Almost forgot about @threadapalooza

One like, one tweet on strength training let's gooooo

A common path for sedentary internet nerds is to jump right into barbell training with Starting Strength/SL 5x5, or whatever the linear progression of the month is.

They'd be better off buying a sandbag or a slamball and having fun for a month or two

2/100 you can make a sandbag with a plastic bag, any cheapo duffel bag, mulch or sand from a big box store, and a bunch of duct tape if you're worried it'll split.

pick it up, squat with it, throw it over your shoulder, slam it on the ground, walk with it, have fun

3/100 showing up consistently is way way way more important than optimizing your program.

If you spend any time at all picking a program, spend at least that much time figuring out how you'll stick with it

4/100 some of the most jacked people I know do really dumb shit in the gym, it doesn't matter because they showed up for a decade

5/100 Figure out why you're strength training. It's okay to want to be HYUUGE or ripped or w/e.

6/100 most strength training advice you read on the internet lacks context. Look at people one step ahead of you, not at world champions

7/100 Bench bros are right. You can probably press way more often than you already are.

8/100 don't worry about weight classes unless you've got a shot to win at a national level

9/100 If you want to learn good technique, watch professional lifters with similar proportions to you

10/100 cardio is not going to 'kill your gains' lol

11/100 you're going to have bad training days. show up anyway.

12/100 the best gyms are some weirdo's garage/backyard/storage shed that costs $20/month

13/100 instead of reading the literature on high volume, low volume, periodization, blahblahblah try each of them for 3-6 months and see what happens

14/100 Olympic weightlifters have the best butts

15/100 crossfit is fine actually if you find a good box

16/100 the cue your coach yells at you is corrective, not a description of good technique.

Don't squat with the balance on your heels.

17/100 my coach used to slip extra weight on the bar when you weren't looking

So much of this stuff is psychological

18/100 I have a home gym and I lift consistently, but I always make better progress with a team

19/100 there's always someone stronger than you

20/100 The 'buff dudes giving positive encouragement' meme is actually pretty accurate

21/100 so is this one

22/100 okay so back to the sedentary nerd who wants to get into strength training.

After throwing a sandbag around for a month or so, get in a gym and start any 'linear progression', starting strength, stronglifts 5x5, greyskull LP are all good enough.

23/100 Find a friend who knows the barbell lifts, or hire a coach at a gym that looks like this

24/100 you can keep adding 5lbs to the bar every workout for awhile but eventually you'll stall. The standard advice is to drop the weights ~10% and keep going. Don't do that.

Play with volume instead, as described in this article: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/making-your-novice-strength-training-routine-more-effective-two-quick-tips/

25/100 your only goal as a beginner is to build consistency (show up) and improve technique. This will take anywhere from 3 months to a year

26/100 at some point you'll stop being a beginner and start looking at 'intermediate' programs.

It's at this point you should do some heavy introspecting and figure out why you want to be lifting

27/100 most (no-longer) sedentary nerd types end up jumping straight into 5/3/1 or gzcl or whatever because that's what the internet said to do.

This is all fine and good if the goals of those programs aligns with what you want to be doing

28/100 I'd wager that most people lifting weights just want to look good naked, and probably aren't willing to admit that to themselves. It's okay to want nice abs.

If that's what you want, a bog standard powerlifting program is probably not the fastest way to get there

29/100 my recommendations at this point are

I want to powerlift:
- Sheiko routines if you can be in the gym for 2 hours (the Sheiko Gold App is actually really good)
- Average to Savage 2.0
- GZCL Jacked and Tan
- 5/3/1 Boring but Big

30/100

I want to look good naked:
- come to terms with the fact that 80% of your looks is diet
- Renaissance Periodization Physique templates
- Renaissance Periodization app

31/100

I want to olympic lift:
- Find a coach
- Do what they say

32/100

I want to be strong overall but also want to pursue other athletic things:

- pick any 2 or 3 day a week strength program and aim to not get injured
- do your other stuff

33/100 Beyond your initial novice gains, building muscle and strength takes *a lot* of work.

Your body does not like change.

Understand that when thinking about ROI on activities

34/100 I'm a big fan of strength training and I do it because I love it but it definitely isn't going to make me rich

35/100 If you're excited by powerlifting or weightlifting, register for a local meet.

