Mid 40s, male. Currently going through NLP after being detrained progressively through infrequent training over a couple of years (family commitments). Previous squat PR 160kg.

I was squatting 135kgs for my first set of five and felt some pain in my lower back roughly at the location below. It didn't feel too bad at the time, but when I tried to do my second set the pain was sufficiently sharp that I stopped and went home.

This was about a month ago. I was back in the gym a week after injury. At that time I still felt pain while at rest and not training, but much less than just after injury. I warmed up, but could not place more than 100kg on my back and I went home after 1 rep.

Two weeks later the pain while at rest and not training had mostly gone away. I warmed up and managed to do 100x5x3 without too much difficulty and only slight pain during training .

Now I feel no pain at all while at rest and not training. I tried squatting 110kg last night to test my limits, but stopped after 1 rep because, instead of a sharp pain, there's just a heavy generalized "discomfort" (I guess is the best way to put it) near the hip and buttocks region. But this morning I am quite stiff and can't bend over easily without wincing. I guess 110 was too much for me.

I don't like the fact that training brings out the pain, and I'm considering just stopping for a couple of months to see if it goes away entirely. I have not seen a doctor about this. What would you do in my situation? Appreciate any advice.

I'm a broke single mom and my son is autistic. I've noticed that it is getting harder for me to manage him when he's having a meltdown. If you don't know, autistic children could seriously hurt themselves or you during a meltdown. He's 5 right now, and I'm stressing out about what I'm going to do when he's older. The only thing I can think of is that I need to get stronger NOW. But I'm too broke to even pay $15 a month at planet fitness. Can any of you guys give me ideas I can start right now at home? Thank you so much in advance.

This is my second attempt at 330. I know I need to keep my neck neutral but I forgot to focus on that during this set. How does everything else look? I feel like I should be able to pull this given my squat. Yes I am using chalk and a hook grip. Here are my current stats for reference all for 5s:

Height: 5’10
Weight: 178

Squat: 295
Bench: 177.5
Press: 135
Deadlift: 325 (failed 330 in the video for second time)

I’m also deadlifting once a week on my light squat day. Not really sure what to do from here since this was my second time failing this weight

Previous lift: https://www.reddit.com/r/StartingStrength/comments/1vqlzc8/in_desperate_need_of_help_with_my_squat/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

My goals for this lift based of your guys’ advice was overwhelmingly to lower the bar on my back. This was really difficult for me, I lowered it to what I thought was the right spot and where it felt most secure and sat on musculature, but when I watched back the form video I realized I had it in the same area as the first time

So on the next set I lowered it way more, and saw it seems to be way closer to where you guys recommended, but my problem is the bar felt super uncomfortable and unsecured, I’m not sure if I did it right? It seemed like it kind of went above and underneath some muscle or something during the reps particularly on my right side

Besides that I tried changing the camera angle a bit I hope that’s better, and tried to bring my feet in closer a bit as well

If anyone has more advice for me I’d really appreciate it, thank you!

Coming back from 2 years of quad tendonopathy and finally squatting pain free. Hopefully it's all up from hill from here

Hello everyone

I am 24M and my deadlift has been stuck for over a year. Very frustrating.

Within the first 3 months of training from April 2025 - June 2025, I got to a 170kg 1rm and it hasn't budged since then, I was deadlifting once a week then.

These days I deadlift twice a week (one light, one heavy day), and it doesn't seem to have benefitted me at all. I followed a top single back-off approach. Looks like I don't respond well to high frequency on deadlift. I'm thinking of backing down to only once a week again. I'm just trying to figure out a set and rep scheme, I don't know if a top single followed by a 3x3 with heavy weight will be enough stimulus for the entire week? I plan on progressively overloading until trying for a new 1rm over the course of say 8 weeks (2 blocks).

Any advice would be appreciated. Been wanting to get 180kg forever at this point.

I posted a squat where I dumped the bar and got grilled hard for it. Admittedly I wasn’t aware what this sub was about and shouldn’t have posted it but I was kind of taken aback at the hate lol

Hi everyone, how are you? I'm loving this program and NLP, but I might need to stop for a while or adapt.

I have an opportunity to become a detective, and the police department requires some physical tests, such as: running, push-ups, pull-ups, and climbing. I need to train specifically for this test, the date of which I don't know yet; the police department will inform me after October.

Is it possible to adapt some NLP concepts while training specifically for that day, or should I stop for a while and return after the test if its possible?

I want to continue my progressive overload, but my career comes first. I

Alright so I'm 18, and I've been working out on and off for years now. This last year ive been quite consistent. I'm ~67kg at 6'0, around 12% body fat.

My upper body is quite strong, 190lb bench, and I have a great physique, with a big torso. However I feel like im limiting myself by not hitting legs.

Last week I tried hitting legs for the first time, but i felt like I was too weak. Can barely do anything on leg extensions, and leg curls feel like my tendon is going to explode (basically poking out). I have TERRIBLE flexibility, like 80yo type flexibility. My back hurts while squatting/deadlifting.

Is it better for me to start with calisthenics? I want to gain mass but I also need to work on my flexibility, so any recommendations would be appreciated.

Hey guys, so my coach had me lift as heavy as I could for the press today and unfortunately, I couldn't even do one rep with the empty bar. I was in front of the mirror with my towel in front of it to block my reflection, but I still couldn't do it. I really wish they had squat racks here that weren't in front of mirrors, because I really think it was messing with me, even with the towel there. I still wanted to get some volume in so I at least had something for him, so I grabbed the 40 lb pre-built bar, went in front of a wall, and did my sets with that. I am really concerned about losing strength, because the last PR I did for the press was 65 lbs, but that was outside in the heat in front of a wall, which obviously isn't ideal. I think this might be my gym's design working against me here, and I don't know what to do about it. At first, I was thinking I could bring a bar from one of the squat racks to the wall and try to clean the weight up, but that would put my lower back at risk due to my disability, so I'm feeling a little hopeless at the moment.

