haha. sorry man. i just figured you loaded like your body weight for your first session and pumped out some sets at about your max. didnt realize you actually started fairly low.

anyway, the reason i never failed a rep is bc i always have a pretty good idea of what i can lift and i dont overdo it. def not bc im awesome.

creatine should have very little to do with true weight loss, I'd assume those in the "terrible idea" camp were ones trying to either make weight or pose in their thongs

Right and I could care less about weight loss, just body fat% loss.

Its more like "I don't try hard. And have never tried hard." Never failing a rep is roflcopter for all but lol nubs.

I'm pushing 10 mins nowadays. sigh.

tc,

I was joking about the massage. Try some longer rest.

<- never failed a rep.

nub

While this is correct, isn't it important in SS to not routinely reach failure on your lifts?

Edit: ffffffffffuuuuuuu KC

There is a big difference in the words "never" and "rarely". Never failing a rep as a novice level is moderately okay if you're upping weight consistently, though when you need to reset. The best way is when... you can't do the required reps for 3 workouts. So you'd need to fail reps 3x in a row. Obv noobs won't have had to reset squats ever on a first time run through SS. But as soon as you get the desire to try a 1RM, you'll end up failing a squat. Or when you reset.

You don't have a "good idea" of your limits till you actually fail.

yet I have thremp log troll permissions.

meh. When I did a 1RM test, I hit 360 and it was quite hard. I could have maybe tried to squeeze up 365-370 but it was of little relative value.

I'm sure I'll fail one pretty soon, though.

I was just making the point for any nubs reading this thread.

Basically in doing SS you should be pushing harder than *'never failing a rep' but not too hard as to where you are failing reps every workout.

Which is kind of what I have been doing lately because I am teh suck right now.

*lul nubs thremp is referring to excluded

Tom,

I'm insanely jealous of having access to regular massages while doing SS. You'll really appreciate it after a while I'm sure.

its more like i dont have a rack or power cage or spotter.

also i pretty much am a noob.

What are the best ways to learn to power clean correctly? I am pretty horrible at coordinating body movement myself, and watching the videos I've found and reading what I have just doesn't seem to be working. I am pretty sure my power clean attempts are just reverse rows. I have tried with the jump, and it doesn't make sense. I have very short upper arms and longer forearms and cannot really keep my elbows straight forward (unless the bar was behind my head).

I'm looking for the easiest way to break it down piece by piece, rather than just watch a video of some expert doing it. I am quite uncoordinated and it is not working that way. I've been trying with a broomstick today and still cannot get it right. I'd post a video, but I'm sure I'm doing so many things wrong it wouldn't even help to see it.

Got any good resources? Tips for starting for complete ******s?

Take a vid of yourself?

read the book?

tc, you have a copy of ss, correct? The piece by piece method is basically what is taught in the book. He starts from the top and teaches down from there. Hang cleans should come before power cleans. Also, the dvd is quite good for learning the pc.

If you're benching about 2/3 your body weight, are pushups basically the same as bench presses?

Not really. I don't bench anywhere close to 2/3 of my body weight, and I can easily do pushups. I guess if you do enough, it's pretty close. I'd imagine it's probably closer to benching 1/3 of your weight. If that.

Book is on the way. Ordered the DVD. I'll just try my best during the next workout that does PCs (Thursday), and try to read up by the next time I do it again.

It's amazing how much I have with that kind of stuff, so hopefully the book is as good as you guys claim. I may put a video up for your guys's entertainment purposes.

Hey,

I have dodgy shoulders that I am going to have operated on in a few months.
I have dislocated both of them a few times. Both have a full range of motion and are generally pain free. However the joint feels very weak when doing heavy weights and gets sore and pins and needley afterwards so I have opted to have them "tightened up".
I'm frustrated because I really want to do Starting Strength and make a change to my body after reading the logs on here. So rather than wait until after the ops to start training I thought I could start some sort of light program that focused on the core that would benefit me before I started SS after the ops.

Are there any light/ bodyweight type core workouts that you guys could reccomend? Also I thought i would try to build up my needle thin forarms.. any forearm workouts and how many rep/set days per week wud i do them.. thanks heaps

Question about physiology:

I understand the principle that lower reps are good for strength and higher reps are good for hypertrophy. When you are doing the texas method and you have a high volume day you are supposed to do 5x5 at a fairly high weight (80% of 5RM?). I also have come to understand that it's important for an intermediate lifter to take less times in between sets, to help disrupt homeostasis and cause super-compensation.

It seems like this would have a bias toward hypertrophy, and less of a bias toward strength gains. I'm not arguing with the program, I see it works, so I'm not questioning it whether it works for strength gains or not. I can see that it does.

So just a little break in between sets, even if just for a few minutes, causes a completely different change in adaptation than doing more reps per set?

This is hardly a beginner question, but to answer your question, I don't really think it matters if you take more time between sets. When I was doing volume (5x5) work, I started off with 3-5 minute breaks between the first few sets and upwards of 10 minutes for the last ones. Without them, there would have been no way I could have gotten all the reps.

Let's assume that it does make a significant difference. What's worse: Failing reps because you don't take long enough, or biasing your programming slightly towards hypertrophy rather than maximum strength?

Dislocated shoulders can cause serious problems for years. Be sure you find a good rehab facility and PT who knows that lifting heavy weights is good for you.

Until then, though, you could try some of the programs from rosstraining.com. I hear only good things about "Never Gymless." Oh, and heavy deadlifts and chin-ups will solve that forearm problem of yours real quick.