“Ah, a boy. I don’t work with the males, because I used to be one.”
Everybody has a point in which they started lifting weights or training (keep in mind that lifting weights does not necessarily mean that you are training). Back when I was a wee lad, I had the inspiration of wanting to have larger muscles after watching wrestling on TV. I look back now and consider it a bit weird that my mom was okay with my brother and I watching a show where men ran around oiled up in their underwear hugging each other — but hey, I turned out all right.
In any case, that was my original inspiration — to be big like the guys on TV. I started messing around with a dumbbell in 6th or 7th grade, mainly doing copious amounts of curls. I had stopped playing baseball at around ten years old and primarily played basketball…badly. I was pretty good at boxing people out, and that is about it. In eighth grade I was more or less recruited to play football, and we would go lift at the high school a few times a week, and this is where I knew I belonged. In my years of high school I loved getting stronger, and I always did. Every time we would max out I would put at least 30 or 40 pounds on my squat (high bar) and increase my favorite lift, the power clean– it was a glorious feeling.
And this is how I got into learning how to lift and learning how to teach people to lift. By the time I was a junior, I was teaching my teammates and continued to help out others in the weight room. I would go on to play a year of football at a very, very small college, and then after I quit that I had a few years of feeling lost in the gym. For a while I worked out in the same way I did in high school, then it shifted into more of a bodybuilding approach (with squatting — I never stopped squatting). After getting very bored and very annoyed with this, I messed around with CrossFit for half a year and got good at that…meaning I was just faster than other people at exercising.
I bought Rip’s books and combed through them multiple times and immediately started implementing it and teaching it to friends (I was a personal trainer, and then co-owned a small CrossFit). Then, in January of 2009, I ended up here in Wichita Falls and started training more seriously. I went through a linear progression, got into intermediate programming, and then took a likening to the Olympic lifts.
Blah, blah, blah, that is how I got into training properly and effectively. Other than intramurals I didn’t have any competitive events in my life, and none that my training revolved around. It is better this way for reasons that we have previously discussed. Whether you are old or young, new or experienced, why don’t you share how you got into training?
This is a picture of AC and I about two years ago. He is probably 180 and I am 195...
Here is another picture of me before I started seriously training.
Note: On the Front side of my shirt there is a Heart with an Arrow through it with a text that says “A.C + J.L” and below it are two guys holding hands. On the back it says Justin and A.C. forever. No homo.
I was very athletic when I was young and then started to get lazy around 8th grade. With the laziness came the weight gain, and I basically continued to gain weight through high school and college, and not really playing any sports during those years didn”t help anything. About a year ago I was finally tired of it, and joined the Gold”s Gym here in town. I didn”t really know what I was doing, but any exercise was producing results at that point. As I became more and more comfortable in the gym, I started to research different workout routines, and I think at some point I came across CrossFit which ultimately lead me to Rippetoe”s articles. After reading some of his articles online and watching some videos on YouTube, I got Starting Strength (plus the DVD) and PPST and started reading them and trying to implement what I was learning. A few months back I was looking for shoulder stretches online and found A.C.”s Vimeo page and messaged him a couple times to ask some questions about his training, and from his Vimeo page I learned about the plans for 70sbig.com, and I”ve been on here reading ever since. I still haven”t followed a linear progression model (mainly because my gym went out of business), but I”m hoping I can start it soon. Also hoping one day I can work with one of you guys on here to make sure my form is right. I still consider myself to be new to all of this, and my lifts are nothing compared to what most of you are moving, but it”s a start and I”m looking forward to seeing where I”ll be a year from now. This site has continued to be a great motivator.
Theres a pretty long story about me drinking too much and half assing my training through the summer of awt9, so Ill start when I truely started to train efficiently.
After developing a bad case of shoulder tendinitis in august, I asked Rip if he knew anyone in SoCal that was a good coach, since I obviously couldn”t figure this whole training shit out on my own. He referred me to Welbourn at crossfit balboa/SoCal Strength&Conditioning.
It took me about two months before I scheduled an appt with Welbourn to go over the lifts prescribed in Starting Strength. I had no desire to do crossfit, as I was already small and good at pull ups, I wanted to get strong for the first time in my life.
I told Welbourn that I could only afford to go in once a month and would train in my garage all other sessions. He told me that would be stupid and then out of pity offered me a chance to train there for free as an intern. The gym is 40 minutes from my house but has been the best thing thats happened to me since nair and spray on tan.
I was 5”8 175 on Oct 14th 2009 squatting 210 horribly. I am now 5”9 220 and squatted 160kg earlier this month horribly. I was lucky enough to attend a Starting Strength Seminar in San Diego earlier this month and learned a shit ton of useful information from some knowledgeable coaches, though Justin was there too. Oh and I got a 95 on my written test, officially the best score ever.
My goals now are to get my squat up to 500lbs before I make any competitive decisions and use the info I”ve been given to help make my 2 little brothers strong.
Mrs. Doubtfire…
Played high school football, football ended, I got fat.
I got tired of being fat and ate lots of tuna and read Muscle and Fiction, lost the fat.
Found crossfit, decided I wanted to be a badass, found WFAC, did crossfit with Justin for a while.
Justin wised up and me with him, and I started lifting big stuff, and now im better than before.
