CCL Edition

Starting Strength Weekly Report

July 06, 2026

On Starting Strength

Action Movie Stars – Rip and John talk about their favorite action movie stars, behind the scenes production, and what makes an action movie work.
Goals 108: Short-Term Goals by Carl Raghavan – I hate short-term goals. Not because they’re useless, but because they are used badly. “12 weeks to a new you.” “Lose x kilos by summer.” “Add 20kg to your squat in 8 weeks.” That’s marketing slop...
Move the Bar Faster – Rusty demonstrates one of his favorite cues and explains why you need to move the bar faster.
The Bar Doesn't Lie. But it Doesn't Explain Either. by Doug Diller – Laying on the bench press my client was ready to hit 92.5 for a 1×3. She had hit 92.5 for 1×2 and then a single just 8 days before. So, a 1×3 seemed completely reasonable. After the lift off, the bar descended...
The Snatch-Grip Deadlift by Robert Santana & Mark Rippetoe – One of the common errors we see in a squat is the flexion of the thoracic spine out of the hole. In fact. In Active Hip 2.0, Rip stated “It has recently come to my attention that a relatively high percentage of people...
Weekend Archives: The Map of Athletic Performance by Rob Miller – Training is a confusing subject. Conflicting points of view have a way of making productive dialogues a rare event. For me as a dedicated rock climber, it’s been a slow process to understand this...
Weekend Archives: Why Are You Wasting Your Time in the Gym? by Mark Rippetoe – When you consult a medical person about exercise, the standard recommendation amounts to a prescription for a certain number of minutes per day or per week. The conventional wisdom equates “exercise” with “cardio”...

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Irma pulls 100 pounds at 86 years young to wrap up her 2nd month of training at Starting Strength Cincinnati. [photo courtesy of Chris Reis]

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Best of the Week

Uncontrolled squat descent?

dukegusgold

I have been lifting for about 3 months , I am 17 yrs old and weigh 275lbs at 5'11" . I competed at a powerlifting meet last week, while there my last squat attempt was a crazy grinder. I noticed that I basically just dropped down "uncontrolled" hit ATG then had a 3 second fight leaving the hole with 363 lbs. I then went over all my training tapes leading up to the meet and saw this common theme of verrrry low depth and generally getting molested by the bar at the bottom in heavy squats. What process should I follow to unfuck my squat?

Mark Rippetoe

Have you read the Blue Book?

Jenni

Dive bombing is a frequent rookie error. Rip's right, read the book if you haven't. In the mean time, stop letting gravity man-handle you and control the descent. Count if you have to, to keep a pace. The plop to the bottom sucks all your power out if you let it.

dukegusgold

Yes sir, I originally started with the correct form "by the book " if you will. Over time I started to drop into a deeper position and bounce more. To fix this should I go over the unloaded positions again and then add weight making sure I have the correct positions? Do I need to take a lot of weight off at first to not get sucked into doing what is "natural" now?

Mark Rippetoe

Jenni is right. You have developed a bad habit that must be corrected. Video all your sets and verify your descent speed every set.

Best of the Forum

WFAC Platforms

Strength18

How come WFAC platforms have rubber mat where you stand? Every other platform I've ever seen has wood down the middle.

Mark Rippetoe

Because ours are better than the ones you've seen.

Fulcrum

Its fun to ponder though when people advocating solid heeled shoes for lifting because something about 100% force transfer or something.

I remember reading a verbose shoe review where Adidas had some special machine that measures the minute forces lost, or deflection, of wood heeled shoes vs. thermo-molded-dense-plastic-something.

I don't think it really matters (rubber floor).

Mark Rippetoe

This rubber is perhaps 5% more compressible than wood.

FatButWeak

The cheapness, durability, ease of maintenance, traction/friction, and suitability for use in a gym where people move benches around and might drop drop plates, dumbbells, barbells and other shit on the floor make up for any compress-ability issue. You're being pedantic by pointing this out. Its not a competition platform. Its a place where people in a gym lift and train.

Mark Rippetoe

That's Fulcrum's job: find anything to point out, to disagree with, and then do so. We pay him a lot of money for this.

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