100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

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chrisd
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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4081

Post by chrisd » Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:21 pm

All pointless.

According to the prison channels on Youtube, the most successful self defence technique is know to those who are most likely to be attacked. One such individual was always rude to people, stole from fellow inmates and didn't pay his debts. His simple defence was to keep a ready supply of faeces and, when threatened, strip naked and cover himself in same.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4082

Post by lehman906 » Tue Mar 29, 2022 3:58 am

KyleSchuant wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:11 pm
lehman906 wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 8:46 pm So they’re teaching a self-defense course that takes mostly natural human movements, over complicates them, and organizes them into an (I’m guessing) almost hostile dogmatic program?
...

Okay, that wasn't very subtle, Lehman.
You’re right. I really didn’t capture the subtlety and nuance that SS is known for.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4083

Post by augeleven » Tue Mar 29, 2022 8:07 am

chrisd wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:21 pm All pointless.

According to the prison channels on Youtube, the most successful self defence technique is know to those who are most likely to be attacked. One such individual was always rude to people, stole from fellow inmates and didn't pay his debts. His simple defence was to keep a ready supply of faeces and, when threatened, strip naked and cover himself in same.
Power move for interviews.
@Anaphase needs this in his repertoire for his inevitable move to New Mexico…

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4084

Post by dw » Tue Mar 29, 2022 8:25 am

chrisd wrote: Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:21 pm All pointless.

According to the prison channels on Youtube, the most successful self defence technique is know to those who are most likely to be attacked. One such individual was always rude to people, stole from fellow inmates and didn't pay his debts. His simple defence was to keep a ready supply of faeces and, when threatened, strip naked and cover himself in same.

One of the underappreciated benefits of SS style bulking is it leaves you with a steady supply of feces, ready-to-hand for self-defense or works of creative expression.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4085

Post by KyleSchuant » Tue Apr 12, 2022 12:14 am

The way I see it, as coaches we can better serve our trainees by working with them for years, versus against them for months.
- Scott Acosta

That looks dangerously like heresy.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4086

Post by mgil » Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:30 am

Of note:

There is a TRT link right on the banner for the SS Gyms home page now. Wild.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4087

Post by quikky » Tue Apr 26, 2022 10:00 am

mgil wrote: Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:30 am Of note:

There is a TRT link right on the banner for the SS Gyms home page now. Wild.
That's... Really strange.

The Program works so well you only need perfect sleep, a massive caloric surplus, perfect form, TRT, professional coaching, and 10-15 minute rest between sets to do it.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4088

Post by dw » Tue Apr 26, 2022 10:02 am

mgil wrote: Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:30 am Of note:

There is a TRT link right on the banner for the SS Gyms home page now. Wild.
Truth in advertising.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4089

Post by KyleSchuant » Thu Jun 16, 2022 12:47 am

https://startingstrength.com/article/wh ... ram-part-1

SS have come out with this article, which is this long meandering rant on "why you won't do the program, part I". And they go on about people thinking that you need 712 different isolation exercises.

Honestly I have very rarely heard such an objection from anyone in a gym.

I never had anyone refuse to do the lifts because it didn't target their biceps. It's almost just that it's hard - and a distant second, some more timid types, especially oldies, who are scared of getting hurt. But those last are scared of machines and going for a walk, too - so maybe really they're just worried about it being hard, too. Look at the dropout rates for university and you understand why primary and secondary school are compulsory - it's not that 14 years have some carefully-crafted critique of why they don't want to be there, they'd just rather be fucking around.

I think you get some little groups of people who spend so much time talking to each-other they just make up this bizarre caricature of people outside the group which bears no relationship to reality. SS, lefties, righties, whatever.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4090

Post by mgil » Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:04 am

Typical SS article that works a logical circle to support itself.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate this bit though: “stef bradford, PhD, SSC”. It’s necessary to do the weird flex of denying the “capitalize proper nouns” rule with a name but leaving it intact with the superlatives.

Nonetheless, that article is the same rambling shit that’s been said before. Nothing new.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4091

Post by Renascent » Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:37 pm

mgil wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:04 amLet’s take a moment to appreciate this bit though: “stef bradford, PhD, SSC”. It’s necessary to do the weird flex of denying the “capitalize proper nouns” rule with a name...
Serious question: is there a point to her/them doing that (refusing to capitalize names)?

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4092

Post by mbasic » Fri Jun 17, 2022 4:05 am

Renascent wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:37 pm
mgil wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:04 amLet’s take a moment to appreciate this bit though: “stef bradford, PhD, SSC”. It’s necessary to do the weird flex of denying the “capitalize proper nouns” rule with a name...
Serious question: is there a point to her/them doing that (refusing to capitalize names)?
They only do it with her name; her login on the boards are that way also.
I don't think we ever got an explanation on that.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4093

Post by brkriete » Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:22 am

I vaguely recall hearing something about wanting the focus to be on her work not her akin to feminist author bell hooks.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4094

Post by Hiphopapotamus » Fri Jun 17, 2022 1:18 pm

brkriete wrote: Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:22 am I vaguely recall hearing something about wanting the focus to be on her work not her akin to feminist author bell hooks.
Right, because there's no better way to draw focus or attention away from yourself than by doing some very simple, basic thing completely differently than the way everyone else does it.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4095

Post by LKJH » Thu Aug 04, 2022 6:47 pm

https://startingstrength.com/training/t ... or-a-coach

https://startingstrength.com/article/wh ... ram-part-4

https://startingstrength.com/article/wh ... ram-part-3

https://startingstrength.com/article/wh ... ram-part-2

https://startingstrength.com/article/wh ... ram-part-1

My fucking god, man. If you guys are going to masturbate in front of everyone at least have the common decency to provide some napkins.