Such a great experience.

36/100 how you feel is a lie (unless its sharp pain)

you can probably train as planned once you warm up

37/100 when you get injured the worst thing you can do is stop exercising

*I am not a doctor

38/100 if you are hurt, find movements that are as close to the thing you want to do but don't cause pain

Can't low-bar squat? high-bar squat.
Can't high-bar squat? front squat.
Can't front squat? Goblet squat.
etc

*I am not a doctor

39/100 If you are in pain, it's unlikely that the cause is structural. Pain is a protective mechanism, and it can become overprotective

*I am not a doctor

40/100 You can clear up non-structural pain by showing your body that the movements you want to do are safe, actually

*I am not a doctor

41/100 Observe a child falling from the monkey bars. They might look to their parents, to see how to react. If the parents are shocked and scared, the kid will cry. If the parents shrug it off, so will the kid

*not all cases etc etc

42/100 Stuart McGill is a smart man but his suggestion to never let your back go into loaded flexion is wrong. If you never experience loaded flexion in your spine, of course you're gonna get injured when it happens for the first time under heavy load

*I am not a doctor

43/100 McGill's research is based on flexing dead pig spines. Your spine is not a dead pig spine.

44/100 lifting weights is incredibly safe when compared with other sports

45/100 Your body is a complex system, treat it like one. A great intro to this subject is Playing with Movement by Hargrove: https://jamesstuber.com/playing-with-movement/

46/100 cheap change plate organizer: pot lid holders

47/100

smol brain: tweet between sets

big brain: clear your instapaper/pocket queue between sets

galaxy brain: meditate between sets

48/100 the only supplement worth taking for strength is creatine, ~5g/day

49/100 I'm just gonna copy Boris Sheiko's gym rules, because they rule:

1. Greet everyone when entering the gym.
2. Athletes are only allowed to train by my plan.
3. Weights above 80% may only be lifted under my supervision.

49b/100

4. If an athlete approaches 90% or higher, the entire gym must watch and give their support.
5. If a lift is done with ease, I can increase the weight above what’s planned. If the athlete doesn’t handle that weight, the weight is reduced.

49c/100

6. If an athlete asks for my permission to lift more than what’s planned, I allow it but if he doesn’t lift it, he’ll be given a penalty of 2 sets...if the athlete is successful with the heavier weight...he is crowned “best weightlifter of the gym” for the day.

49d/100

7. If an athlete performs an exercise with incorrect technique, for instance not squatting to or below parallel, the set is not counted.

49e/100
8. Before a competition, I discuss with the athlete what weight he will open with at the competition.

9. During competitions I don’t allow my athletes to look at the protocol. Tactics are the job of the coach. I assign the weights, the athlete lifts them.

49f/100
10. When a workout is complete, athletes must clean the area where they were training.

11. When an athlete is leaving the gym, they must say goodbye to everyone.

50/100 If you don't have the mobility to squat, do these every morning until you can:

51/100 the best information on strength training is hidden in old blogspot websites, archives of long-dead forums, senile coaches, and http://strongerbyscience.com 

52/100 if you see the buddha and he doesn't squat 3 plates, kill him

53/100 Hookgrip and ATG's youtube videos of Weightlifters training are an invaluable resource if you want better technique

54/100 the way a snatch or a clean *sounds* can tell you more about what's going on than watching

55/100 if your weightlifting coach doesn't lean like this while you lift, get a new coach

56/100 still the greatest lift of all time:

57/100 gymbros are in the streetsmart quadrant https://twitter.com/uberstuber/status/1389630386330689542?s=19

58/100 gymbros have good advice but their reasoning is flawed. Do as they do

59/100 don't listen to anyone who bases their training off of a research paper

60/100 exercise science is mostly garbage

- subjects are all college aged kids
- timescales are way to short
- no common definitions for 'beginner', 'intermediate', 'advanced'

I'm not disparaging anyone in the industry, people are certainly trying (see stronger by science etc)

61/100 exercise science will always lag behind real-world practice by years if not decades.

Those Russian Weightlifting papers everyone gets excited about are just post-hoc analyses of what coaches were doing