Get weekly training tips, real-world coaching insights, and strength strategies that actually work — from a Starting Strength Coach who walks the walk.
Two years stuck. 6 months to fix it. Great Success.
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Reader, He read Starting Strength cover to cover, watched all the form videos, and set up his phone at every angle trying to figure out what he was doing wrong. But his his squat was a mess. The bar position was wrong his wrists hurt constantly, his elbows flared up, and every rep felt awkward. And the worst part? His numbers were stuck. He'd add weight, miss reps, deload, grind back up, and hit the same wall again. Meanwhile his tendons were screaming. Tendonitis kept flaring up in his elbows and wrists. He'd hurt after every session and thought maybe he just wasn't built for this. Maybe low-bar squatting wasn't for him. Worst of all, it impacted the rest of his training. Remember - your squat is supposed to drive the ship, but if all it is doing is wrecking your elbows and shoulders and you haven't been able to go heavy enough on it to make progress, you are in for a bad time. So he saw one of my posts on Twitter and decided to reach out. We got on a consult call, and he decided to get started. On his onboard call we went over his his lift videos. I watched his squat for about 10 seconds and saw exactly what was happening. His bar position was too high. He was trying to low-bar squat but the bar was sitting in a high-bar position, which is why it kept sliding. His grip was destroying his wrists because he was trying to hold the bar up with his hands instead of creating a shelf with his back. And his hip drive timing was off. He was shooting his hips back too early, which killed his depth and made everything harder than it needed to be. We fixed all three in the first week. Bar position corrected, grip adjusted, hip drive timed properly. His tendonitis started clearing up within days, his squat depth improved immediately, and his numbers started moving again. Because his squat felt better, the rest of his lifts started tracking up. Here's what happened. Here is his mutation. Same guy in the same garage. But he's got bigger shoulders, arms, and a bigger back after about 6 months of training. Matt made more progress in those 6 months than he did in the previous 2 years combined. He just needed someone who could see what he couldn't see. Here's what Matt said about it: "I couldn't low-bar squat properly before working with Sam. That was probably the biggest technique jump I made. Numbers started improving pretty quickly after we got the form figured out." If you're stuck like Matt was, you need expert eyes on your training. You can't diagnose what you can't see. That's what coaching does. I watch your lifts, I tell you exactly what's wrong, we fix it, and your numbers start moving again. Custom programming, daily form checks, smart adjustments when injuries flare up. If you're ready to stop guessing, apply here: https://coaching.gzstrength.com – Sam Krapf, SSC Starting Strength Coach Ground Zero Strength |
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,Let's talk about Dan.Dan is 44, a father of three, and has been working with me for about eight months. He came in at 158 pounds with fused vertebrae in his back. Playing with his kids or throwing them around the house could leave him laid up for several days afterward if he wasn't careful We made the modifications he needed, found the Key Performance Lifts he could train effectively, and focused on steady progress over time. He’s now 171 pounds and considerably stronger. On a recent...
Reader, Details matters. Take the 5 Step Deadlift setup. Telling someone to "put the bar against the shins" sounds fine until you watch what they do with it. The bar ends up shoved forward or dragged back, their hips end up too low as they squat to it, and it ends up nowhere near where it belongs directly over the middle of the foot. Compare that to "the bar starts directly over the middle of the foot, about 1 inch from vertical shins." Now the lifter knows the exact spot to set up so the bar...
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,...