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.

This is a great post, not only for the local information and explanation of training splits, but in a broader sense, because it is the rare post in this algorithm that shows an understanding of how someone’s level of training advancement plays a role in what works best for him

When a lift gets stuck, the answer is examining then fixing the fundamentals much more often than a 'hack.' Example: your bench stalls out and hasn't budged in a while. Common hacks: this exercise for triceps, that exercise for power off the chest, this exercise for back because "big back big bench," this video about 'bending the bar' by guy who benches 600, etc... 99% of the time, these are taking the person in the wrong direction. Not because they are inherently bad or wrong, but because they don't address the problem of the person who is stuck. They confuse the needs of advanced lifters who a) already have their basic ducks in a row, and b) are already very strong, with the needs of the 99%, who are novices and early intermediates and don't even know what the ducks are, much less have them in a row. 1. Basic programming: Is your programming suitable for your level of training advancement - does it have a reasonable combination of sets, reps, and weight/intensity and a plan for regular progress/PRs based on whether you're a novice, early intermediate, intermediate, late intermediate, or advanced lifter? 2.Basic technique - shockingly often, people don't have the basics of technique down. Triceps exercise X and power off the chest exercise Y and special bend the bar technique Z aren't needed for people who lack basic strength and technique. Just learn how to do the basic movement correctly first, then get stronger at it. 3. Little things - rest between sets, weight jumps, recovery. Heavy sets often require much more rest than people take. Not every workout for your whole life will require this, but many will. Ah but you don't have that kind of time. Fair enough, some don't. But if you're taking 3 minutes maximum between your heaviest sets on big structural lifts, you’re going to leave a lot of strength on the table. Weight jumps - 5 lb increases on a 115 press or 185 bench are actually a pretty significant percentage increase. 1-2.5 lb jumps are often more appropriate. Microplates are now widely available. Get some and use them. Recovery - mainly nutrition, are you eating a) enough, b) enough protein, and c) in close enough proximity to your workout? But also things like sleep and external stressors play a role. All of these things should be evaluated and corrected before you worry about any hacks. Almost every time I see someone post about getting stuck, the replies are full of hacks instead of evaluating and fixing the basics. Let's change that.

Saw a bumper sticker yesterday that said, "This vehicle makes frequent stops at your mom's house." We're so back

It’s funny because it’s true

Still Fat, still pink, but getting a little less weak again. Currently doing DB incline bench third in the workout after bench press and lat pulldowns, so pretty happy with this 120x10 top set with gas in the tank.

I have coached thousands of people across probably over a million deadlift reps, almost all of whom use a mixed grip when it gets too heavy for double overhand, and not a single one has torn a bicep due to a mixed grip. Outside of truly outlandishly bad form (bent elbows), most people don't lift heavy enough for this to be a concern. The main issue is lifting with bent elbows and having the weight forcibly straighten them out at some point in the movement when the biceps is no longer strong enough to hold the bend with that much weight. This is exacerbated by lifting with a 'grip it and rip it' style that jerks the weight off the floor. Could this issue theoretically happen to someone who doesn't do either of these things, who uses good form? At a sufficiently heavy weight (probably 600+ but at least 500) - yes, but it's an astronomically low chance. At weights most people use, you're about as likely to win the lottery. That said, if you as a normal person still want to use straps instead of a mixed grip, it's not the end of the world. Just don't die on the hill of "I'll only lift what I can hold with a double overhand grip," because that will severely limit your gains. A hook grip solves the problem but isn't suitable for everyone. A mixed grip solves the problem and if you care enough to learn and use good form, will 99.999% not be a problem. If you're still worried about that 0.001%, use straps. But let's not pretend this is a bigger issue than it is, just because social media makes us think rare events with known avoidable causes are happening left and right.

The argument I see sometimes is that all lifting is contrived in that we couldn’t do it in nature without this modern, manufactured equipment, so as long as everything is contrived anyway, no lift has a better claim on being more useful than another for general training purposes. So you should just do either what you enjoy or what’s best for your goals, and not think of any individual lift as inherently indispensable. There’s some truth to this for those who are already reasonably developed but it misses an important part of the picture that Sara articulates here. Basic barbell lifts - squat, deadlift, press, bench press - are not just some contrived lift like any other. They are how we figured out to ergonomically load the most basic, fundamental human movement patterns that are stable enough to be heavily loadable so as to produce a high or maximal force production event, but still working within the context of the normal gravity based environment that we operate within in real life. They have unique characteristics that do actually make them more important and useful than other lifts within a certain context. This doesn’t mean you need to become a powerlifter or that you need to work on increasing your 1 RM on these lifts forever without branching out into any other things, but it does mean that they have uniquely efficient properties that are especially good for building your base, or for being the core of a program for people who aren’t hardcore lifters and just want to get the most out of a small and simple commitment.

Guys, sometimes shit hurts just because. Every ache and pain isn’t an indication of a catastrophic injury about to happen. If it feels better as you warm up, you’ll probably be fine. Cowboy tf up.

