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Comment by oarfish | Hacker News Reader

Your experience is surely valid, but I wouldn't just generalize this to the population at large.

When you say "powerlifters", are those people who compete or just people who train? I can imagine this to make a difference.

And in any case, I wouldn't take Rippetoe as an example of good scientific programming these days. It's good for getting people into lifting, but Starting Strength has a powerlifting fetish for no good reason, and the advice to aggressively gain weight is also not appropriate for everyone (GOMAD etc.). Then recently I saw a Starting Strength video in which they claimed that the really grindy reps at the end of the set are the ones that make all the difference (for strength anyway), which as far as I'm aware is false and probably harmful, as you can do way more training volume with less risk of injury (I would expect) if you keep some reps away from failure.

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> and the advice to aggressively gain weight is also not appropriate for everyone (GOMAD etc.).

Yeah, don't do GOMAD unless you're a 17-year-old teenage boy with a BMI of 18.5 who wants to be a linebacker or something. Some of the Starting Strength advice is... very situational, to put it politely as possible.

Their coaching certification, however, means more than 95% of the "personal trainer" certifications you'll see in the average gym.

> When you say "powerlifters", are those people who compete or just people who train? I can imagine this to make a difference.

The oldest powerlifer I knew well who wasn't dealing with chronic injuries was a 40-year-old women's masters competitor. She competed around 135 or 139 lbs bodyweight, I think? She was absolutely a beast, with near flawless form and an excellent coaching eye.

Besides her? Almost every other long-term powerlifter I met was nursing some injury. But what really stood out to me was the absence of old powerlifters in my local gyms. There were old lifters in amazing shape. But none of them were grinding out the really heavy squats and deadlifts.

But don't take my word for it. All I'm recommending is that when new powerlifters max out their newbie gains, they take a good hard look around their local gym, and see who has decades of happy lifting under their belt. Ask those folks about their training plans and injury histories and PED use. You may see different patterns than I did. But for lifelong fitness, avoiding chronic injuries is everything.

It’s a very interesting shift in fitness culture as you age. In my teens and twenties I was adoring people like Ronnie Coleman and thinking that’s the life. Now I see him in clips often in a wheelchair - still with a great attitude but obviously not healthy.

Seems like in your 30s you start to realize the limits and tradeoffs and by your 40s most have accepted that longevity is the main goal - if it’s not too late and they destroyed a knee or back or something else.

How does one know when newbie gains are maxed out? I mostly do calisthenics because I actually got into working out because it was part of injury-recovery. I'm enjoying my gains and would like to push myself to get bigger gains, but lifelong fitness maintenance has always been #1 in my mind. I'd like to figure out how to identify what the "maximum maintenance point" is.

This depends on lift frequency, the lift itself, etc.

In general, for a compound lift (squat/bench/deadlift/overhead press) most would consider newbie gains exhausted once you can no longer linearly add weight/reps on a weekly basis (assuming a normal weekly schedule). This is the point when various forms of periodization (waving weight/reps/frequency up/down in many possible ways) need to start to support the increase of weight/reps over time.

> most would consider newbie gains exhausted once you can no longer linearly add weight/reps on a weekly basis

This is likely to happen after about 3 months.

I don't really agree that the kind of weights you can achieve after 3 months pose a meaningfully elevated injury risk, unless your form is terrible or you have some existing condition.

I can review myself in ekidd's experience. I've been in the gym for 20 years and plenty of stronger (but not competitive) people I know picked up injuries from grinding out tough sets of 5 or 3. Heck I have two abdominal hernias and a 'sensitive' back that gives me problems from time to time that I can directly blame deadlift PRs for, even with great technique.

The gym is generally a safe hobby, but scientific bodybuilding, with its large sets, slow eccentrics and focus on the stretch is definitely the safest way to lift for longevity.

Do you have a good source or book (preferably) to start learning more about scientific body building?

Look up Renaissance Periodisation's stuff, they do a great job of explaining this approach.

Layne Norton is another if you want more of a natty point of view (IFBB pro). Mike is very enjoyable but I do find his advice often leans toward enhanced people and might not be the best for natties

Since when do "natty" and "IFBB pro" go in the same sentence?

Oh sorry not IFBB - not sure where that popped into my head

About grinding reps, I look to the example of Lasha Talakhadze, arguably the strongest weightlifter ever. Of all the clips I've seen of him training I don't think I've ever once seen him grind a rep. It's always submaximal(though huge by normal standards) weights done at such high speed it looks easy.

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