Coops Glowing Review of SSOC - he used to play ice hockey, the real reason for his strength imo

[mettkeks]

Did he get actually stronger, or did he just get better at the lifts through practice? He said he always did high volume stuff, his squat max before was a grinder with terrible form, but he could dump it FORWARD, OVER HIS HEAD! His deadlift didn't move much, probably because he pulled like 5 reps a week? For all we know, he did lower volume and higher intensity with SSOC.

[mbasic]

Can't wait to see his review of the York SS Rack and the wood bench.

[bobmen10000]

Did he get actually stronger, or did he just get better at the lifts through practice? He said he always did high volume stuff, his squat max before was a grinder with terrible form, but he could dump it FORWARD, OVER HIS HEAD! His deadlift didn't move much, probably because he pulled like 5 reps a week? For all we know, he did lower volume and higher intensity with SSOC.

His bench moved up nearly 10%, OHP showed a 10% to 12% improvement and his squat move up about 10%. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his deadlift would have moved more than 3 lbs had he tested it on a seperate day. But even including the deadlift stagnation, his lifts improved something like 7 to 8 % overall (math may be fuzzy here because math(I am) is dumb).

He specifically mentions doing less volume, higher intensity is likely as well. I mean, he obviously got stronger over 3 months but it is impossible to say how much were sheer strength gains and what was by virtue of form improvements in displaying strength via the 4 tested lifts.

He was very strong before SSOC at 175 lbs with a: 415+ Squat; 300 bench; and 515 deadlift. Very good numbers, particularly for someone not training specifically to be a powerlifter - i.e. focusing on the big 3 lifts. It is true however that after gaining twenty five pounds, Coops wilks score did go down.

[mgil]

Gained ~10% on his lifts or less while gaining about 12% body weight.

After listening to his review and the concept that he was doing high volume previously, it does sound like the LP was functioning as a peak/transmutation phase.

[mettkeks]

Did he get actually stronger, or did he just get better at the lifts through practice? He said he always did high volume stuff, his squat max before was a grinder with terrible form, but he could dump it FORWARD, OVER HIS HEAD! His deadlift didn't move much, probably because he pulled like 5 reps a week? For all we know, he did lower volume and higher intensity with SSOC.

His bench moved up nearly 10%, OHP showed a 10% to 12% improvement and his squat move up about 10%. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his deadlift would have moved more than 3 lbs had he tested it on a seperate day. But even including the deadlift stagnation, his lifts improved something like 7 to 8 % overall (math may be fuzzy here because math(I am) is dumb).

He specifically mentions doing less volume, higher intensity is likely as well. I mean, he obviously got stronger over 3 months but it is impossible to say how much were sheer strength gains and what was by virtue of form improvements in displaying strength via the 4 tested lifts.

He was very strong before SSOC at 175 lbs with a: 415+ Squat; 300 bench; and 515 deadlift. Very good numbers, particularly for someone not training specifically to be a powerlifter - i.e. focusing on the big 3 lifts. It is true however that after gaining twenty five pounds, Coops wilks score did go down.

Summary: Has athletic backround, did high volume training, had low proficiency with the lifts, numbers went up after getting better at the lifts and peaking intensity, Wilks went down. The next 6 months would have been more interesting.

Not trying to shit-talk! But it's definitely not what SS is going to make out of this in the future.

Gained ~10% on his lifts or less while gaining about 12% body weight.

After listening to his review and the concept that he was doing high volume previously, it does sound like the LP was functioning as a peak/transmutation phase.

You beat me to it.

[michael]

It's kinda bullshit to claim a twelve week program is just a peaking program. Peaks are like three weeks. The internet invented the idea that SS is just a peaking program.

[ohlol]

Where was it ever indicated that he did LP? The coach may have given him other programming, no?

[Sloop]

It's kinda bullshit to claim a twelve week program is just a peaking program. Peaks are like three weeks. The internet invented the idea that SS is just a peaking program.