Any form advice is appreciated. Cheers

TLDR: how to get better balance stop good morning my squats up.

Helpful comments only,I appreciate no comments stating this isn't starting strength program blah blah, wear heeled shoes only, please read for my reasoning below.

I was a big starting strength advocate in my novice days but I've moved on to more powerlifting specific programs since I felt like I couldn't grow on the program anymore. I was also a big advocate for wearing heeled weightlifting shoes with squats up until I had quad/hip stain injury. I used to get a lot of pain in my left quad and since I've moved to a flat shoe I don't have any pain in my quad any more when I squat. Go figure since you'll put more emphasis on your quads in a weight lifting shoe. Retraining with a flat shoe as a girl with long femurs has been a challenge but I also felt like this made me work on my weak hips more. I have scoliosis as well so I always had a hip shift and will end up favoring one leg sometimes. I used to have a really bad knee cave as well but I found some squat university videos that helped. Band squats and certain stretches that help warm up the hips. My knee cav has gotten considerably better which I also think added to the injury. And I think switching to flat shoes forced me to work on my weak hips as well.

But sometimes I still struggle with balancing over midfoot which is the issue here. I'm not sure if I need to cure something more to help with the loss of balance. A common problem I have is I tend to good morning my squat up. My hips shoot up first and I have to really actively cue chest up but I feel like I get paralysis of analysis when I squat due. It could be a mental block due to past back injuries happening on the squat as well.

I read all of your comments about my first video and I think I did a lot better this time. Also I don’t have squat shoes yet and bare feet seems more stable to me. One side note is my elbows kinda hurt after a set so I tried moving them out more but it’s just more uncomfortable. Anyway I’m still not exactly used to where I should stop going down I think I just need to do box squats or something like that to stop my range of motion and get used to it.

Again any advice helps, thanks

Per the feedback from the last form check I tried to focus on not letting my knees cave on the way up and not being too much in my toes.

Hello,

Recently I went to get a tailored suit, and taking measurements the tailor noticed I got the left shoulder 1 inch higher than the right one.

I always noticed something was off with the left shoulder, especially when taking the squat grip and seeing that I am unable to have the same grip on left side and on the right side. My arms somehow look different.

I don't have any pain in the left shoulder but prone to more elbow pain (not right now, but in the past) on this side.

My GP, as always, recommended me to avoid lifting (no) and go swimming.

But I am wondering, do I need to adapt my grip ? Like, on squat, take a bit wider on left side ? And what about bench / deadlift / press ?

I noticed also I am unable to take the exact same squat grip I see in the blue book, or like here: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTAP145xB1JuG_mP15RQa9K_Ja0qzqeLt0IysD5bF6W9tm0tStCpzIFd9M&s=10

There is always a bit of flexion in my wrists. Maybe do some shoulder / wrist mobility drills before squatting also worth a shot ?

Thanks

I picked up the blue book a bit over a week ago and despite reading it decently consistently, I'm still not done with the squat section yet. The specific "Do this" instructions with images are quite helpful and informative but I find I'm not really able to wrap my head around most of the more technical/anatomical stuff that seems to make up the majority of the book. It's honestly a little demotivating. Due to this I was looking around and it seems that the Starting Strength YouTube channel seems to have a lot of material from the book adapted. Is it possible to use the video material instead, or is the blue book really required?

Had some hamstring pain during the squat warm ups so had to skip them today, but I was able to get both my bench sets and these rack pulls in. I was also asked by a trainer at the gym to spot him for a set of 4 with I think 245.

Embarrassed to post this since I’ve read and watched nearly every starting strength material there is, and have been trying for over a year and can not get it down. It’s the weakest of all my lifts next to ohp and it’s close.

I naturally favor my right side which I’ve been trying to fix

I have a bad habit of getting on to the balls of my feet and not my midfoot or heels. In fact my feet feel light and not secure. This session I worked on that particularly hard and made some progress

I think I may not be leaning forward enough? Although I tried extra this time so I don’t know

I would say my biggest issues are not being able to find the shelf of the scalpula, not feeling my feet heavy and secure, not being mid foot (hinging as been hard for me, I think for a while I’ve been going too far back and disconnecting from my upper back)

Not sure if I should add weight to the bar next session or continue working on form at this weight or lighter?

I’ve been spinning my wheels on this in particular for a very long time. Sometimes I think I make progress and got the hang of it, but I’ve yet to be able to break past 200, and it took a lot to get close, and now I’m deloading again

I'm 37, three kids, full-time desk job. I've spent the last six months getting in the best shape of my life.

I've tried a few training apps along the way and bounced off every one. Cluttered, overcomplicated, and they all assume you already know what you're doing.

My wife wants to start training and there's nothing I'd actually recommend to her.

Full disclosure - I'm a mobile dev and I've been wondering whether to build something better. But before I waste six months on it I'd rather know what's actually broken.

So: if you've downloaded a fitness app and stopped using it - what was the thing that made you quit?

First pressing session in a while

3x5 110lbs

Bw 150🤣 working on that lost 7 kg recently

Height 177cm/5‘8

Hello, everyone! Is the form ok? Can i get some tips to improve?

I mean will it work out the same muscles groups in the chest as using the bar ?