Thanks to Justin and Rippetoe, I went from a zero to a fraction more than zero, THANKS WFAC!
*Thumbs up*
Didn”t do any physical activity for about 2 years, and got semi-fat, after a year of lifting weights with bad body routines, which I still really enjoyed. Dieted down to 140lbs at 5″6, decided I do not enjoy weighing like a female and figured this was a good excuse as any to get back to the gym. I put some actual research into my training and found Starting Strength, and that”s what I”ve been doing for the past 11 weeks. I”ve also gone from a very 90small 140lbs to a more appropriate 188lbs.
Started doing the bench and curl combination when I was about 16. School gym didn”t have a squat rack, and that point I didn”t even know what a squat or deadlift was.
A couple of years later, I saw 300. From there I looked up Gym Jones, then Crossfit and then Starting Strength.
In two years I”ve gone from being the smallest player on the rugby pitch to one of the biggest. I love squats. And milk.
“I didn’t have any competitive events in my life, and none that my training revolved around. It is better this way for reasons that we have previously discussed. ”
I will try to find the discussion this is in reference to. Until then, I guess I would slightly disagree. Granted you get to continue to progress in strength and not worry about specializing in a sport, but I think it is very educational to train for an entire year for a season, fail horribly, and then train for another entire year at another chance…Training seriously for sport is humbling and assists in personal growth.
I never was really an athlete until I went to the university. A friend of mine was becoming the president of the students rowing club so he asked if I wanted to join the board. I did and seeing other people giving so much effort in becoming the best inspired me a lot that I decided that I also wanted to become a competitive rower. I did this for about a year and a half because I became to heavy for the lightweigths. From this period I was introduced to strength training although spending too much time on programs that didn”t work, I discovered from Dan John the works of Rip. And for the last two years I”m coaching strength training for a group lightweight rowers.
Justin, you mentioned that through the reading of Rip his books you became enlightened. But what other (strength) training books do you have on your shelf. (maybe a subject for another posts, but was just interested)
Mrs Doubtfire was the shit. When of my favorite movies as kids.
got sick of being chubby and weak at 10th grade, did some curls and presses ”til 12th grade and then stopped lifting for 3 years.
afterward, I joined the gym again and did typical bodybuilding shit.
luckily, someone on the net exposed me to SS and basic barbell training. I decided that abs and weak is bad, and large, strong and muscular is what I want. now I just wanna play some football and training for strength helps me with that.
I don”t really remember when I started working out, but I half assed it for a coupla years- was serious for a while, then just dropped off… what can I say, I”m lazy!
This past summer my husband up and decides he wants to start going to the gym, and he”s the type of guy that doesn”t ever half-ass anything. So he comes to the (correct) conclusion that Starting Strength is the way to go, and “drags” me along with him. Now it”s gym every other day, rain or shine. I love it :)
I started lifting for HS basketball. In the beginning of college, I did bodybuilding stuff. That worked pretty well for me, but I stopped getting stronger. Then, I had some negative stuff happen in my life. Mental illness and addiction took over everything. Luckily, I”ve been sober for almost 16 months. I picked up strength training about 9 months ago, gained 30 lbs., and I have my first competition on the 27th. Life is getting good again.
I like you got introduced to lifting in High School, its unfortunate that my high school football weight coach knew so little about how to make his players strong, because I was always bigger than all the freshman, but none of us really saw the strength gains we expected from Winter Condition. After that my brother, who was in the Marines at the time was tired of seeing me be a fat adolescent, so he took me a to a Gym and that is where I started, I usually half-assessed it because I was forced to go. Sometime my junior year I just got really fed up with being fat and worthless, started hitting the gym hard. I know I”ll catch shit for this and I deserve it, but I avoided Squats and Cleans at all costs. It was so miserable doing them in High School because I was always so weak it was embarrassing. My brother got me into Strength training (this was before we learned about Rippetoe, etc.) I did alot 4×6, and with the help of alot of food and alot of fat, I got strong, but…not the right kind of strong, my whole body wasn”t strong, especially my core. After high school I got into the whole cut weight thing, my first semester of college, you see all the guys with six packs with girls, it was natural for me to envy I think. I tried that, realized my diet was to shitty and just switched back to strength again. And even though I didn”t have dead lifts, power cleans, or squats in my workout, to my perception I was pretty strong, I was doing 225 on incline by the time I was 18. And when I did do squats (rarely) I usually started at like 275. Still didn”t do dead lifts.
Now almost a year and a half later do I finally realize my erroneous ways. I took all the available information about heavy weightlifting and ignored it all, and took the easy way out (Chest, Curls and weak ass leg and back exercises.) This is my first post on this website so I guess its why its so damn long, I guess it just feels good to realize that I”m finally treating my lifting like it should be. I”m not sure if Rip reads this website, but I”d like to thank him, and you guys for running this site. I was unsure about if I wanted to begin Starting Strength, but after seeing how weak I really am its made me get my shit together.
Right now (I”m still in linear progression of course)
I”m at
Squat:295 3×5
Bench:245 3×5
Deadlift: 355 1×5
Powerclean: 190 3×5.
I”d just like some feedback as to if this is decent.
I weight 230lbs or 104 kgs.