Agreed. The dude made legitimate gains on lifts that had stagnated/regressed for years as an advanced lifter without becoming a fat slob. To suggest he's now peaking after years of volume is a major stretch.

[ChasingCurls69]

It's kinda bullshit to claim a twelve week program is just a peaking program. Peaks are like three weeks. The internet invented the idea that SS is just a peaking program.

Fully agree with this. You're not peaking that long and not staying peaked that long. It's basically an Exodus meme at this point. You're also probably not peaking with fahve at 86% e1rm.

[bobmen10000]

The only caveat to - to me at least- for all of this is the lack of deadlift gains. Coop claims it is his best lift. So, provided that is true, either he was too tired to properly test an E1RM (which I think is most likely) or the deadlift did not show any real progress on the SSOC programming. If that latter is true, most of his strength gains could be attributed to cleaning up form/refining technique and gaining mass. The deadlift - to my limited knowledge - likely would benefit the least from a 12% weight gain over 3 months.

[mettkeks]

He started at 265x5x3, trained less and ate more. Thats less than 65% 1RM. Add 5 lbs every workout with the last month advanced novice and the numbers add up. He also didn't say he didn't do LP.
So, my guess: 1st month deload, cleaned up form, 2nd month, accumulated volume at 75-80% and 3rd month peaked his 5s. Probably didn't DL much to make room for all the squatting. The next 6 months would have been more interesting, as I said.

@michael Just because it isn't intentional doesn't mean it doesn't have the same effect. In his situation it likely had that effect.

It's kinda bullshit to claim a twelve week program is just a peaking program. Peaks are like three weeks. The internet invented the idea that SS is just a peaking program.

Fully agree with this. You're not peaking that long and not staying peaked that long. It's basically an Exodus meme at this point. You're also probably not peaking with fahve at 86% e1rm.

You can retain muscle mass and strength up to 32 weeks with about 1/3rd of your normal volume on maintenance calories.

[mgil]

It's kinda bullshit to claim a twelve week program is just a peaking program. Peaks are like three weeks. The internet invented the idea that SS is just a peaking program.

Peaking and some sort of transmutation/transitional phase is what I wrote. Not simply a peak.

Thinking about it more, it was really an accumulation block and very similar to the gentleman Karl took on that had a 415x5 squat, reset him to 265x5, and ran LP up to 495x5. For Coop, I’d expect that they went from 265x5 to around 405x5 (465x0.85).

When “DTFP” for 12 weeks, the total added to the bar should be around 180lbs. Since Coop wasn’t squatting 440x5 at the end, I’ll assume they went to advanced novice around 6 weeks. That takes 30lbs off the loading increases and puts the estimates in line. There was possibly a “test day” protocol for week 12, so I imagine that it could be regular LP on Monday, light day on Wednesday with a possible OHP test, and then test SBD on Friday. A mini-peak, if you will. If I were selling programming that had a 12 week introductory phase, I’d do the same.

Regardless, it’s not secret sauce programming. It’s the convincing of the dude to eat lots more, not do cardio, and focus all recovery on training that netted a 12% gain in strength over 12 weeks. I do think that similar gains could be made without as many compromises in other areas, like conditioning.

[KyleSchuant]

I do think that similar gains could be made without as many compromises in other areas, like conditioning.

Contact him, programme for him, then he can do a review of it.

[CoconutChris]

I do think it’s interesting to show that SS level volume worked for somebody of Cooper’s training level. I don’t think it was worth the 25 lbs of mostly fat.

His previous 415 PR in the video was high bar, right? I didn’t watch closely, but have never seen someone dump low bar over their head. Switching to low bar and getting proficient at it could be worth 5% on his max squat, even though his mechanics are not perfect.

[SeanHerbison]

I don’t think it was worth the 25 lbs of mostly fat.

I didn't see any shirtless pics, so what is there to indicate it was mostly fat? I'm not claiming the opposite, but I don't see the data.

I didn’t watch closely, but have never seen someone dump low bar over their head.

