Get weekly training tips, real-world coaching insights, and strength strategies that actually work — from a Starting Strength Coach who walks the walk.
Push Your Strength Higher Than You Think You Need – It’ll Pay Off for Life
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Hey Reader Lifters should strive to push their strength higher than they think they need at least once in their life. Here’s why: it solves a real problem down the road. A lot of guys set their sights on what I call Standards 1.0:
That’s a solid base. Respect to anyone who hits those numbers. But life happens: sickness, injury, work demands, family stuff, or just a long break from training. Your strength can drop fast. Your “floor” can easily fall below that 225 squat or 315 deadlift. Suddenly, you’re back to feeling average (or worse), and it takes months to claw your way back. Now imagine gunning for Standards 2.0 instead:
Maybe you fall a little short on one or two, who cares? The point is you’ve built a REAL BIG BASE of strength. Even if life forces a step away, you’ll never fall all the way back to beginner levels again. From that point forward, your floor is Standards 1.0 or better. That higher initial push raises your lifelong strength floor. It shows up everywhere: moving heavy stuff without thinking twice, playing with your kids, handling physical demands at work, packing an elk off a mountain, or just the general boost in confidence of being a physical strong version of yourself. The guys who push to these higher numbers get resilient. If you’re ready to build that base without about losing everything the next time life gets in the way, I can help. In my coaching program, I make the decisions and guide you every step of the way so you don’t have to. No more second-guessing programs without getting a thorough explanation, wondering if you’re progressing correctly, or wasting time. I handle the planning, adjustments, form checks, recovery tweaks, and programming strategy. It's specifically tailored to you as a lifter so you can just show up, train hard, and get strong. We focus on smart, sustainable strength gains that will help you hit (and exceed) those big numbers while locking in your foundation. Head over and fill out my Coaching Application here to get started. Let’s chat about getting you to that next level, and building a higher floor for good. Talk soon, Sam Krapf, SSC |
Sam Krapf
Get weekly training tips, real-world coaching insights, and strength strategies that actually work — from a Starting Strength Coach who walks the walk.
Reader, Stringing together week after week, month after month, year after year of consistent, effective, well executed training is where the magic happens. You do that long enough and you wake up one day annd weights that used to staple you to the floor are now just warm ups. You've mutated. I want to walk through what that actually looks like for a real client, because the timeline matters here. A guy in his 50s trained with me about 10 months on NLP and into intermediate programming,...
ReaderMost everything I do for my clients is information you can get for free in about 20 minutes of searching. The Novice Linear Progression aint a secret. You can buy the Blue Book for like $20 on Amazon. Squat, press, deadlift, bench, add weight every session. 3x5, sometimes 1x5 on deadlift. Eat more, sleep more, do it again Wednesday. That's the whole program, and I've even written extensive details and expansion on the programming stages through the phases for free that you probably...
Reader,A 56-year-old client just crossed 9 months of consistent training with me. Here's where he landed: Squat went from 225 to 325. Deadlift went from 185 to 370. That's 100 pounds on the squat and 185 on the deadlift, measured by 5-rep max. Massive 9 month 5RM progress by 56 year old client. The process was simple. We got his form locked in and standardized through video review first, ran a basic novice linear progression, transitioned through the NLP phases when the time came, then moved...