Get weekly training tips, real-world coaching insights, and strength strategies that actually work — from a Starting Strength Coach who walks the walk.
Why do you want it to feel easy?
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Reader, Why do you, as a lifter who desires to be strong, want your training to feel easy? To never feel strain? To never miss a rep? To cruise through every session and walk out feeling like you did something without actually doing anything? This shit is supposed to be hard. That's why way less than 1% of people actually do it. There's a weight range where most novice and intermidiate lifters stall: Squat: 255 – 315 Bench: 175 – 225 Press: 115 – 155 Deadlift: 315 – 365 A lot of factors contribute to stalling at these numbers, but here's what else happens in this range: the bar starts feeling genuinely heavy. You get beat up. You start questioning whether the program is working, whether you're recovering right, whether you're just not built for this. Distraction and The Resistance sets in. You think maybe running would be easier, and question if lifting consistently is worth it any more. That feeling means something is working. The guys who interpret it as a problem are the ones who quit, reset, switch programs, switch coaches, back off and convince themselves they're being smart. Then they spend the next year at the same weights wondering why they're not getting stronger. The guys who push through this range and stay focused are the ones who end up strong. If you're in this window and struggling, that's exactly where I do my best work. My clients don't get to quit on the hard part. They get coached through it. If that sounds like what you need, apply below. Bust That Plateau With Me |
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,...