You stated the obvious downside. Another potential one is slower technique refinement.

Upsides? Lower weekly volumes allow you to do other stuff, sports, recovery for those, etc. In fact, SS every 3 days can be a pretty solid template while cutting- lowers total volume, allows you to keep intensity high, and creates space and recovery for other optional deficit practices (metcontemplations, lsd trips, etc).

Ok that's basically what I was thinking.

Me just being lazy, eating a bunch of whatever I want to, and generally slacking is not good reason to be doing it every 3 days.

Hey everyone. I recently posted a video of my squats on rips board and his response was

So I followed up with this question:

His reply was:

Obviously the next step would be: how do you learn to keep your ankles stable? Do any of you know any drills or cues to do that? Do ankle mobility drills also improve my ability to have stable ankles?

Do you have the right shoes?

And I was wondering if Jens=Genz

I have Adidas Ironworks WL shoes. And yes.

I'm gonna throw this here, it's also in my "running questions" thread that turned a bit more general.

I wanted to start doing SS, and thought my community gym had the right equipment but it has the following:

Smith machine:


loose benches with no rack for weights

single barbell with plenty of weights (down to 2.5lb increments)

lots of dumbells in roughly 5lb increments

There is no good rack system for presses or squats. Benches are a little tricky with no rack to put the barbell after I'm done.

What's my best play for each of the SS exercises?

Here is what I am doing/planning on doing

Squat - use machine with tracks. Other option- front squats w/ barbell
BP - try to use the bench, not sure what to do with weights to start or finish. Other options - dumbell BP, use track machine.
Deadlift - use barbell LDO
Press - use barbell, just lift it up when needed, shouldn't be too hard.
Power Clean - use barbell LDO

What's my best play for these, especially squat and bench? Am I at a huge disadvantage to using the track machine for any of those? With no spotter and no rack, that is definitely the easiest option for me, but I want to do what is best. If there is no huge drawback, I'll try that.

I don't think you need to shove your knees out any more. Messing around with shoving your knees out more is a way to maintain a more vertical back angle while still hitting depth, because your butt doesn't have to travel as far backwards to get to the bottom. I think your problem is flexibility in the hip region.

Obviously you should do more squat stretches, but also try putting one foot in front of you in a lunge position on something thigh height and leaning into the lunge. You should feel the stretch deep in your glutes. Doing this stretch dynamically before every lift and statically afterwards has made hitting depth so easy for me.

Also WRT to shoving knees out more, it seems like this is a pretty undesirable way to hit depth. Sometimes an individual's body proportions (like long femurs, short torso) necessitate the knees to travel outwards more, but in normally shaped people where flexibility is the key issue, getting them to squat like they're doing a plie is just going to slow hamstring development and hinder their progress.

I'm wondering about the value of milk while doing SS.

Is drinking skim milk going to be less valuable than 1% or 2%?

Why?

Is drinking a full gallon really necessary?

If your 6 foot and 150 then yes GOMAD (Whole milk) is optimal.

If you're 220 and 5'5" then no, GOMAD isn't really optimal unless you want to get really fat. If you're somewhere in between, you can adjust it.

GOMAD is only recommended for super skinny hard gainers. These people wouldn't want to use anything but whole milk because they want to consume as many calories as possible.

If you want to gain some weight but aren't a total twig, drink some normal amount of whole milk.

GOMAD is just a simple way of getting a lot of calories easily from a micronutrient rich source with a decent amount of protein along for the ride.

I'm 6ft 185.

I noticed the amount of protein in skim is still 8g/cup.

What about drinking 1/2-3/4 gallon of skim/day?

It's good. Full milk is recommended because the fat is actually nutritious. Just start drinking more milk on top of your meals and see what happens.

find another gym is your ONLY option.

Find a new gym. The main component of SS is the back squat. I guess you could substitute it with front squats but I think they don't serve quite the same purpose for a beginner trainee and I also think they might be technically more difficult.

I mean, how in the world are you going to get 200lb+ up into the rack position. You gonna clean that weight up there? If you're able to accomplish that then you're no longer a beginning trainee and shouldn't be doing SS anyways.

And don't even think about trying to do barbell bench presses without a rack. That's a recipie for disaster. Do dumbell bench presses instead.

Find a new gym.

Unfortunately, finding a new gym is not an option (at least for another 3 months). While not ideal, it's better than nothing. I'm going to have to make the best of it. Given those parameters, what is my best option? Squats it looks like I'm stuck on the Smith. Bench, I guess I'm better off with the dumbell press than the Smith? Should I just divide my normal bench weight by 2 and use that? Or just stop going since Smith machines are so obviously worthless, and go back to running 6 days a week instead.

There is another gym (which I am not sure if it has anything better- it might even be worse for all I know, it's pretty small, more expensive, and a lot less convenient), but I'll check that out tomorrow just to see what I'll be able to do then. If anything, getting a bench and rack for home and a bunch of weights seems like a better option than finding a new gym.

Don't use the Smith machine at all. For anything. Unless it's bodyweight work that you're suspending yourself from the bars, which you don't need to do. At best it's a waste of time that won't get you stronger; at worst, you'll hurt yourself.

Front squat, DB bench press, DB standing press, barbell deadlift, barbell power clean. It's not ideal but it's good enough.

smith machine squats have are reportdly more dangerous and detrimental bc they force you to follow an irregular bar path. someone else could proly elaborate on if they are better than nothing.

I was actually surprised to see this page on the Starting Strength Wiki. Obviously anyone can write anything on that, and who knows who actually wrote that. Since the word pussy wasn't used once, I can be pretty sure it wasn't Rippetoe.

http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Smith_machine

Also, if I do a front squat, HTF do I get the bar into position once it gets heavy? I'll need to load it somewhere high still, I'd imagine.

This is the dumbest thing I have read in the past week. I can't wait to find this study and read it in its entirety.

lol. the NSCA's journals continually shove out ****ty info. i just read about how the BOSU ball helps somewhat with balance. and guess what, BOTH sides are effective. (hint: BOth Sides Utilized Ball) how the hell did this warrant research?

edit: to clarify, some articles are awesome, but this wouldn't be the first questionable article.

Just squat only what you can clean. That's what people did in the days of yore, and damnit, it's good enough for you too!

(It's fine.)

I should be clear: It's not just the study itself. It's also the idiot's conclusion.

the study is ****ing ******ed.

-experienced FW squatting participants had a lower smith machine squat. researchers acknowledge different forms/recruitment between the two squats.
-participants with no experience in the FW squat did better on the SM squat. obv weak core stabalizers were blamed, along with doing a good morning on the ascent.
-researchers raised the depth of the squat if the participant failed his 1RM.

-the study tried to keep foot placement the same between modes of squats. moderately experienced FW squatters found this to be a problem. the study did not think this would be conflicting.

63% never used the smith machine for squats
97% never used the smith machine for bench press.
everyone had at least 1 year of experience lifting.

researchers blame friction for the smith machine being less than the FW equivalent, yet give a two sentence blurb about how it's not friction and just the fixed bar path.

blah blah blah. only worked for women's squats or something.