain I am not that worried about it...but it is strange enough that I felt I should ask the experts. Is it a pinched nerve? A muscle strain? Should I do extra work to strengthen my traps so it doesn't happen?

Sounds like its probably related to muscle adhesions, but might have something to do with a nerve.

One thing you can try when your warming up is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzozw2Aso3M
- the first part where you stick the ball under your upper back muscles and lift the arm up.

If its a muscle issue, that might take care of it.

If its a spine/nerve issue, you'll want to find a professional who can help. I recommend finding a chiropractor with lots of experience in ART. The more certifications they have, the better & more experienced they are likely to be. http://www.activerelease.com/providerSearch.asp

q for people who have used SS while cutting, how do you tell if you're progressing at the right pace or when you should reset? since normally you're supposed to reset when you stall, but when you're cutting you're basically just trying to lift the same weights every time right?

Some people will insist that you have to get weaker while on a deficit, so keeping the weight consistent is a solid goal.

Personally I found that if I lifted every 3rd day instead of 3 times a week, got a lot of sleep (bolded because it is paramount when cutting), and varied my worksets from 3x5 if I was feeling stellar to 1x5 if I felt kind of crappy, I could keep making progress even while dropping the last ~15 vanity pounds. This was despite being a pretty advanced trainee.

Last time I cut I went from 178 to 163 and brought my squat from ~315x5 to 325x5 in 2 months.

Good post DF. Also illustrates that it's not worth killing yourself trying to make gains during a deficit. And that disciprine is paramount to achieving lift gains.

racist ban

ok thanks guys