Kuiken

I wrote down my cues and put them in front of my rack to help me focus, seems I've been a bit slack about lifting my chest and making sure my hips move first. Currently I'm lifting barefoot/minimalist shoes, so maybe weightlifting shoes would help? But I don't have money to spend on them for now and I would assume form work > any gear ever. At what point does one look at getting shoes? I think I have a better understanding of what you're saying now as well, and of course taken with a grain of salt as it's from random internet dude. Overall I'll try to record more sets in the future to double check that the bar is moving up/down in a straight line and think more about where my weight is balanced. I think fatigue overall played a big role as it was a stressful week and my eating/sleep wasn't on point and this was heavy weight for me, so probably a combination. See below for squats earlier this week-ignore rep 5 on the front view, I was thinking too damn hard. The side view ones look better to me, your opinions? And thanks so much for both of your inputs, I work out at home and still trying to find a personal trainer that doesn't think squatting below parallel is a bad thing, so need all the help I can get! Also I love the "just means you have muscle to build"-heck yeah! Always muscles waiting to be built!

Gotcha-when I sat back more into the squat, my knees still went over my toes, but I felt more drive from my glutes and more solid in terms of not having to force my knees out to keep them from caving in; I'll try to get another video this week and compare properly. So would you say in terms of balance it would be mostly midfoot, then some heel, and then minimal toe? Like midfoot 70%, heel 20%, toes 10%? Would box squats help train this?

I squatted again tonight and you hit the nail on the head-my weight's shifting forward to my toes. It might just be part of fatigue or form problems, I managed to keep my weight balanced during my warm up sets tonight but my working sets were off (might have been a combination of overthinking and just having a bad day though). It still looked like my knees were way beyond my toes though, but I felt more balanced and definitely felt it in my glutes. I think I'll take a week off and tweak my squat form with your suggestions before I add more weight and see if that helps, thanks for your suggestions!

2 more days left in Block 2, but here's my increases so far. I started the program after a month off due to stress/work/sickness so I might have started a bit on the low side, but gave me plenty of room to improve. Currently it feels like the first week of each block is a decent challenge and the last week is me wanting to die and cursing jdanger. Next two blocks should put me into new PR range and the excitement to see where I end up gives me a reason to live. 10 rep maxes 10 rep maxes % inc. Squat 40 Squat 55 37.5% Bench press 32 Bench press 40 25.0% Shoulder press 25 Shoulder press 27 9.6% Deadlift 50 Deadlift 65 30.0% 5 rep maxes 5 rep maxes % inc. Squat 60 Squat 72 20.0% Bench press 43 Bench press 52 23.3% Shoulder press 27 Shoulder press 35 27.7% Deadlift 70 Deadlift 90 28.6%

Something is going wonky but I can't quite get at what it is. For the front view, on reps 3-5 I might be shifting my weight to my left leg more, and on the last rep it my knees tried to cave in but I managed to push them out in time. For the side view, reps 4-5 something looks weird in my lower back maybe? My working sets felt better-probably should have recorded those, but wasn't thinking. These were my -10% sets so some of this might be fatigue? What do you guys see and recommendations to fix it please!

I used to think JDanger was a pretty cool person-until those tempo front squats convinced me otherwise.... I thought I might have been able to go a little heavier on my 1 rep, but the 3x3 told me otherwise! On week 3, so still a long way to go, but enjoying it so far!

For the dips and chin ups-if I can't do 4x8 should I just to 4 sets until form failure or do as many sets as it takes to get to the total reps? Also I'm currently lifting 3x a week, but I'm keen to start more as it's easier to maintain my daily schedule. If I want to start in June, how can I prepare for this madness? Or should I rather just change this to 3x week and add some recovery/mobility stuff on my rest days?

Few reasons: Primarily it saves time and means I don't hog the squat rack at the gym. I could probably use higher weights if I went for 5x5, but it would take longer and the rests would most likely be longer as well. Rip's Practical Programming also makes the case for women being more tolerant of volume work and needing higher reps than men (this is horribly paraphrased as I read that book a while ago, but that's the gist of it). There's also something mentally challenging about going past 5 reps that I enjoy, knowing that you're only 1/2 through your set and pushing on. And I seriously doubt I'm at the level where 3x8-12 vs 5x5 makes any sort of significant difference to my progress. I just read over it and it looks bad ass-plus it would force me to do my damn abs, which generally get neglected. I'm running a cut now, so will give it a go when I finish next month as I think I will die if I try now.

I googled Kroc rows and am keen to give them a try! I'll see what I'm feeling like and go from there on the day. Also just saw the "Before you post" sticky (sorry guys!) and added in the info below if that helps any. Exercise Preference Prefer powerlifts and Olympic liftsCurrent Physical Stats F34169cm67kgPrevious Training History Previously on Starting Strength for about 1.5yrs, then switched to various other programs before coming back to it and upgrading to TM around Apr2015. I've been playing around with TM since then trying to find what works for me.Current Training I was doing the above program for about 3-4 months but swapping between heavy/vol - bench/OHP without a light day and upper progress was slowing down, but I attributed that to being a woman. Got a hold of Practical Programming, ran Rip's version of TM for women as outlined in the book for a month and didn't see the same progress, decided to go back to my version and tweak the upper body part to see if that helps.Current weights as of this month - Squat: 70kg (1RM)Bench: 55kg (1RM)OHP: 35kg (1RM)Deadlift: 90kg (3RM)Current Diet Normal diet with some calorie/carb cycling (for now just eating moderately healthy, tracking calories/macros, and comparing to how I lift)Avg 1750, depending on activity for the day/how hungry I feelGenerally pretty even split 3 ways. I try to keep protein at at least 30% and go higher fat on rest days, higher carb on workout days.Current Resources/Limitations I'd like to stick to 3 days/week schedule with the session being about +/- 1 hr

