It’s precisely because the smith machine forces the movement through a single, unnatural vector that the magic you can get from an ancillary like the smith is so good. It’s a very different stimulus. This will cause you to build muscle and strength that you wouldn’t from a

This is well said. The smith machine lacks the natural constraint of needing to keep the system center of mass over the base of support, and for the user to control the bar path - that are inherent in heavily loaded lifting in a normal gravity based framework. This has both

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Do five reps. Add 5 pounds.

You vs The guy she says not to worry about

Making a blanket recommendation to find the lifts you connect with, that work for you, and hammer those-is like telling a blind man to color inside the lines. He has no frame of reference to even know what you’re talking about. Good advice for experienced lifters is often

This could be you after a few solid months of the novice linear progression + GOMAD.

Interesting bit of iron game and bench press history. It seems there’s some disagreement whether John McWilliams or Doug Hepburn was the first man to bench 400 - but once that barrier was crossed around 1950, it was off to the races.

Do five reps. Add five pounds.

One of the best decisions I made is to stop coaching people who are totally unwilling to need new clothes. No one who needs to LOSE a lot of weight thinks this way, they all accept they'll need a whole new wardrobe, possibly several times over if they're really overweight.

Apparently there’s yet another tedious debate on the timeline about whether time under tension or mechanical tension is a more important driver of hypertrophy. Just a reminder that the actual driver is testicular fortitude

Your grandfather could afford this setup in his basement on a factory job while his wife stayed home and took barbiturates. Today a two income household can barely afford a Rogue S1 squat stand, utility bench, basic bar and echo plates without going into debt.

When the 17-year-old front desk worker finally tracks you down in the parking lot after you walk out for the 43rd time with a protein shake saying, “put it on my tab,” but you don’t have a credit card on file

It happens that I totaled about 1800 despite a pec tear 2 months out of my last meet, and competing was always a far distant 2nd to coaching for me, a side hobby I indulged in here and there over the years. But this argument is so dumb on its face. Even if I had totaled 1300 I