My brother started powerlifting when he was 15 and I was 16 and he had done it for a couple years before convincing me to start some time in my junior year of high school, and I couldn”t really focus on it properly until after swim season had ended. I then took it upon myself to lose about 30 pounds and lean out so I wouldn”t be carrying around a ton of extra useless fat and managed to gain strength while losing these 30 pounds (unfortunately I never took advantage of my novice progression abilities). I continued to train in a completely unorganized fashion where I”d go to the gym four times a week for a squat, bench, deadlift and jumping reverse curl day. I”d do whatever I felt like those days and that was what my beginnings was like. I eventually began to dabble with the snatch as a lift because it looked really cool on youtube and took up olympic weightlifting seriously after a lot of coaxing from a good friend who became my first and by far most valuable coach of the three months I”ve been lifting. Now I”ve just started training in an organized fashion for all 5 lifts hoping to improve in both sports while maintaining my focus on powerlifting.
@Chadthemeatbeast started lifting a bit in highschool during offseason ice hockey but fell into the same kind of shit, smoking and drinking and whatnot. Went to college and got involved in rugby which led to a ton of partying but not really much lifting or strength training. Had always been a chubby kid but sophomore year was around 165 at 5-8. Started with a modified circuit type training regimen my junior year after shit hit the fan and had to get sober or face serious consequences. Have been clean for over 18 months. Found crossfit and kind of liked it but never really could identify with the whole starvation diet emphasis. Found cffb and really enjoyed it tremendously. Followed the college programing on that site until I found 70”s big and realized how pathetic and weak I really was and then at Christmas this year decided to bite the bullet and take on the novice programing. Strength gains now are tremendous. Went from 175 at Thanksgiving 09 to 205 give or take currently at 5-7. Thought I had a milk allergy all my life but after 70”s big and all the eggnog consumption pictures, it was just too much. Current working weight:
Squat 3 (sets) by 5 290
Bench Press 3 by 5 215
PC 5 by 3 175
Press 3 by 5 140
Deadlift 1 by 5 365
Got a quick question for the crew. Pants no longer fit at all and am trying to stop fat gain without losing strength gains. Diet is fairly clean now and have been doing Gomad or some version of it for a while. I am considering just doing gomad on squat days. Any thoughts or am I going about this wrong? I follow the cffb site with the strength portion first and then the metcons as I am still playing rugby at college.
I played sports all through high school – mainly lacrosse, but only lifted casually throughout (essentially curls and bench, with some learner”s permit squats included). My good friend”s father was into bodybuilding, and he showed us how to squat and bench without killing ourselves. After that, I went to college to play lacrosse and slowly became more interested in the strength program than playing. Sometime in during my freshman year, I started doing crossfit and kept that train rolling until June of last year, so 4+ years (I stopped playing lax junior year).
I competed in the Northeast Qualifiers for the Games last summer, and just felt like I was going to die while doing any bodyweight movements when I got back. Finally, my brother convinced me that we should start olympic lifting full time, actually pursuing what we like rather than grimacing every time we saw the daily torture…I mean workout. By that point, open gym Saturdays where I could lift had become the only days I was looking forward to, so I assented.
The rest is history. We went to an O-lifting seminar and learned what good form looks like as opposed to spastic gripping and ripping. After 8 months, I”ve put 20 solid pounds on my snatch and 20 on my c&j, but, more importantly, the bar now looks like it”s under control. I don”t have 8% body fat anymore, but I”m also not a pussy. 70s Big has offered some nice motivation along the way, including convincing me to ditch my 180 lb frame and to move up to 200.
I”ve been into martial arts since I can remember, practiced TKD since I was a little kid (which was a long time ago, I”m 6”5″ now!) and discovered Bruce Lee after A-levels (not sure what the U.S. equivalent is, but I was about 18 or 19). At that point I could kick really high but was in otherwise terrible shape. I bought books on how Bruce Lee trained, and somehow ended up doing just running, pushups and curls – maaaaany different types of curls.
This didn”t do much. *shock!*
I got disillusioned with the whole thing and even stopped training in martial arts for a few years (lots of other stuff going on as well) then by chance got talking to a guy who was a second degree TKD black belt and in awesomely good shape. This meeting gave me the kick up the ass that I needed, and I got back into training shortly after.
Then, the turning point: I discovered CrossFit. No, I”m kidding – the turning point was when someone of the CF boards directed me to buy Starting Strength. I”ve probably read it so many times that the ink has been absorbed into my eyes through atmospheric osmosis. And now 70sbig is around for endless information and inspiration… I got my belt the other week, my rogue shoes arrived two days ago… I”m still pretty weak but getting stronger with every workout, and for the first time my side kicks are more powerful than those of the afore-mentioned black belt who I now train with every week! Hooray squats and milk!
Another former lacrosse player here…
I started playing lacrosse when I was 10. When I got to junior high, I was fortunate enough to be a starter. During the 8th grade I went to all the NY Saints, professional indoor lacrosse team, home games and saw that many of the players on the roster had gone to my high school. At that point, I decided that I wanted to be an All-American and naively told my JV coach when I was in 9th grade. He told me I needed to start lifting weights to develop my shoulders and arms. So I urged my dad to get me there. My dad knew nothing about training as he had never done it before so he signed me up with a personal trainer at a Bally”s. You can see where this is heading.
