The Coaches’ Coach
Today's Workout
Find your max height box jump
Then
"1/2 Cindy"
As many rounds as possible in 10 minutes of:
5 pull-ups
10 push-ups
15 air squats
You may have been reading the articles and quotes this week and been thinking to yourself "Who is Mark Rippetoe?" Mark Rippetoe is the owner of Wichita Falls Athletic Club and the author of Starting Strength and several other awesome books. Basically Mark Rippetoe is the Chuck Norris of the Barbell world. He is one of the best strength coaches around and has a great ability to simplify complex motions so that they can be taught to the untrained masses.
To help you understand the Chuck Norris reference here are a few of my favorite Rippetoe quotes:
"Poor form in the gym is usually caused by insufficient yelling"
"You are right to be wary. There is much bullshit. Be wary of me too, because I may be wrong. Make up your own mind after you evaluate all the evidence and the logic."
"Anyone who says that full squats are 'bad for the knees' has, with that statement, demonstrated conclusively that they are not entitled to an opinion about the matter. People who know nothing about a topic, especially a very technical one that requires specific training, knowledge, and experience, are not due an opinion about the topic and are better served by being quiet when it is asked about or discussed. For example, when brain surgery, or string theory, of the NFL draft, or women's dress sizes, or white wine is being discussed, I remain quiet, odd though that may seem. But seldom is this the case when orthopedic surgeons, athletic trainers, physical therapists, or nurses are asked about full squats."
In response to a guy who had some life problems lately and was afraid of sounding like a "pussy": "You don't sound like a pussy at all. You sound like a normal human being, just like me, who thankfully has a barbell to keep him sane when things get shitty…and realizes that one workout out of thousands does not affect your overall progress. Training is a process, not the events of one day"
"Women who claim to be afraid to train hard because they 'always bulk up too much' are often already pretty bulky, or 'skinny fat' (thin but weak and de-conditioned) and have found another excuse to continue life sitting on their butts."
"If you squat wrong it fucks things up. If you squat correctly, those same fucked up things will unfuck themselves"
"There are few things graven in stone, except that you have to squat or you're a pussy"
"The deadlift is more functional in that it's very hard to imagine a more useful application of strength than picking heavy shit up off the ground."
"The interesting thing is that everybody really already knows this, because there are few examples in life that don’t follow the basic rules of the universe, the ones that dictate the behavior of everything. One of the most basic of those rules is that, with the exception of the occasional lottery winner, you pretty much get out of an effort what you put into it. We’re all quite familiar with this reality, although we are often willing to believe people who tell us otherwise, about exercise and about life. The sooner everybody—both halves of the population—accepts the fact that effective exercise is more like training for athletics and less like lying around on the floor, more about performance and less about appearance, the sooner it will be understood that women really don’t need their own figure salon."
"Accumulating injuries are the price we pay for the thrill of not having sat around on our asses."
Read more Rippetoeisms here
