The fundamental disagreement here is whether it is proper to give out the same program to a "wide range of people". I say no. I say it is irresponsible and I have the backup of the strength and conditioning community at large rather than just the word of one person.
The loading IS SS, Jeffo. Without the loading parameters it's a group of exercises, sets and rep ranges. How a program is progressed IS the program. If you say the loading is too aggressive you are saying the program is too aggressive. It doesn't make sense.
If you give someone the same program but tell them to do 3x8 (yes, that is a common thing as the basic SS exercise template is a common thing) and tell them to either load the bar each workout, or add reps and/or sets before loading, depending of various factors, are they doing the SS program? Of course not.
Then you talked about basically peridizing it for some people..again, it's linear progression so if you periodize it it's no longer SS. The program is the program.
I don't understand the insistence of the AB format being the best or desirable over a Mon-Wed-Fri schedule. Rip doesn't say that. He leaves it up to choice. The AB format will overwhelm people quicker than a simple A-B-C format anyway.
However I didn't say don't do it. I was content with making some simple additions/replacements and just say back off the loading a little bit. Perhaps add reps sometimes instead of loading. Etc. I will say to those who want to reccomend the same program to everyone who comes on the board, that I will be happy to direct the PM's to them
. And as I said before, if you are going to recommend a program, you take on a certain responsibility to understand it backwards and forward and ALL the pitfalls.
You are insisting that everyone, for instance, if they have problems to just load slower but for god's sake keep squatting? Why? There are no other things that can be done? Squat variations that are in themselve primal movements? I can design a fantastic beginner's program working around the back squat entirely if someones doesn't want to do it or their back won't take it. And I guarantee they will be strong as hell.
The idea that you are training people but giving them all the same program. Dude, I'm sorry but you are not doing your job if that is your job.
Do you do postural assesments? Do you do any movement testing? How about a lunge test as Gray Cook advocates? Much better than a squat test. Shoulder stuff? Facepulls are the tip of the ice berg if there is scapular instabiltiy and immobility in the shoulders. Do you look at the shoulders, before you have everyone bench pressing and overhead pressing? Is there a history of impingement. If so, what grade?
I'm not trying to be an ass, but the idea of trainers running around giving out SS to everyone sounds like trainers needing to be fired. But I didn't say scrap the program. I said modify it. And if Sentinel wants to suggest an alternative at least he put actual thought and time into it rather than just saying...do this program.
But I don't know if it's your job or you are just taking about helping people.
As far as the question whether some people don't get hurt and some people do it is about compensation and time. It has just as much to do with what people learn from the program, the ideas and habits they pick up, as anything else.
You might have a guy who's ineffiencies and perhaps pathologies cause hime to reach threshold pretty quickly. You may have another guy who has various problems but his effiency saves him for a while. And sometimes it's just reaching a threshold and you can't really even explain it. There's always the guy who says 'I've been doing this for years with no problem'.
Certainly SS is about 1000 times better in this regard than the typical leg press devotee. For instance. To say that produces more back injuries than almost anything else is probable not an exxageration. And yet there is always the guy who will plug away for years with no problem....but unless he stops working out early enough, as most do, his time will probably come.
You make it sould like all's a person has to do is put in a little hip extension, do some glute activation, but then go back to the same mundane handful of things and pound them in the dirt year after year. It will take more than that to fix some of the gross ineficiencies that people will display and it will take some branching out, eventually, for everyone to reach their potential.
And yet SS would teach us that what is useful can be counted on your fingers. Of course I'm going speak against that.
As for assistance, just substituting static split squats progressing to lunges or what have you, will fix a lot of problems at this stage. It will adress hip mobility and glute strength. For shoulder stuff there is a whole lot more to scapular stabibility than face pulls. Actually the most common and important thing would be serratus anterior activation. Some pushups (with a focus on scapular movement) would be more helpful in this regard.
For scapular retraction the program has rows. That is scapular retraction. A good assistance to train retraction, depression, and external rotation at the same time would be wall slides. But the first thing that needs to happen is people need to learn how to do rows properly.
Now my sig matches much better with do SS becasue "everybody knows" that it's great than it does with someone suggesting an alternative plan.
Anyway, I don't think SS needs to be periodized. May ass well go to an beginner/intermediate program. I would simply, before I washed my hands of SS and just recommend things to those whom I know more about, say that I see no need for people to squat three times a week. They can replace one squat session with either a single leg squat or front squats and a dedicatated PC movement. They can certainly do a three workout program rather than a two and get just as good a result. And that will give more flexiblity. I would suggest that one pressing session a week be replaced with dumbells and a slightly higer rep range at the same volume.
I would suggest that people don't listen to RIP about there being no need for flexiblity work or at least mobility work because some well placed mobility work can solve a lot of these problems a lot quicker, epecially if they are combined with appropriate strengthing (but I digress).
I would suggest that there is no need for a beginner to periodize during the week and that one simply needs to embrace the many different ways it is possible to progress on a linear basis. And when I say periodize I mean there is not need to periodize and individual exercise in terms of intensity. If a person wants to do lunges at 2x8 and a press at 3x8 on friday or whatever then they can certainly progress from week to week on a linear basis for that exercise.
I agree completley with you about people coming to the program with baggage. But you can't have your cake and eat it to. Everyone, regardless of experience comes to resistance work with at least some baggage. We start accumulating baggage especially as we reach and leave puberty. EVERYONE has ineffieciencies even if they've never touched a weight.
But you say it's a NOVICE program. Well rip defined novice by how a person can progress. What other criteria was given. By that definition either a person is a novice or they are not. Habits and ineffiencies are not part of the definition.
And yet a person COULD progress LIKE a NOVICE WHILE displaying those ineficiencies that are slowly destrying him. One of the biggest problems that come out of the commercial gym environments is people who's extremeties are stonger than their core. Someone who's "strength" is greater in some respects than his stabibility and control. And stabibility and control is strength in the long term. But in the short term someone can display strenth without control and stabibility. This is why you can see people hitting 315 to 350 on deads the first time they try but also see their back round over and all the load being taken by the spine and soft tissue. They use muscles, and the wrong ones, to force their passive tissues to do things they weren't to do. And the passive tissues can really shoulder a load but it's like you timing belt in your car....one day it's fine and the next day..POP.
This is a small part of what I'm getting at. What happens to someone as they become more advanced depends very much on the foundation they lay at the beginning. Just because you don't see everyone suffering problems in the short term doesn't mean they aren't picking up things and carrying them along that WILL come back to haunt them. And I am really just concerned with this community. I can only learn from the larger community I cannot change it much.
LOL, I'll be back later to continue this discussion. And Kane, you posted while I was writing so I wasn't ignoring you. I will also post more stuff on single legs and just why I make such a big deal about them. And Jeffo, this is just a discussion to me, anything I say, it's all to advance our disscussion and I WANT to be disagreed with, bro. When everyone one just agrees with everying I say, I don't have to challenge my mindset. So thank you very much for doing what you are doing as I think it is invaluble. And we don't completely disagree with what important