Savs wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2017 6:25 amKyle, you've obviously thought about these things a lot more than I have, since training is your livelihood. However, I believe the reason most people quit is because it just doesn't matter (for most people). JHFA worded it beautifully, I think. It's not that people don't want to do hard things, that's such StSt bullshit.
Yes and no. To be clear: it's effort vs reward. "It just doesn't matter" means that
for that person the reward isn't great enough to be worth the effort. So in that sense you are right. But I think there's something more to it.
The point of physical training is to impose a stress on the system sufficient that the system adapts so that it's no longer a stress. If doing 10 pushups is a stress for someone, their body adapts so they can do 12 - it's not that the body wants to do 12, it just doesn't want 10 to be a stress. If we keep doing the same thing, there's no stress; if we progress the effort, there's stress. That feeling of "it's hard" is our body telling us, "this is a stress to which I will have to adapt so that it's no longer a stress.
I think we have an instinctive aversion to stress. A way back there was a British documentary series, "The Human Body" or something, it was called. Funny-looking guy, big bushy moustached, ruff of curly black hair, thick glasses. Anyway, he laid out this long string on the Serengeti plain for like a kilometre or something, and said, "for 100,000 years of human history, wanting to eat sugary fatty foods was a survival trait, for this bit of human history" - he pinched off a bit of string, "it's not." We have an instinct to want sugary fatty foods because back in caveman days when we got a gazelle every two weeks, there were two genetic traits.
Mr "I'll just have the salad." Didn't eat much, great abs, chicks all dug him. Then Mr "I'll eat the whole fucking thing, hoofs and brains, too." He was a bit pudgy, the chicks didn't dig him much. But then one time it wasn't two weeks between gazelles, it was six weeks. Mr Salad died, Mr Glutton didn't. The chicks preferred Mr Salad, but they couldn't fuck him and have babies with him because he was dead. Mr Glutton wasn't that attractive, but he was the only one left and a woman has needs, so he scored. Thus, gluttonous genes were passed on. This is why we like sugary fatty foods.
I believe it's similar with stressing our system. Ms Lazy under the tree was a slob and the guys didn't like her. Ms Action Girl liked running up hills and jumping and climbing trees and stuff. She had long, muscular legs and a perky butt, the guys loved her. But... one day Ms Action Girl runs up a hill and breaks her ankle. In the Stone Age that's a death sentence. So she dies, and doesn't pass on her Action Girl genes. Ms Lazy Slob ain't that hot, but you gotta do what you gotta do, boys, and beauty increases the further you take the cavegirl from the firelight.
If we didn't have an aversion to stressing our systems, we'd constantly injure ourselves. So we have a genetically-derived aversion to stress.
Of course, as humans we have something else - our reason. We can do hard things because we decide to do them. Gym, uni, getting married, whatever. But this takes willpower.
This has never been explained to my satisfaction. What's a base? Why not immediately do things to accomplish the goals most people want to achieve? Why try to convince them their goals are wrong and they should instead do powerlifting?
A "strength base" to my mind is getting through your novice linear progression - however far it takes you individually - and going to intermediate. Exactly how far along will depend on individuals and their goals - as I've said, you don't need to deadlift 405lbs for your health, but you might need to if you play rugby.
Gyms are full of people who have not developed that base, and who go straight to their other goals - and don't accomplish them. The vast majority of people in gyms are just spinning their wheels. Whatever other goals you have, they will be easier to accomplish if you have a base of strength. What is lacking in physical training is a systematic movement education. "First do this, then that." My son is in his first year of school - he's not doing times tables, he has to do counting first, then addition, and so on.
Dan John talks a lot about this, since his background is in coaching high school kids. And he believes in a different approach to SS, with things like going from planks to pushups to barbell bench press and so on; "when you can do this to our standard, then you can do that." This is present in SS as well - you deadlift for some weeks before doing a powerclean, ie you learn to do a slow hip hinge, and when you can do that decently you can try a fast hip hinge.
Fundamentally DJ and Rip have the same principles of a systematic education in lifting, the difference is simply that, as Rip has written, he was trying to catch new gym members "in their initial four workout window of attention before they quit", while DJ had the kids for four years, since school is compulsory. So Rip hurries things along.
But the principles are the same: "If you can do this, then you can do that." A systematic movement education. That's what's lacking in the general population and in gyms.
SS and similar approaches are not powerlifting,which is a competitive sport, they just happen to use many of the same tools. SS's purpose is cunningly hidden in its title: starting
strength. It's not "starting powerlifting total." There are differences, for example arching in the bench - strength for everyday life and non-PL sports is not optimally developed with a posture you can only have after a 30 second setup on a bench with someone handing the bar off to you. So how we perform the bench for strength, and how we perform it to put the biggest numbers on the board, are different. And there are many other differences, too.
So I'm not trying to convince anyone to do powerlifting. I'm trying to convince them that physical training can change how you look, feel (health) and perform. Most people put looks first, performance second, and health dead last, which is why gyms are advertised with shirtless pics of people snatching a big weight, and not with their blood test results from their doctor. Putting looks over health is how people develop eating disorders, putting performance over health is how they keep injuring themselves to improve their Fran time.
I would reverse the priorities, putting health first, then performance, and looks last. And most people need to develop a base of strength to improve their health, bearing in mind that health is more than the absence of sickness, just as a good marriage is more than the absence of domestic violence.
. He says it right here! 
