SS Weekly Report November 23, 2015

The Starting Strength Weekly Report 2015-11-23: Topics from the Forums: “Improve physical therapy” and “Sleep importance and back problems.” This week Under the Bar: Before Thanksgiving. View report in browser View report archive var addthis_config = {"data_track_addressbar":true}; News AnnouncementsThe full 2015 Starting Strength Fall Classic Results are up - sliced and diced for your consumption. Submit your images to enter this month’s Under the Bar prize drawing. Articles Mark A Chidley, LMHC, shares insight on the relationship of physical strength & strength training to Mental Toughness. Rip plays along the same theme in the Male in Modern Society - “The benefits…transcend the physical. He’s not only stronger, he’s better in most other ways as well.” From the Coaches Don’t go to jail! Brodie Butland discusses legal considerations for coaching and running a training business. Eric Shugars explains why you need to work with a Starting Strength Coach. Under the Bar Len, age 59, started his novice progression two weeks ago. Here he finishes his final set of deadlifts. He decided to started strength training to help manage his osteoarthritis in his knees and hips. [photo courtesy of FiveX3 Training] Focus Trainer Nick Law-Yue coaching at the Focus Personal Training Institute‘s weekly Barbell Club. Don’t worry the lifter’s shoes are in the mail [photo courtesy of Brent Carter] Mountain climber Jeff Stover, age 65, deadlifts 290 x 4 with a smile at Lock Haven Strength and Conditioning. Getting stronger was an important part of Jeff’s preparation to climb Mt. Beinn Eighe in NW Scotland earlier this year. [photo courtesy of Caleb Krieg] Click images to view slideshow. Submit your images to report@startingstrength.com Submission guidelines to enter this month’s Under the Bar prize drawing. Best of the Week Improve physical therapy gophole I am a current doctorate of physical therapy student. Over the last year, I have become interested in barbell training for both myself and my patients. To learn more, I have investigated Starting Strength and these forums. I was surprised to see how displeased the strength community was with physical therapy. As far as I can tell, it seems that people have experienced physical therapy that fails to sufficiently challenge them and/or improve their physical problems. My school’s program has always emphasized the need for functional training to create change on a neurological level. That is, repeated functional exercises like squats and lunges help people learn how to perform a movement efficiently and thus allows them to perform the same movements well at work and in their home life. From what I can tell, this is something Starting Strength also emphasizes. Modalities like ultrasound are considered laughable by my professors, as are light resistance band exercises for all but the profoundly immobile and disabled. As someone who wants to be good at their job and help affect their profession in a positive way, I am curious as to what you perceive as the main issues in physical therapy and what changes you wish PT would make. What suggestions do you have for a new grad hoping to avoid those issues? Mark Rippetoe Physical Therapy is insufficiently stressful to provoke an adaptive response. The stress/recovery/adaptation cycle is not taught as the foundational concept in PT, and our approach to rehab actually works while PT—as practiced in the US by