The good news is that by 10th grade I was starting on the varsity team, and although I never became a high school All-American, I was an all-league and all-county player and did get recruited to play at a top 20 D-I school. Awesome right? Now I would actually learn how to train properly….WRONG!
In college, we had a “physical fitness challenge” for our offseason training program. They tested us on rep max bench, max number of dips and pullups, and 2 mile run time. So guess what I trained!?!
Lets just say I don”t think I made an honest attempt on squatting until after I graduated from college and my lackluster college lacrosse career and club lacrosse career was over….and at that point, I found something else to to be involved with…natural bodybuilding. I had this mental disability for about 5 years.
I guess the way that I trained, and the lack of strength I had led me down that path…and I needed something to focus on because I have a hard time not training for “something.”
Long story short, I got tired of being all show, no go and some of the bodybuilding people I knew started doing crossfit. I wasn”t really into that either. So I just decided that I needed to be stronger.
I started reading Elitefts and came acrosse Rippetoe”s interview and saw that he had a book or two. I bought them and quickly revamped my form on all my lifts…but I didn”t start a linear progression. I started with a Sheiko programming that I saw Eric Talmant doing on Elitefts at the time. It as way too complex programming for me at that point, but being a novice, I made progress regardless adding over 100lbs to my lifts.
Then 70sbig came around and I saw all these younger guys getting great results on a linear progression and though to myself why hadn”t I done that yet. So I enrolled myself in a linear progression last year in the end of November. So far I have to say it was the best decision in my training career that I have made…and I am training for something still. I have a powerlifting meet scheduled for May 15th.
I climbed rocks for a long time and got really good at it. Strength to weight ratios was everything. I could do 50 offset pullups at 145 pounds, one arm pullups, dynamic pullups, fingertip pullups, _________ pullups. It was very fun for about 12 years but when I stopped climbing, my goals changed. I wanted to do fun lifting and found crossfit, loved crossfit, started coaching crossfit, still coach crossfit. Then things evolved into trying to improve my absolute strength, then I found 70s big. I”ve gone from 6” even and 143# climbing weight, to 6” even and 175#. 25 more to go…
Jesus, I feel so out of shape, I”m 6″1 and 230…
I was never athletic. In high school, I was always “skinny-fat”. 5”10 140lbs and couldn”t do a pullup.
I got beat up in front of some girl I liked and decided I should try to get into shape.
I had no idea what I was doing, just stuck to the machines 8-12 reps for 3 sets kinda deal.
By the time I got to college, I was probably 5””10 150, and about 20% bodyfat. I was weak and little but still tried dieting down so I wouldn”t look so sloppy. Not realizing what I really needed to do was put on some weight!
This continued for a few years on and off.
Then for whatever reason I started basing and entire workout regime on pullups and dips. It was stupid!
Late last year, I started reading some crossfit stuff, and discovered Starting Strength. I then started lurking on stronglifts and strengthmill.
I finally bought the damn books and have been doing a linear progression for a few months now.
I”m now 5”10 200lbs, and about 23% bodyfat.
Squat – 290lbs
Bench – 205
Press – 140
Deadlift – 355
I look and feel MUCH better, and hope to continue strength training.
Just started lifting hard last month myself so not much back story… Did martial arts as a kid up until I was 18. Was a thrower in High School (now I feel jipped for the lack of pure strength training during practice) and did pretty well in discus given my puny size (5”7″ 125#).
College happened and I got out of shape (if I was even in shape… I know I lost my flexability).
After college I found *wait for it* “16 weeks to six pack abs”… Did that, got my six pack. Looking for something new I found Crossfit… On the forums found SS and 70sBig. I decided I wanted to get stronger so I bought the book, some new kicks, and a gym membership. Let the journey begin.
SP (23 5”7″ 132#)
I got into this whole thing like most people did. I started playing football in JR. High, had always been on the bigger end of kids growing up so I was deemed a lineman. A few of us would trek over to the High School to “lift”. We”d bench and had the older guys teach us how to (high bar) squat and I fell in love with it. I stopped playing football after my sophomore year due to academics (not failing, I was a nerd) but continued to do track and field and lifted for that. In college I got into the bodybuilding thing, but only had the coaching I”d recieved in HS and magazines to go on. After college I went to culinary school and started working in kitchens, out of training for a few years. I finally got tired of being the same weight but losing muscle to non-use atrophy, so I started training again (BB style of course!) at the workout room in my apartment complex. I got to the point where I was beyond the dumbells they had, so I joined a gym. There I made “good” progress with strength and some muscle gains. While just looking through the interweb, I floated onto this page and knew I had found my new home. Loaded with a new fire for strength and growth I bought SS and milk, put on 30 pounds, upped all my lifts consistently, and am spreading the gospel of 70s Big to the masses! I am now a sous chef in a respected restaurant, and a few of the servers are about to join the gym I go to and have me teach them the ways of Rip.
GOMAD!!!!!!!!!
For a skinny guy (at least now) I”ve always had a love of working out. I remember as a kid going to the YMCA and wishing I could go in the weight room, but I was too young, or at least that is what I was told.