This is kind of a mish-mash from previous advice on this forum, my experience of what's worked, and the Rippetoe's Practical Programming book. Mon: Vol Squat: 3x8-12 @ 75% of 3RM Upper body (see below) RDL: 3x8-12 @ ~60% of convential DL 3RM Wed: Light Squat 3x5 @ 65% 3RM Upper body Alternate power clean/snatch for 6x2-3 Fri: Heavy Squat 3x3RM Upper body DL 1x3RM, take off 5kg x3, x2 Upper body: Alternating bench press and overhead press with the same set/rep schemes as squats (so vol: 6x3, heavy:3x3). Would it be better to include a light workout or rather put in an upper body pull to balance out all the pushing? It would be arranged so that it would be before the heavy bench/OHP-would that hurt my PR potential v/s just having a light workout there? Something like: vol bench | ??? | heavy bench | vol press | ??? | heavy press Any suggestions for pulling exercises that would fit in? I was thinking alternating chin/pull ups, especially since I can only do 2-3/set so needs some improving. Also any other suggestions over all would be appreciated! I threw the RDL in because they’ve done wonders for my grip strength and I didn’t notice any negative impact on Friday’s DL. I tried deadlifting once a week as programmed by the original TM, but it actually caused my numbers to drop badly-probably not lifting heavy enough that I can’t recover fast enough yet. The cleans/snatchs are just for power and fun-I’m willing to change them if anyone has better ideas. I don't want to go too mad on adding extras in though as this gets me in/out of the gym in roughly 1hr (including warm up & cool down), but I can make extra time if it's something that'll pay off in my main lifts.

Duplicate post due to deceptively slow internet.

Went to 55kg today and it went better than expected-completed all 3 sets of 5. I only taped sets 2 and 3, see below. 3 minute rest periods seem to do the trick! Set 2 Set 3 Reps 4 and 5 (0:38) for set 2 and rep 5 (0:40) aren't pretty, but they get done. At what point does my form slipping make the rep count as a fail? IE. if I only slightly lose form on 1-2 reps, keep pushing but if 3-4 are bad I need to drop back down? Do you guys think I should just keep pushing with the longer rest periods until I hit another stall wall and then go TM? Or just go to TM before I pull a fat trying to add 5kg every time (gym doesn't have any smaller plates)? You guys really did an awesome job of laying out the TM program, but just wanted an opinion of if today's sets change anything before I switch up my program-I'd like to ride the beginner's gain train as long as I can. Gainsdalf saying it looks like fatigue has got me thinking maybe I'm only just now getting to the point where work is getting challenging?

What are doubles/triples-trying for 2 or 3 sets of 5 at heavier weights? I've looked over some of the TM templates and it seems the idea applies to all the lifts-is it possible to just apply the TM to my squats and leave the others alone until I start to struggle with them? Hahaha-hard to argue with that logic! Will try for my normal workout with a longer rest tomorrow and report back. Jdanger's advice looks pretty sound, so if I'm not feeling solid on tomorrow's squats, that'll be the next step. Thanks!!

Back tightness is something I'm always trying to remember. It does help to some degree as the weight is easier to move if it's not wobbling around Might be the recovery time-will rest a little longer tomorrow and see. I first started SS about 1.5yrs ago and got to 70kg squat before my ITB injury (I was training for a faster 10km at the same time-GENIUS). Since then I've done various lifting programs like New Rules variations and NF's Barbell Battalion, but only started SS again about a month ago (first working set was 35kg-I purposely started a little lower due to all the warnings about starting too high). So after only a month on SS it feels to early to stall and switch to 5/3/1 or TM OR am I perhaps more advanced than I think due to never really stopping lifting, just changing programs? What if I work in pause squats at low/mod weight on Mon, Front Squats on Wed, and SS heavy squats on Fri...success? Thanks for the form notes! I was worried I might be missing something form wise-it's more of a feeling then, I'm just struggling to get back up and it doesn't feel as smooth. Like there's that "oh snap!" pause v/s how the speed is equal going up/down in the first reps. Or maybe that's how it's suppose to be? I see what you mean about the heels and I honestly can't tell if that's just my shoe moving or me moving-will check how it feels tomorrow. They're barefoot trail running shoes if that gives you any more info. I try to schedule my sports on the same day as my lifts and then make my rest days actual rest days, but it might be too much. We've got a break this week (normally practice 3hrs/wk, this week is only 1.5hrs), so will see how that translates to my squat. What if I combine mixing up the weight with front/pause squats? Changing too much at one time? Thanks so much for both of your inputs! I've been all over various weightlifting websites, but this is by far the best and most detailed advice I've received so far!

Hi all, I'm doing SS and am struggling with the squat! I got up to 55kg and had 2 failures to complete my 3 sets of 5, so I did a reset as suggested where I dropped 10% down to 50kg then did just the warm up and added a working set each time at 50kg. Today was my final workout of the reset and I still feel weak sauce about my squat-especially since my bench is 45kg and my deadlift is 80kg-so clearly I'm gaining muscle, but something is going very wrong squat wise! Video here. This was my third/final set, after a 2min rest from the previous set. First 2-3 are OK, but on reps 4-5 the issues appear-I just can't seem to get out of that damn hole. Ideas? Form help? What am I doing wrong?! I've had ITB issues in the past and I do a lot of hip dominated sports (that sounds naughtier than it really is)-maybe a contributing factor? There's no pain though, just no oomph getting back up. And suggestions on where to go from here? SS seems to assume that the reset works and I'm struggling to find a plan B.