Deep Squats, Shallow Thoughts

Achieving The Standards 1.0 - 135 press, 225 bench, 315 squat, 405 deadlift - is more important and useful than getting down to 10% bodyfat and it's not even close.

@CoffeeBlackMD CoffeeGainzMD

So. I had a 4 wheel deadlift for three this evening. Which, I’ll be humble is not that impressive, BUT it’s the 1.0 and it was heavy fam. I did my warm ups. And they were heavy. And I was gunna complain. But last time I did @wolfstrength told me “yeah, the warm ups are heavy don’t be a bitch and lift it” Now Wolf didn’t say exactly that because he’s a really nice guy guy but that’s what I heard. It’s always gunna be heavy at some point. Get in the car. Let’s go. We’re committing war crimes. Heavy. War crimes. So I fucking lifted it. Made me angry. Honestly. Fuck this heavy horsecock bullshit nonsense. When will it feel easy? Never? I didn’t sign up for that bullshit. I’m a mere mortal. Yahhnoh?

tldr just kidding x.com/SS_strength/st…

5/ Training evolves with strength & goals: -Can't squat 135? Heavy compounds are king. -Squatting 500? Blend compounds + targeted isolation. -Squatting 700+ with pure aesthetics goals? You may drop heavy squats if recovery cost outweighs benefit and you don't enjoy squatting. Case by case basis, as all advanced lifting decisions really are. For those without a base, isolation-first programs starve muscles of sufficient tension. The basics force the stimulus and allow perfectly titrated doses of progressive overload. These lifts weren't invented as tests, as powerlifting sport lifts. They're elite training tools, and they still work as well today as for the Golden Age physiques they built before most of the machines used today were invented.

1/ Over 25+ years in the gym (20+ professionally), here's what I've observed: Typical programs full of isolation + "hit every angle" often deliver minimal progress for novices. Many eventually quit as a result. But when I switch them to the big barbell basics with linear progression, almost everyone makes tremendous gains in size, strength & hard to quantify resilience. (Genetics, effort, and consistency effect the rate and ceiling of progress, but the progress is always significant)

@IPostAndGhost @LudwigNverMises I still doomscroll more than I should but I definitely put a lot more time into trying to learn/read rather than following political type podcasts and their 'takes' anymore.

@wolfstrength @LudwigNverMises It’s all so sad but it does push you to listen to more entertainment/idea focused podcasts than anything remotely political. Or just get a hobby.

This is terrible messaging and incorrect but it’s also what every reactionary right person has told me when I try to explain the concept of natural rights to them

@IPostAndGhost @LudwigNverMises I think you can see here how the two go hand in hand.

@wolfstrength @LudwigNverMises I do like his point about being factual but never truthful. Applies to far more than just the corporate press, unfortunately.

Compared to most of the past 5-6 years, I'm like 80% checked out of Podcastistan and Influencer, Inc for this reason. It's just like the corporate press, once you see it once, you see it over and over. I saw Malice once say something like that it is far easier to exploit partial truths than to be a complete liar.

@wolfstrength @LudwigNverMises Thanks man for the short summary. I have not read the book so this was helpful. Influencers helped people escape the plantation only to put them into a reservation. I’ve become quite jaded by it all as well.

He's quoting Catholic historian Will Durant. Well, more paraphrasing but ya. The gist as I understand it is evil, unbounded by any morality, will trample you if you're not willing to fight back and when you fight back, even as morally as you can, your hands will get dirty. But the alternative is worse. Now you can agree or disagree with the point. You can agree or disagree with whether that's how he's conducted things himself. But that's what he's saying here, as a paraphrase from a respected Catholic historian. It's really tiresome seeing people who spent the past 5 years astutely pointing out the manipulative tactics that the corporate press uses to be factual without being truthful, switch to using the same tactics themselves to buttress their own preferred narratives.

@LudwigNverMises Isn’t he quoting a book?

@BowTiedYukon He's quoting/paraphrasing Catholic historian Will Durant. x.com/memeticsisyphu…

“The big mistake that people make is still thinking the Jews are the chosen people. They were, but they rejected their inheritance. They refused to accept Christ. In the beginning, they were the chosen people but once, according to the father of the church they apostatized and rejected Christ they ceased being the chosen religion and now it’s transferred to Christian’s who believe in Christ” -Father Chad Ripperger

Yeah, if we don’t require them all at the same time, but let’s say within a year of each other - doing the lift first while running a little bit and then letting the lifts drop while training for the mile, it becomes quite doable for a lot of people. Still above average but really not outlandish.

