Swift Sunrise Edition – Starting Strength Weekly Report January 20, 2025

Yngvi

Very helpful article for coaching the Olympic lifts.

Gymmoser1

One of Bill Starr’s greatest articles.

It simply amazes me that Rip and I are probably the only two coaches in America who recognize the fact that Getting strong is the most important component in Olympic Weightlifting. I have coached literally thousands of kids under 14 years of age. In every case the stronger the athlete the better their technique becomes. If you want to get good at lifting light weights, lift light weights. The only way to get good at lifting heavy weights is to lift heavy weights often. Clip is 9 year old Traison setting a PR in the snatch. He deadlifts 180 pounds.

Lost and Found

Things must be changing a little over the past 12 years based on the recent Olympic and World Championship results from Olivia Reeves and Hampton Morris. Reeves squatting 218kig at a body weight of 71kg is damn strong.

Gymmoser1

This may be true; however, these performances need to be taken in context. A large amount of the weightlifting powerhouse countries is not allowed to compete in international competitions due to doping sanctions or wars. The constant changing of weight classes has helped the womans team USA immensely. I am not taking anything away from our lifters, medals are medals.

I saw Niam back squat at 62kgs 250kgs X 2. Naim never failed a doping test. USA Morris did 126kg snatch and a 172kg c&j @ 61kgs for a 298kg total. Naim at a bdy. wt. of 60kgs did a 152.5 Snatch and a 190kg c&j for a 342.5kg total at the 1988 Olympics. 44.5 more KGS then Hampton Morris did at the past Olympics.

If you want to compare apples to apples let’s look at the 500lb.c&J. Only 5 Americans have lifted this amount. Yuri Vardanian c&j’d 507 at 82.5kgs. Conservatively there are over 500 men (that number more than likely is over 1000 men) have c&j over 500lbs in the world.

I stand by Bill Starr’s article. Us Americans have a long way to go in the strength dept. If Harrison was squatting 300kgs and deadlifting 350kgs. his lifts would be dramatically increased. The same with Olivia if she was back squatting 250kgs and deadlifting 300kgs her lifts would dramatically improve. 218kg squat for Olivia Reeves is good however the current women’s world record squat is 310kg @ a body weight of 165lbs.

Recently Iran Weightlifters have been allowed to post on Instagram. Their superheavy weight posted a very easy 815lbs deadlift. This is the kind of strength Starr, Rip and i are advocating.

NicholasAstro

I’ve recently fallen victim to reading about the benefits of autophagy and fasting. The fasting community seems to suggest that without giving your GI tract time to rest, you increase your risk of colorectal cancer or other ailments. From what I’ve gathered, eating in the so-called “window” or refraining from any calories for a determined period of time causes the body to eliminate free radicals, ward off illness, and clear the body of damaged cells that cause disease.

These benefits appear to occur in a vacuum. The consequences and drawbacks on a lifters progress are obvious, achieving adequate musculoskeletal recovery seems to be contrary to fasting.

At face value it seems the benefits of fasting are off the table for serious lifters. Curious of other board members thoughts on the topic.

Robert Santana

You have to draw the line somewhere on this stuff. The better question to ask is: Under what conditions does this make any sense?

Maybach

Most of those “benefits” are, to be generous, mostly bullshit.

If fasting did all those things, and they are so god damned fantastic, why doesn’t it help you recover any better? Why is a person who has eliminated their free radicals, cleared their bodies of damaged cells, and I suppose aligned their chakras and whitened their teeth, so much worse recovered than someone who hasn’t? Those all sound real helpful for recovery. Why don’t they help at all?

What the fuck is the job of a human being, exactly, if your bodily systems are arranged in such a way that using them close to the limit of their ability (strength training) requires you to accumulate damaged cells and get colorectal cancer? What the fuck is your body FOR, if not MOVING SHIT AROUND?

Fasting is not “good for you.” Ask any of your ancestors. Most people who report benefits from fasting fall into one of two camps:

1) People (usually guys, let’s be honest) who went from “not giving a shit about what they ate” to some fancy fasting protocol. This dramatically by definition cuts down not only the amount of food they eat, but also the amount of bad food and probably ups their intake of good food. They feel better, lose ten pounds, and start saying stupid shit about growth hormone because they don’t eat during the hours their local pizza place delivers.

2) People with something to sell. These guys do a lot of calisthenics and shit and probably also “train like an athlete” to boot.

It’s all horseshit man. This isn’t like the carnivore or seed oil guys, who might be nutcases but at least have a few little nuggests of truth buried at the bottom. Fasting is bad for you. You are better when you have eaten. The evidence is, oh, the entirety of human existence up to this point. Pick any of it.

NicholasAstro

As a lifter it would be entirely counterintuitive. As a non-lifter? I suppose it would be beneficial, especially if you don’t engage in any physical activity. Which feels like a fairly stark dichotomy- are you trying to gain lean muscle mass or not.

This really boils down to a wanting my cake and eating it to for me. Why wouldn’t someone want to take advantage of this if it’s true, right? I don’t think I ever would, because for me, keeping my gains are most important.