u/sofetchsogretch

In the world of securities trading, when a stock experiences a sharp decline in value, we call it a falling knife.

When a trader attempts to time the market by buying that stock on the way down, hoping to turn a quick profit when the price rebounds, we call that catching the knife. If you're buying on the way down, there's a pretty good chance you're going to get cut.

From a market perspective, unlike an actual dropped knife, there's no price floor to stop the fall. The price keeps falling until buyers are willing to intervene.

That means someone has to be willing to get cut before the decline can stop.

This week, my workouts felt like catching the knife.

I just started the program, also just started lifting weights in general as I want to improve myself from living a sedentary lifestyle. 27M, 135 lbs.

I have the book, read thru most of it besides like power clean and the 1st part of programming. Wanted to start working out and just read thru the squat, press, deadlift, and bench press.

On this day, I was doing:
- 90x3x5 squats (or maybe 100 coz gym said squat bars were 55)
- 45x1x5, 50x1x3 Overhead Press (failed this one miserably)
- 135x1x5 Deadlifts

I don’t think I’m reaching depth on my squats, so I’m wondering if I should continue increasing weight or reduce it to get my form better and how much should i reduce the weight? Also, having problems with wrist and elbow flexibility

And for my Press, I just need advice on it because the bar itself seems to be already overwhelming. What can I do to work on it? Dumbbells?

Might be awhile before i buy actual weightlifting shoes, have to save up a little so I’m making due with my converse

Edit: added note on wrist and elbow flexibility during squats

For context, I am a 21 y/o male, and I’ve been training in different capacities since I was 14.

Height: 5’8

Weight: 170 pounds

Squat 1RM: 415

Bench 1RM: 300

Deadlift: 385 (I know this is weird. I’ve only been deadlifting for a few months now, so technique is definitely a limiting factor here)

Press 1RM: 175

My question is pretty simple, is it too late for me to run the novice LP? If so, what should I do instead? Any advice is appreciated.

Worked on my barbell position to get it down below the spine of the scapula. Widening my grip as suggested helped get my posterior delts to hold the bar.

55 years old, 5'11", 180lbs

175lbs 3 x 5 (Video is set number 2).

Thanks for the feedback last week.

TL:DR Sorry for the long rambling post. But just an older guy here being a wimp and trying to see if I stay the course or move to phase 2. 

About me I'm 55, weigh about 215 and also do BJJ. Currently while back on SS only going two times a week to not affect SS too much. 

Ultimately I realize probably the answer is I'm not doing the program, but still wouldn't mind getting some thoughts. My sleep is crap and with work and issues sleeping I get 6 - 6.5 during the week and I can sometimes force myself to stay in bed to get over 7 hours and almost 8 on the weekends. Also not the best still. 

Somehow I can still somewhat recover and I haven't actually stalled. But my deadlift is as high as even when I was in my 40's. Only at 290 per last workout and Squat much lower at 210. So still pedestrian numbers all things considered. 

But I'm starting to really have to muster everything I have to not skip a workout and have a hard workout session.

I can't tell if I'm just lazy and want to go to phase 2. I'm also eager to work on power cleans. 

In Practical Programming in the older lifter section. It did mention how doing the Monday workout is usually the best after a two day rest and I really felt that this week. 

So I was mulling over 3 options in my head:

1. Go to phase 2 so I can start playing with some power cleans. 

2. Try the suggestion routing for the older lifter in PP where it says you do a workout every 2 days. That would give me about 121 workouts a year vs 156. That's not much less and I'm in no hurry and have no aspirations other than to get stronger and healthier. 

3. Stop being a wimp and maybe just go 2.5 jumps on deadlift and squats?

And somehow figure out how to sleep better but realistically going to be an ongoing issue. 

Thanks all in advance

I’ve gotten my deadlift up to 405x3 for the last couple of weeks. I haven’t progressed the weight as the 4 plates was my goal, but I want to continue on now.

I can see that Scott’s smooth NLP article says the progression for the Deadlift and Rack Pull are 1x5, 2x3, 3x2, 5x1, but when I read here on the subreddit it seems like the general advice is that once 1x5 gets difficult to reach the next progression step is doing rack pulls. I just really like doing deadlifts, so I’d rather do them for as long as possible.

Would it make more sense to follow Scott’s advice or am I just gonna dig myself into a recovery hole eventually?