Show HN: Simple Strength Club | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Simple Strength Club

simplestrengthclub.com

7 pointstylerscott5 comments

Hey folks! Happy Sunday. Hope everyone is doing great.

I made SSC to see if we could get an alternative to the traditional strength sporting organization. We have been using the same model for decades--top down, typically federated organizations.

SSC places power in the hands of its members. Members can alter the rules of the lifts. They are also the judges of lifts.

SSC is asynchronous by default--i.e., no need for colocated competitions (great in times of pandemics!).

Anyhow, I would love any feedback if you have the time.

Thanks! -Tyler

I'm not a lifter (nor do I compete in anything), but it's a persuasive video none the less!

Thanks for the kind words! Have a good one.

The video doesn’t explain what they do. But the man in the video looks pretty jacked and I agree with the initial thesis: these federations suck.

My experience is with IPF. Expensive meets. Stupid squat rack. Lots of lame C-suite dramas and litigation (see Wilkes v IPF). The equipment rules seemingly designed mostly to extort fees from manufacturers. The only good thing is having external judging of my squats, but heck, I can video myself and see if the squat is good or not. I decided IPF wasn’t worth the money and I could peak better around my own schedule than their meet schedules.

Thanks so much for the feedback! I will make sure to add more explanation of how it works to the video or at least have more text on the landing page. I feel as though I am terrible at both video and written content, so I tend to procrastinate or produce the minimum amount required.

It seems like alot of us have had less than stellar experiences with traditional federations. SSC is my attempt at solving for the lack of value we've come to expect when we participate.

It comes down to why do we join a federation? There are a ton of reasons, but the two most salient in my personal experience are to win (or set records) and to engage with a community of like minded people to motivate myself to push more. Over the years, I have come to value the community aspect far more than winning.

Due to SSC being all judged via video, we will never have the rigor that a typical contest has--i.e., we cannot be assured the weight declared is the weight lifted.

My hypothesis is that 1) people rarely will do this considering they have paid to belong 2) the main attraction won't be your name atop a leaderboard rather it will be the interactions you have with the community (my experience).

That's my hope, anyhow. The space SSC occupies is somewhere between social network and traditional federation with a bias away from all the bs baked into the former.

RE: peaking. I have a feature idea whereby a member can "throw down a gauntlet" that would create a window for folks to submit lifts. For example, you could pick when is most convenient for you to peak and then create your own gauntlet to get some motivation when others sign up to join you. You all get your lifts in by the deadline and we can do a retrospective on it.

Thanks again for the feedback and have a great day!

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