I've seen it. Pretty sure I've done it myself, come to think of it.

[mettkeks]

I didn’t watch closely, but have never seen someone dump low bar over their head.

Right? RIGHT???

I've seen it. Pretty sure I've done it myself, come to think of it.

You're ä freak, bro.

After a 1RM grind?

[michael]

How many advanced trainees need to have success rerunning LP before we admit it works? I've seen two and the story changed from its stupid to it's an obvious accumulation block tans mutation blah blah blah.

[CoconutChris]

I don’t think it was worth the 25 lbs of mostly fat.

I didn't see any shirtless pics, so what is there to indicate it was mostly fat? I'm not claiming the opposite, but I don't see the data.

The inference is my own, largely from deduction and cynicism:

0) To me "mostly fat" means 60 - 80% of weight gained is non-lean muscle mass. Others may have different guidelines.
1) Beyond novice stage or introduction to anabolic substances, it's pretty rare to see more than 2-3 lbs / mo of muscle gained. (My recollection from Nuckols, McDonald, etc.)
1.5) Unless he was dieting before, my understanding is that depleted glycogen stores / dehydration should not have contributed much to 25 lbs. of weight gain.
2) I don't know how tall Cooper is, but from appearance on video, I'd guess somewhere between 5'9 - 6'0.
3) People in that height range who are 200 lbs, and legitimately have a lot of muscle mass (i.e. Jordan, Austin) are 12 - 15% bodyfat. At 200 lbs, he has comparatively mild muscle definition.
4) I am similar to Cooper in build, body size, and lifts. I had a similar progression of 180 lbs -> 200 lbs with similar increases in my squat + presses, and the main dimensional difference is my waistline and neck circumference grew. Caveat - my equivalent transformation was more so over 1.5 years.
5) Following 3 & 4, there is a big difference between me and Jordan IRL, so I am assuming the same would apply for Cooper.
6) SS LP amounts to significantly less volume than most intermediate & advanced strength programs, so I am skeptical that his hypertrophy response would be robust.

None of this is to say that Cooper did a poor job or wasn't diligent, I think the opposite. But it's unclear that he would have gained less muscle, had he limited the weight gained to 10-15 lbs.

I didn’t watch closely, but have never seen someone dump low bar over their head.[/
I've seen it. Pretty sure I've done it myself, come to think of it.

You have done many impressive things. I have also heard of people squatting low-bar with no hands, but have yet to see it.

[mgil]

I do think that similar gains could be made without as many compromises in other areas, like conditioning.

Contact him, programme for him, then he can do a review of it.

Don’t be silly. You know I have nothing to offer him in terms of social media reach. Reynolds promoted him on BBL and SSOC outlets, hence my earlier quid pro quo statement.

I’ve programmed for a 72kg female casual lifter who went from Xfit mainsite programming to holding the state record in DL and push/pull (180kg DL and 70kg BP) in 8 weeks. Her total went up about 40kg over that time. She didn’t gain weight. She also kept up her bicycling and running.

Helped some folks from work get significantly stronger also. Almost always in the context of not gaining weight or gaining slowly. I haven’t told anyone to stop cardio. I do admit to starting some on vanilla LP.

I’ve also done all of this programming for free. Mainly because I’ve been learning all the while and not doing anything sophisticated.

We see his squat before and after. One is high bar and the other low bar. SSOC coaching got his low bar in order and he made nearly a 15% gain.

His OHP was also a solid gain. Part of that could be form (I don’t recall a clip of “before”) cleanup, but I suspect treating it with the same focus as Bench was key. Most folks don’t train OHP as a main lift.

BP went up less than 10%. This was probably a little off because of the likely decrease in frequency.

As mentioned above DL didn’t move much at all.

[mgil]

How many advanced trainees need to have success rerunning LP before we admit it works? I've seen two and the story changed from its stupid to it's an obvious accumulation block tans mutation blah blah blah.

Are you going to reset and run LP again?