The likely scenario for the average guy will be his ability to hit one (the lifts) then hit the second (the running) at the expense of his lifts to some capacity. Or you have the runner who decides to get stronger, packs on weight to hit the lifts at the expense of the running The Few, The Proud Few will maintain them both. It would be more outrageous if were were talking SUB 6 minute mile. But that 7 minute mile is pretty darn attainable unless you turbo fatted yourself Also, if they aim for These Standards and a guy goes from untrained to The Standards 1.0 and an 8 minute mile he will have also, changed his life

This guy gets it!

Or as you put it - you’ll be super human compared to 99.9% of the population. But that’s due to most people not training at all or training poorly or inconsistently. If everybody trained properly and hard and consistently towards this group of goals, I reckon it would be somewhere around the 75-80% percentile for the 3-5 year pocket. Solidly above average but nowhere near elite.

It’s annoying, dealing with all the time, but in some ways can’t blame people for thinking that “pretty good numbers after training consistently for 3-5 years” are something only the most elite physical specimens can pull off, because their exposure is generally to subpar information that comes from a physique-only or funkshunal training ecosystem. An average guy who trains for 3-5 years probably isn’t going to be able to do this but at the same time it’s far from elite. It’s good. Above average. Nowhere near elite. Yet people think it it’s only in the realm of genetic freaks because their information exposure is so poor.

@a_f0rk @MarysRoommate Bad depth, knees collapsing, not keeping the trunk rigid and letting the back round over badly, trying to drive with an erector focused back extension instead of driving with the legs while keeping the trunk rigid

@MarysRoommate @wolfstrength Same question. I've done both, but the Blue Book really only talks in-depth about the low bar, so idk what to look out for in the high bar

It doesn’t take much scrolling through my feed to see how often I’m critical of some of the stupid things powerlifting has caused, but the correctly performed low bar squat is absolutely GOATed. You can find hundreds of examples in commercial gyms every day of people absolutely butchering high bar squats. That doesn’t make the high bar squat bad. A video of a guy absolutely butchering a low bar squat also doesn’t make the low bar squat bad. You don’t get to drive your car into a rock and claim that as proof that driving is dangerous. For novices to build their base using a lift that trains the most overall muscle mass over the longest effective range of motion in a way that allows the use of the most weight, the low bar squat cannot be beat. Yes, you need to do it right. Maybe that’s why a smart guy from Texas wrote a book that goes through how to do so in exceptional detail. Powerlifting often screws things up because of Goodhart’s Law. But the low bar squat would be done widely as a training exercise even if powerlifting didn’t exist, because of its robust training effect when done correctly. I did the high bar squat for my first several years of squatting because I was told by everybody, including many Olympic lifting coaches that it was more athletic and carried over better to everything else, and that the low bar squat was not only inferior, but would potentially mess up my other lifts like cleans and high bar squats. It would make me lean over and dump the bar, etc is what they said. I got up to a 385 one rep max on my high bar in that time. Subsequently, I switched to the low bar squat, and did it exclusively for a few years. And then moved back to using high bar squat as a supplemental lift on light days only. Wanna guess what I high bar squatted after using the low bar squat to build my overall strength, keeping in mind that I had a 385 one rep max prior in the high bar? 475x5 On my light day, purposefully staying sub maximal. The exact opposite of what everybody told me because they were wrong and being dogmatic.

@sam_gzstrength This Chart You People Your Narrow Ass what else?

@wolfstrength "This Chart" 😂 I'm probably the only person on This Planet that is amused by this But we need a running list of phrases capitalized for emphasis

The beautiful thing about This Chart is that it lays down some universal physiological principles that can be applied specifically to your situation, regardless of your training goals.

@sam_gzstrength The Standards Pretty Good Point Oh

A SOLID ACHIEVABLE PHYSICAL BASE 185 Press 275 Bench 365 Squat 455 Deadlift 5-10+ chins 6-7 minute mile Its not crazy strong or crazy fast, but do this and you are super human compared to 99.9% of The Population