Throughout elementary school I was overweight. The summer before 7th grade I wanted to get in shape for football and my grandfather gave me a small bench that had a leg extension on it. All I had was a curl bar so I used that for curling and benching. Also did a lot of running. I was still really weak, but I lost 15 pounds.
The next spring I joined the track team and we would go to the high school weight room. I remember all these guys I thought were giants being there. Some of them actually were. One guy was 6”6″ 300 pounds and another 6”3″ and 225 pounds and an animal.
My first time there I”m working out with some other guys and we go to the squat rack. I don”t remember how much weight was on the bar. It was one plate, either a 25, 35, or 45. I picked it up and remember thinking it was heavy, but I wasn”t about to say that. I started down and BOOM – DOWN GOES FRAZIER.
I worked out hard in high school. Not smart, but hard. I”m sure I could have made much better gains if my football coaches had known a little more. A good friend and I got kicked out of the weight room one day because it was supposed to be closed but we sneaked in and got caught.
After high school I got fat, got skinny, worked out a bit and more recently had been working out pretty hard with a friend, but the routine was terrible. I finally gave up working out with him and lately have slacked off until I get my home gym done. I quit the local YMCA because I was tired of paying nearly $50/month for a place that doesn”t have a squat or power rack. Paying that much money for that much suck will drain the life out of you, at least it did me.
Love those pics, man.
So, how I started…
I never lifted a damn thing until I was probably a sophomore in high school and we did “weight training” in gym class. I was about 5”3 and 105lbs soaking wet at the time and struggled to do a 110lb bench press when we got tested. Being a competitive person this was not acceptable to me so I set about making myself stronger by doing a shitload of DB curls and one-arm OH presses in my room every other night. I didn”t realize you had to eat more and that things that worked more than your biceps and shoulders should be part of the equation until many years later.
Fast forward to after high school. I was now about 5”8 and 125lbs (a beast) and joined the Army. Gained 15lbs in basic because they actually forced me to eat regularly. Got some semblance of muscle there from all the pushups and carrying 70lb ruck sacks around all day. Seeing those changes and wanting to do well on the PT test inspired me to train some, but mostly I was a good runner. I did at least got to the gym from then on even though I didn”t know what I was doing.
In college I met my wife who was a competitive swimmer, so I joined the swim team and got good at that for a while, also running 5k”s, mountain biking, and doing a trathon in there. I was still not strong and still weighed no more than 145lbs on a good day.
It wasn”t until after we had quit the swim team and sat on our butts all summer in 2004 that I decided I wanted to get back in shape and be active. I did some research online and stumbled onto a site called “WannaBeBig”. I learned aboiut what to eat to get bigger and how to get strong from people who seemed to know what they were talking about. Being a skinny bastard, I ws determined to get bgiger and stronger. I started keeping a training log and tracking everything I ate with initial goal to get up to 160lbs, then 170, then 180, then 190, and finally 200lbs. I was going 3 days a week and kept getting stronger. I was noticing profound changes in my body. People who hadn”t seen me in weeks or months said I looked “different” and was getting HUGE. I was psyched.
I was doing mostly for aesthetics then, but then one day at the gym I saw a couple guys deadlifting and squatting 600+ lbs. I talked to one of them and he told me about powerlifting. It took some convincing they they knew better than I how to get strong but I eventually joined them. A month later I pulled 405 for the first time and a month after that I did my first powerlifting meet (I did push pull and benched 235 and pulled 440). I”ve now done about 14 meets in the past 5 years and am now 5”9 212lbs, squatting about 490 raw, benching 320 raw (430 in a shirt), and deadlifting 600. I learned how to do the olympic lifts, too, from a local coach and have snatched 214 (97.5kg) and clean and jerked 253 (115kg).
I”ve been learning all along the way, reading everything I could find on the net plus books from Rippetoe, Lou Schuler/Alwyn Cosgrove, Mike Boyle, Jim Wendler (5/3/1), and countless others. I read all the article on T-Nation, Elite FTS, WBB, etc.
Oh yeah, I got my whole family involved, too. My wife is an elite level PL”er now who deadlifts 360lbs raw at 132. My brother-in-law lifts with us and has pulled 660 raw at ~230lbs. My 60 year old father-in-law is a competitive PL”er now, also.
STRENGTH FOREVER
I was a Rugby player in college. Lifted in a half ass way. Was really into the resisted running and plyometric exercises even though my core lift numbers were just average. Then I got a serious head and neck injury in a scrum and the doctors told me to NEVER lift heavy again! So I took there advice and went from 6,3 250 at 15% BF to 6,3 205 9% BF and into triathalon and crossfit. I felt healthy and fit and… WEAK! I am a volunteer firefighter and have made it my goal to become as strong as possible while maintaining less than 250lb bodyweight. Absolute strength will get you out of a sticky situation, or limit the severity of a bad time more often than the muscular endurance proven with a fast Fran time. My best Fran was 3:15 only so so. Who cares? I would rather be able to EASILY clean and jerk my friend who weighs 310lbs with turnout gear and airpack off the floor and out a waist high window then 150 45lb push presses for time. Been training seriously since xmas this year. This site is funny, motivating and very important! Keep up the good work guys! BW:230 BP:230x3x5 PC:200x5x3 BS280x3x5-overcoming lower back injury DL360x1x5
Ran cross country and wrestled in middle school and high school. Somewhere along the way people told me 3 sets of 10 reps was the way to train everything, and I just wandered around doing that for years without ever seeing real gains. Basically walked around the gym doing whatever seemed fun that day, which obviously is not training. Ran, mountain biked, skied, and stayed in reasonable shape but not strong.