Granted, these aren't as bad as the articles written by that Daniel Oakes fella, but goddamn.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4096

Post by KyleSchuant » Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:17 pm

Oakes! I'd forgotten about him. Quite the philosopher.

https://startingstrength.com/author/daniel-oakes

Also: we're not far off 4 years into the 5 years. There appear to be 24 SS gyms. Shouldn't we have 80 SS gyms by now? Is it a linear progression? Or is it like all those pandemic models and it's an exponential! progression, so that 5 years after there's 100 SS gyms every household on the planet will be an SS gym (depending on the, er, exponent)? Do we subtract 2 years for the coronapanic? How does this work?

Note: there are appear to be 99 SSCs worldwide. This number hasn't really moved for... what? Ten years? They endorse some, some quit, some get chucked out, they endorse some more, etc. Might be tricky to have more SS gyms than you have SS coaches.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4097

Post by mbasic » Fri Aug 05, 2022 3:57 am

LKJH wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 6:47 pm https://startingstrength.com/training/t ... or-a-coach
.
.
.

My fucking god, man. If you guys are going to masturbate in front of everyone at least have the common decency to provide some napkins.

Granted, these aren't as bad as the articles written by that Daniel Oakes fella, but goddamn.
who wrote that first one? It just says "by: [blank] "

sounds eerily familiar
*throws up in own mouth a little*

"You’re standing outside waiting to see some live music. The line looks long, and you really just want a cold drink and air conditioning. Then the guy bouncing the entrance points to you, and you are escorted inside by some other guys, then pulled to the front of the standing-room pit."

...

"I find you in my car ... "

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4098

Post by mbasic » Fri Aug 05, 2022 4:10 am

KyleSchuant wrote: Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:17 pm Note: there are appear to be 99 SSCs worldwide. This number hasn't really moved for... what? Ten years? They endorse some, some quit, some get chucked out, they endorse some more, etc. Might be tricky to have more SS gyms than you have SS coaches.
I think the SSC number problem was identified quite a while ago by quite a few people, including The Org.
IIRC, they had an aggressive advertising campaign to get new coaches: some videos, SSC programs, etc.

And then to get another pulse on this type of thing, I looked at the BLOC staff page.
They are about at the same numbers when the the split happened....about 45. (only counting people titled "coach")
I remember looking at this back then, its always been around 45 to just under 50.
Funny too, I see a lot of completely new faces and names on that page. So they must've lost some.

Getting back to SS, I'm guessing that's a bad sign if the gyms have gone up in number, but SSC numbers stagnate.
I was guessing the SSFGs would also work as a recruiting too, for new SSCs, as they would provide a place to teach how to coach, with clients, barbells, and all that in one place. Geographically it makes no sense, because the newly minted SSC would need a new gym, or I guess, the original veteran SSC would move on to elsewhere.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4099

Post by KyleSchuant » Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:34 am

It's not necessarily a slight on SS or BLOC themselves that their numbers stagnate. I think I've mentioned before on these boards the big turnover in the fitness industry generally. A trainer friend wrote an article mentioning this,
Every year 10% of the trainers leave for a variety of reasons. So if you start with 100 trainers by the end of the first year you’d have 90. At the end of the second year you’d have 81. The end of the third year would be 73, and the end of the fourth year would be 65. But then something really bad happens. At the end of the fifth year 70% of those remaining leave. That means that of the 65 who made it to the end of the fourth year only 20 will be left.
Now, let's set aside how lockdowns, inflation, recession etc have gutted the fitness industry across the West and just take those numbers, which were actually from 2012 or so, at face value. Let's also, for the sake of argument, assume the numbers are similar for SSCs. Yeah, yeah, "greater expertise" and all that - but "people who want to get strong using only barbells" is a relatively small market, so it probably comes out about even.

They do 10 SS seminars a year, don't they? And how many SSCs are made each time? 1-2? So you're getting 10-20 new ones a year.

Basically, unless they make it easier to become an SSC, their numbers stagnate at best, whittle away at worst. Obviously their SS gym apprenticeship thing was an attempt to pump up the pass rate at seminars. Going on the totals, it hasn't worked.

As my trainer friend notes in his article, fitness overall has a low barrier to entry - that's also a low barrier to leaving. The SSC thing is a fairly high barrier as the fitness world goes, but it's not like it's a 5 year medical degree costing $250,000. So you get in to being a trainer and discover that for over 90% of people it's casual part-time work. You get annoyed with medicine, you've given too much to just give up. Even if in ten years you still hate it, you know it'll pay well. But fitness? Much easier to get in to, not a big investment, and actually training people doesn't pay well (though training the trainers does!) Most will just move on.

So again, it's not necessarily SS as such. It's just a tough industry with a big turnover of customers and staff.

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Re: 100 Starting Strength gyms in 5 years

#4100

Post by mbasic » Fri Aug 05, 2022 8:38 am

KyleSchuant wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:34 am It's not necessarily a slight on SS or BLOC themselves that their numbers stagnate.
....
So again, it's not necessarily SS as such. It's just a tough industry with a big turnover of customers and staff.
agree.

They got 20 or so gyms out there, good on them.

Maybe 100 was just kinda hyperbole, and marketing-lies to get the ball rolling.

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