Category: Starting Strength

Shoot for the stars: you may miss a rep on occasion, but there’s always next week

Today, I missed a rep (and set) on squats today for the first time ever. You could say that I successfully completed two sets at 205. But it was that third set, which I hadn’t originally intended to do, that got me.

I had done 2×5 at 205, working toward my third set of five. I got two reps in, then on the third one, I squatted down, then tried to get up, and all of a sudden, the bar was sitting on the rails.

Of course, there’s a business metaphor for this. It came in the form of an admonishment to me some years ago – someone said “shoot for the stars, even if you don’t make it, you’ll have gone a long way.

As an old guy, I have to be careful about the weights I lift. Inching up brings perils with it. Still, a couple of weeks ago, I managed to deadlift 3×300 lbs. The big numbers no longer scare me as they once did.

Today, I did one set and two reps more than I originally intended. I’m going to shoot for 250 on squats for at least a couple of reps, before the end of the year. I’m very confident I’ll get there. I’m really happy with the kind of training volume I’ve been doing.

A low-bar position on the squat puts more stress on your glutes and hamstrings, and less on your quads and knees
A “low-bar” position on the squat puts more stress on your glutes and hamstrings, and less on your quads and knees (from Mark Rippetoe, “Starting Strength” pg 55).

By the way, one of the perils of squats is NOT hurting your knees. One of the reasons why there’s a big discrepancy in what I can squat, and in what I can deadlift, is because I had been doing squats the wrong way, and I was fighting a case of patellar tendinitis.

But there’s a right way to do squats (the “low-bar” variety) that puts more of the work on your glutes and hamstrings, and goes far easier on the quads and the knees. My knees actually feel better once I start lifting the heavier weights with good form.

See Mark Rippetoe’s book “Starting Strength” for details, or check him out on YouTube.

Your Body’s Power to Adapt

Strength-Training-Push-Pins

This is an amazing story. In short: man falls off roof, and has both tibia bones shattered. Lots of pins surgically implanted in leg bones. Man begins strength training. Natural bone growth pushes pins out of both legs. Man enters powerlifting competition and deadlifts 600 lbs. Within a two year period.

Here’s the article: http://startingstrength.com/article/barbell_training_as_rehab.

Here’s a current video/podcast: https://youtu.be/TWN2t4WHxxs.

His bones and muscles responded to the training, to the extent that bone growth pushed the pins and hardware out of his ankles and into the soft tissue. Within seven months of training, his bone growth, driven by the stress of a linear progression, had compromised the hardware in his left ankle. “I could see where the pins were protruding and beginning to poke out, just under the surface of the skin,” says Brian.  The hardware in his left leg, which was supposed to be a permanent, lifelong addition to his body, was removed via surgery four months after beginning the Starting Strength program.

Pins were removed from his other leg shortly thereafter.

Strength training, in a regular, disciplined program, captures and maximizes your body’s power to adapt – to injuries, to stresses, to training – we have amazing recuperative powers built into us. And that works in any stage, almost any situation in life. If you can focus and put your mind to a thing, God has built into our human bodies and minds the kinds of resources we need to recover from major traumas (much less, the day to day troubles of life).