Then my wife and I had our first kid, a little daughter, last fall. I got motivated to get real dad-strength, got Rip”s book and started following the program. Now I”ve got my first PL meet coming up March 20, and tomorrow I”m planning to squat 315 for 3 x 5, up from 135 last fall. Rip”s stuff and this site have gotten me training strength for the first time ever, and it”s never gonna be the same.
I dropped out of sports, football and track, following my freshman year in high school and slowly got weaker and fatter from inactivity, heavy drinking and poor eating habits. By the end of my freshman year in college I was 6’1’’ and weighed 220…I was fat and weak. I then changed my diet, started working out and spent most of the rest of college around 180 with 166 being my lightest; cut weight for boxing. A few months after graduating college I broke my thumb, had to have bone graft surgery, rehab, etc and stopped working out. I would go back to the gym ever now and again but it just did not do anything for me so I did nothing for awhile, fooled around BJJ for about a year and eventually stopped doing that when work became crazy.
Then my wife got pregnant with our first and as the due date was approaching, April 2009, I began to take a serious look at what kind of father I would be to my son and I realized I was not very pleased with what I saw. I was a 32 year old man who was consumed by work, was constantly stressed out, had not really “worked out” in years and was really just going thru the motions in everything outside of work. This was completely unacceptable as I had no plans to be an absent father, who was not a good role model for my son, and a disengaged skinny fat husband for my wife…they deserved better. So I looked back at when I did have balance in my life and when I was proud of who I was and I realized it was when I was taking care of myself and competing in something physical.
I decided to make a change committing to improve all the things I had neglected including my physical fitness. At first it was just about getting in the gym regularly to do anything but then it morphed as I realized I truly enjoyed lifting more and more weight, so I started researching strength programs. After filtering thru all the other crap floating around on the internet I finally read about Bill Starr and Coach Rip started reading their books and have since put on 30 pounds, going from 195 to 225 at 6’1”, and I am training for my first powerlifting event in June.
I started lifting with high school football, not much because I wrestled for the majority of the year and had to make weight (189). Then I went to college and wrestled and did pretty good, 2 time all-American (sorry I have to boast about that). Then after I severly broke my leg on my bachelor party, 18 months later when I was relased for exercise I had gone from 197 to 270. So I started lifting without any purpose because nothing could replace 18 yes of wrestling. I was introduced to CF and loved because of the comp. I did that for a yr and in Dec 2009 I decided to follow ss. I was already stronger than everyone else with a cf total of 1080, but in was not any where near my potential. So now I am actually training and plan on signing up for a PL meet this year.
I did tae kwon do as a kid on and off, no sports in school other than intramurals in college. Joined the Army reserves in my early twenties and came out of boot camp weighing 167 at 6”!
Got into distance running after that, culminating in 3 marathons. Did crossfit for a year and change, and read SS a few months into that. I eventually decided that a 180 pound man should not be struggling to squat 200×5, so I went to a cf barbell seminar and began lifting. I had some sand in my vag about getting bigger and slower so I program-hopped for a bit. I”m now committed to finishing a linear progression and am thinking of getting into weightlifting after that.
Current PRs:
Bodyweight: 241 from 180
Squat: 325x5x3 from 135
Press: 140x5x3 from 75
Bench: 220x5x3 from 95
DL: 355×5 from 185
PC: 175x3x5 from 85
bfaber, I find it hard to believe you were so out of shape and unhealthy at only 175lbs. Are you a 3ft tall female? I think you are just full of shit. There is something wrong if you could not run some 400m sprints.
Played just about every sport imaginable by the time I was 18, then mostly stuck to hoops. Weight training here and there for sports, mostly bodybuilding ”lifting” through college and after at my own leisure. 2 years ago I found a beginner”s program created by a strongman that I followed. The website has a forum that linked over to 70sbig.com. That”s how I found Rip”s stuff, that”s how I learned to train and take shit seriously, and that”s why I”m bigger and stronger than I”ve ever been.
I used to be an athletic, but skinny guy. I”m playing soccer my whole life, and used to be a midfielder; my stamina was (and is) excellent and my long skinny legs were faster than most of my opponents. So my body was made for that.
But last august I started strength training too, together with boxing. Read so much as possible on the internet, and via some bug Tuch bodybuilding forum I heard about Rippetoe and 70sbig.
I gained 8 kilos since then, and I”m currently a strong right back in my soccer team. Love the extra kilos I can tackle and push my opponents with!
Oh, and I loved the first time ever an attractive female (now my girlfriend) told me “WOW, you are muscular!” (use your imagination for the rest of that evening). That”s probably the best side-effect of weight lifting, isn”t it? ;-)
Greetings from Holland!