Strength tests draw a misleading, somewhat arbitrary, binary between a state of being strong and not being strong. You can be kind of strong, a little bit strong, or almost strong, or maybe strong, and still test positive for strength. Strength tests, particularly home gym tests, capture a moment in time at which an motor unit has activated and is interfacing with the weight in some way. “We define how we understand the beginning of strength based on this snapshot, but such a freeze-frame contains limited information,” Angus McWeak writes. Read more about the difficult task of determining when strength actually begins:

Sydney Sweeney didn't set women's sports back 100 years or whatever the latest stupidity is, but you will personally set men's progress back 100 years by not getting your press to 135, your bench to 225, your squat to 315, and your deadlift to 405.

In a world of constant distraction, shooting and weightlifting are two of the rare places where you can still be completely present. And its wonderful. To outsiders, shooting probably seems like the least serene activity imaginable. You have this loud, deadly device in your hands. It explodes inches from your face, kicks back against you, and sends a projectile screaming downrange. But once you get over all that, shooting becomes unbelievably peaceful. At the range, your world becomes now. You settle your breathing. You watch the sights move and learn not to fight every tiny movement. You feel your grip, your stance, the pressure of the trigger. You let the sights settle, press the shot without disturbing the gun, then stay with them through recoil and recovery. All of it demands that you be in the present, and that is incredibly calming. There is no past. There is no future. There is no work BS, no notifications, no argument you had yesterday, no problem waiting for you tomorrow. There is only this breath, this sight picture, this trigger press, this shot. You are just trying to put the bullet exactly where you want it, as cleanly and efficiently as you can. Heavy weightlifting puts you in the same place. I mean getting underneath a heavy compound lift for five or fewer heavy reps. You put your hands on the bar and immediately the world contracts again. This is going to be heavy. And once heavy becomes normal, there is something peaceful about that too. There is nothing abstract about a heavy weight. You feel the knurling dig into your hands, the bar across your back, the pressure through your feet. You brace. You breathe. Every bit of force and concentration becomes clean and simple because it has one purpose. Grug do full ugga. Rock goes up. For those few seconds, nothing else exists. You cannot really worry about some BS tomorrow in the middle of a heavy lift. The load does not allow multitasking. There is no abstraction when full ugga and rock go up. The moment demands everything you have right now. Then you lock it out. You got it. You rack the weight. There is this wonderful little moment afterward when you realize you gave something your complete focus and hit the target, whether that target was a weight or a spot on a paper target at the range. Maybe that is why both activities feel so satisfying these days. Modern life constantly fractures your attention. Shooting and lifting refuse to let it. For a little while, you are not thinking about your life, planning your life, worrying about your life, or abstracting your life. You are just livin' it, man.

As per this picture - Everyone used to develop a base roughly the same way, at least in the same ballpark, whether they ended up going into powerlifting, bodybuilding, strongman, or even track and field events like shot put. Everyone started out natty, and getting big and strong on the basics for a while. The real specificity came later, along with the small % who'd go on to become enhanced. And even after there was some specificty, there was still enough overlap to train together, as we see here in this pic. This was still basically the way things were when I started training. The recent ubiquity of gear availability, plus its constant promotion on social media, has made it such that guys can skip those early steps and think they know what they're doing. They rely on gear to carry their bad programming, and never actually learn how to train, never learn what works for them - because everything works for them - and get on PEDs well before they have the mental capacity to truly consider such a decision or do the necessary research about safety and responsibility. We all see it online. Many of us see it at the gym now too. It's led to a degradation of subtle but real parts of what made physical culture great.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Gains

One of the key features of this entire ideology is its lack of consistent application of any universal principles Whatever is the most destructive to western norms and society in the moment is utilized So for example, normally, in such a situation, 11 white people trying to bully a lone black person would be an arch example of racism, white privilege, all that stuff we hear all the time But that’s not what the other side - the side that is defending Clancy - does here. Here they choose a different form of their oppressed/oppressor narrative. Because Lindsay Clancy is the primary focal point of The Oppressed here, the person around who this particular form of societal destruction has to revolve, the script has to be flipped, and we suddenly ignore the racial axis that would usually be placed front and center, and instead solely make it about the oppressor / oppressed narrative on the basis of sex and the unique mental health challenges of womanhood But now notice how they will give THAT narrative up in an instant when talking about men who identify as women. They don’t have any of those hormones, but somehow are granted all of the status and oppressed category of women, and even more. A trans woman definitionally cannot experience these hormonal issues and yet are held up as literal women who should be able to play in women’s sports, use women’s locker rooms, and all the rest Suddenly the importance of the femalehood axis of oppression is abandoned as soon as that becomes more convenient for undermining western civilization So you can see how the pattern works. There’s never any consistent principle you can ever pin them down on, because they always shift to whatever narrative lever is convenient in the moment, and that’s why arguing with them often feels like trying to nail jelly to a wall It also shows how they don’t actually care about any of the specific issues they use as undermining levers, just the end result of civilizational undermining, so the Normies who sometimes do care about some of those particular issues and are taken in by their rhetoric , are being played badly