I’ve always been into sports. I did swimming and soccer all the way through high school, and then took up rugby and rowing in college along with soccer. Post college I was at a loss (finding a regular gym incredibly boring) and found CrossFit and began to realize how weak I was. I sprinkled CrossFit into my sporting activities (soccer and Australian Rules football), until I realized that my sports were plenty of “cardio” and what I was really lacking was strength. Last winter I focused on Olympic lifting and did 2 meets until my coach moved to Colorado. Then I was just lifting (squatting and pressing) two times a week trying to maintain some semblance of strength through sports seasons. In January, I finally decided I was tired of being weak and have been doing SS and I’ve gained 4.5 pounds. I can’t tell anyone else besides my gym people about trying to gain weight and get strong because these ideas are so contrary to popular beliefs about exercise for women that I face unpleasant reactions, especially from my sister. Also, when I do have people ask me about my exercise routine, they often ask me if I am runner. Because obviously, if I am a girl who works out, I run. It is difficult for me to not laugh in their faces at that statement.
I don’t post a lot, but I love the site and everyone here gives me tons of motivation to keep lifting! Thanks to the contributors and all the people who comment daily!
I think its important to note that most people find their path in training through CrossFit. As much flack as CrossFit has been taking lately, it really opens up people”s eyes to what fitness actually is. Don”t get me wrong, I think the smart people eventually move on from a lone CrossFit workout, and find their own goals and systems. A lot of ppl on here mention they come from a CrossFit background, and most people I know that get into olympic lifting were all introduced via CrossFit. I only mention this because sometimes I see people bashing CrossFit pretty hard in the comments section, and thought it should be noted.
I had a similar pattern as Justin, and I suppose most do. Being a kid and wanting to have muscles, then highschool sport specific weightlifting, eventually fell into CrossFit, currently doing the linear progression. Once I stall I will be venturing into the Texas Method. Eventually I want to work primarily on my Oly lifts, but I need a considerable amount of strength added on before I have to worry about focusing on my oly techniques.
I was fat when I was younger and wanted to have a rockin” bod like my friend Justin, then I came to college and I started working out with a bodybuilding mentality, primarily because Justin did it. I avoided the whole cross fit business because I wanted to be bigger, not leaner and wasn”t at all motivated enough to eat like a 75 year old man. I shifted from the bodybuilding mentality to the linear progression of Starting Strength, solely because Justin told me to. I hate squats – I do them strictly because Justin told me to. Don”t get the wrong impression, I”m not after his dick or anything but for laughs I”ll include a further jolt to your heterosexual systems: in early high school I dated a fat girl because she was the sister of his girlfriend. Quasi-homo.
My high school athletic career consisted of baseball my junior year and golf my senior year. We didn”t have a football team and basketball was never my thing… because I suck at it. My tiny rural IL school didn”t even have a weight room, just an old Universal machine behind some bleachers on one end of the gym.
Once I started college, it was much the same. Didn”t play sports, I was 6”1″ and 160 lbs. and decided I needed to get bigger after a buddy picked me up over his head while we goofing off in the dorm hallway. He had wrestled in HS, but still… I wasn”t happy about being thrown around like that. Of course once I got to the weight room, I had no idea what I was doing. Just messed around doing different exercises. I bought a couple of the bodybuilding books that had pages and pages of different exercises and designed my “program” with those. Over the summer I did a 4 days on/one day off thing. You know the type: legs – back – chest – shoulders/arms. Blah, what a waste of time. I gained a little weight, but never ate enough to really get anywhere. Never squatted more than 295 or benched over 200… I think I might have deadlifted a couple times with questionable form. After a year or so of that, I sort of lost interest. I”ve always been lucky in that I”m sort of tall and broad shouldered. No matter what I weighed, I always looked sort of “in shape” so the drive was just never there to really work at it.
Skip ahead a few years to Dec. of ”07. By this time I was married and we have two kids. I decided I was tired of being weak and tubby around the middle and if I wasn”t going to do it for me, I should at least get in shape for the kids. I started watching what I ate and doing the cardio thing and dropped from 235 down to around 210 by March of ”08. I was pretty happy with that and thought maybe I should start lifting again. Still had no idea what I was doing… squats with bad form and leg extensions. I ended up doing a number on one of my patellar tendons with the leg extensions which still bothers me. Then I happened on the Stronglifts thing and like so many other people that introduced me to Starting Strength. Lifting was never the same once I finally figured what the hell I was doing. I got myself some Rogues and started doing the novice thing. While I still screw things up programming-wise here and there, I at least know enough to catch it and fix it before things get out of hand.
I”m 37 and weigh just under 250 lbs. and am definitely in the best shape of my life. I”ve had a number of people I”ve known for years comment on how much bigger I look now and they are all shocked when I tell them how much I weigh. :P I can squat over 425 and deadlift just over 500. Hopefully this year I can get those numbers up while finally getting my bench over 300.
There is a powerlifting meet here in STL on the 13th and I”m planning on going to check it out. If all goes well, I”ll compete next year. My wife thinks I”m crazy, but she humors me. I guess that is about it.
I stole the ”SKWAT” photo from yesterdays post.
I believe the Skwat photo/picture originally came from the guy who makes all the “SquatRx” videos on Youtube. He has a blog too.
i started lifting for high school football. now i train for the firefighter challenge which led me to looking into crossfit, and i got lucky enough to find a gym that put me on linear progression.
good times.
@chuckiet
Yeah, the Skwat shirts are from johnnymnemonic2 on YouTube. Here is his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/johnnymnemonic2 and here is his blog: http://squatrx.blogspot.com/
He posts some pretty interesting stuff.
I wasnt terribly interested in sports or athletic competition when I was younger. I played soccer ever since I was in first grade and still play indoor soccer for fun. Played football freshman year of high school and rode the bench. Didnt real care for the weight room because 3 sets of 10 on the leg extension and leg curl and 3 sets of 10 on the bench press did not really get me anywhere but thats what I had to do cuz that was the “program”. Didnt really do anything exercise related until I joined the Army. Got interested in goin to the gym. Started out doing bodybuilding type routines with some friends and got bored with those so I broke off on my own to try and get stronger. Didnt really have any idea what I was doing as far as programming and technique but I was pressing, squatting, deadlifting, cleaning and snatching and doin pull ups. Did get stronger, but nothing really noteworthy. I got up to around 217 at 6”4″ while on my second deployment to Iraq. After I got back to the states I continued to look for more information and found Crossfit. Thought it was pretty cool and started doing it on my own. Everyone preached the zone. Thought I”d try it out. Worst mistake ever. Dropped to an all time low of 185. At 6”4″. Yes skeleton like. By this time I was working at a crossfit gym. I was frustrated because I knew I was now underweight (curse you zone!) and was weak. So I had already read Starting Strength and was low bar back squatting and deadlifting like Rip teaches. But I decided it was time to start training seriously. Starting Strength and GOMAD got me 40lbs in 2 months and strength was finally starting to get semi-respectable. Im now 230 and wouldnt be opposed to being 250. Still work at a crossfit gym, but we also go by Amarillo Strength and Conditioning and have quite a few people on the novice progression and even our “crossfitters” all squat, press, and pull every week on a linear progression. Monday is a pretty cool day, as we have dozens of people of all age groups and backgrounds low bar back squatting for 3 sets of 5. I think thats a pretty cool thing.
@ TwoTone,
Hey, I”ll be at that meet in St. Louis on the 13th that you mentioned. Stop on by. I”ll be wearing an Illini Powerlifting t-shirt and lifting in the 220 Open Raw Class. We can talk about lifting heavy shit, and you can hang with my PL crew and learn more about it.
I started in high school a very skinny kid, after my freshman year in football I started in the weight room at 138#, fast forward a few years with lots of lifting and eating. I cannot say that I had a great program but I got up good weight, but my senior year in high school I weighed 240#, people thought I did steroids I got so big. I went on to play offensive line at a 1-AA school and got up to 285, and even at the college level I got stronger but I never remember much coaching about technique and most of the progressions were based on 1RM, not a linear progression which I now believe would of gotten me stronger. After about 9 straight years in the weight room I was burnt out. I got married, lost some weight down to 225, and took about 10 years off from training. Two years ago stepped on one of the scales that did bodyfat and it said I was 28%, I pooped my pants and decided I needed to get in shape. I started on basic 3×10 stuff and after six weeks I said this sucks. A trainer showed me CF which I liked but being over 200# I was never going to be “elite” also my strength never really progressed which is the reason to workout. Then found crossfit football which I really liked, but then I got kicked out of my gym for doing it, too rough on the equipment. Soon found 70”s big and so now I am at home with a squat rack, barbell and SS book starting over trying to get my strength up to an acceptable adult male level. Also, I have two daughters so I want to try and be very big when the boys start coming around so they know not to mess around.
I was never athletic in high school. 3 years ago I took up running in an attempt to pass a fitness test, and decided I liked it. After a year-ish I moved, and joined a new gym. Got sucked into the personal training program. 6 months later was still doing basic intro light sets of 10-15. Then my trainer quit, and the new one was an Olympic lifter in high school – he still holds the state record for HS clean. He taught me how to squat, dumbbell snatch and other cool things. And gave me heavier weights. I liked it so I started reading more. Then he left, and the new guy was a chest guy – only trains the upper body, with tons of reps. And he was always giving me girl weights. I liked the heavier stuff so I quit the training, started reading more, and taught myself to deadlift.
I began weight training in middle school, I was terribly weak, and emaciated, and had absolutely no form. I did football in the beginning of ninth grade and realized I wasn”t anywhere close to playing – so I stopped after one season. I kept going to the gym, and was really interested in getting stronger/beginning a bodybuilding routine. Alas, having no real guidance I mostly worked out my biceps and triceps. All my inspiration stemmed from the old school greats: Columbo, Schwarzenegger, Draper, Zane, etc. and desperately wanted to be like them. I started doing compound lifts in late high school, albeit I had no form and pretty bad strength. My parents then convinced me to go to the Naval Academy where they ran me down to 165 pounds. I decided military life over college life was awful, so I dropped out, and began lifting again in college. I noticed our college gym had a crossfit drop-in class so I checked it out. During a deadlift day I proved that I had some quality strength and the instructor turned me on to this site and a new gym, which I both love dearly. I”ve been getting my strength up and have been having a blast doing it. In fact, I really want to open up my own gym one day that is similar to the one I attend now. One devoted to developing speed, strength, and power. The members there are awesome and I”ve been getting great training – I owe everything to my crossfit instructor.