Yes, BBM, continue to take the high road.
Rip is an adolescent. He’s now equating anybody who defends RPE as just masturbating to feel good about themselves.
participating to that forum has become over time a thing for masochists who enjoy being insulted and verbally harrassed by the self righteous people there.
It seems like getting overly wrapped up in what drama is unfolding will raise cortisol and wreck one’s gainzZz. Also viewing everything through the one versus the other lens is only going to lead to seeing things that might not be there. Just a thought…
Rip, whom I admired for many years, is now making the asinine argument that high volume, moderate intensity training is a marketing angle for people who don’t want to put in the hard work necessary to get actually strong.
interesting rebuttal: let’s see if calling people who want to bench, squat and deadlift more often pussies works!
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thankfully somebody screenshot this thread on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BarbellMedicine/comments/8fifj7/i_have_a_deep_suspicion_jordan_knows_rpe_is/#bottom-comments
That is amusing.
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What a facile accusation by Rip. One could just as flippantly say that the SSC intensity method is just a marketing angle for low self-esteem people who desperately want to avoid being called a pussy by the all the jocks and cool kids.
He has completely unmasked himself.
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At least he admits that he is approaching this whole thing from a business mindset.
That’s what gets me about some in this “discussion”. Since when is using RPE to control intensity so that you can do more volume, MORE sets, avoiding hard work? So disingenuous.
Let’s imagine that I squatted 5x5 on the Bridge’s Monday workout heavier than my heaviest 5x5 on TM, then did a bunch of sets of pause squats @9 on Wednesday while my legs were sore AF (instead of 2x5 of “active recovery” squats) then subjected myself to the gauntlet of 303 tempo squats on Friday after doing MULTIPLE sets of “easy” deadlifts. All this because I was afraid of ONE 5RM set on Friday and I wanted to take the easy way out? The Texas method is even exposed as the easy way out according to it’s origin myth. If you’re feeling lazy on Friday and don’t feel like putting in the work then just do one PR set of 5 and you can go.
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Personally, I can TOTALLY see how someone’s inability to apply RPE correctly could mean they aren’t able to make progress on a program. I work with people all the time in my own professions (not lifting related) and see people who don’t seemingly have the common sense to do a lot of things their job requires of them. I don’t think RPE is hard, but I can totally conceptualize how some might not be able to get it, or how they would let other sensory sources override their ability to apply it properly. Mike T has often said that RPE works best for people who are have “controlled aggression”. You can’t be balls-to-the-wall all the time without the ability to show some restraint, nor can you be passive and expect things to just work out simply because you showed up to the gym yet didn’t put the proper work in.
I’ve coached/mentored a LOT of individuals in my career. It’s part of my job description. The methods that work well for one individual do not always work for another individual. My biggest issue with this RPE-only vs RPE-is-bullshit debate is that BOTH sides are wrong (and I don’t think Jordon or Austin have said RPE is the only way ever). Lifting appropriately is what matters. Based on my experience with career coaching, I can totally see how some folks may in fact have to be told exactly what to lift, how often to lift it, and when they can lift it again. Others can take a construct like RPE along with some volume/intensity guidelines and make it happen. Like Austin and Jordan say, human beings are complex, and there is nothing more complex on earth than what happens in the brain of any single human being.
RPE is doing it for me. Be-a-man-and-run-it-out training did not. So what? People at my place of work who also lift ask me how I lift, and honestly I’m most tempted NOT to tell them. I don’t want to explain it, and I don’t think they’d listen hard enough to get it. I’m cool with that until I feel like they are genuinely interested. I don’t feel like I have to convert anyone or be evangelical with this.
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Yeah the SS "side"s arguments are turning into so much desperate flailing.
I can’t tell if they genuinely think the BBM style is 100% wrong and they are 100% right, or if they know something is fucky but can’t concede anything because it would hurt the brand they’ve built up.
The fact that, despite being invited, they refuse to get together and talk about the subject makes me think that they aren’t very confident that the debate would go well for them.
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It maybe an arrogance thing. “We are SS, we don’t need to talk to anyone else.” Although, two of your most educated coaches left partly due to not talking about it. This whole thing has been a large PR hit against SS.
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I suppose that wouldn’t surprise me. Sadly my suspicion is that the kind of utter, loud confidence and manly man posturing is going to attract a lot more people than the #nuanced arguments.
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Honestly I don’t think that this is necessarily PR hit for SS. If anything they are just cementing “the brand” and further appealing to the type of person to whom they already cater. Narrowcasting, or whatever… Those of us who bought in to some degree but are less diehard about the brand are certainly a bit turned off by it, though I suspect given enough time that was bound to happen anyway for one reason or another.
The bigger problem IMO is that there appears to be a pretty clear disconnect between SS the brand (mostly Rip, and Reynolds/BBL to some degree) and SSOC. It sounds like SSOC and individual SSCs don’t necessarily want to narrowcast to the same degree that the brand does. Whether that’s for business reasons or some higher purpose is debatable, but I think it could cause problems down the line. Maybe that SSC revolt Jordan keeps talking about…
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Have you seen the state of the forums lately?
The SSC revolt already happened - it’s called the bridge and it was one of the catalysts for the current situation.
The release of the bridge and it’s adoption by so many of the SSCs marked the point where Rip completely lost control of the brand.
Personally, I’m hoping more SSC’s find their way here. Good lord, imagine if BBM got Andy Baker? I mean I don’t particularly think that’s going to happen, but still, what a thought.
Ultimately, Jordan, Austin and Leah became so much more trustworthy in my eyes once they cut ties with SS.
When I first learned about SS, I usually saw Austin or Jordan sitting besides Rip on the Q&A videos where Rip & co would regularly go on rants about a variety of topics in very extreme ways while Jordan and Austin sat and watched (except for that climate change rant where Austin didn’t want to partake and left his seat). I thought “Ok these guys might be my best bet to get strong, but damn sometimes they seem so dogmatic and not very nuanced at all - I wonder if that influences their strength training advice too”. By association I thought the same about Jordan and Austin at first as they all represented the organisation at that point, even if they themselves did not participate in those rants. It was only a bit later that I realized how wrong my first impression was.
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If people haven’t seen it, Jordan went for the kill shot on instagram live yesterday. He said he isn’t convinced low-bar squats are necessarily better than high bar for hamstring development. Rip is going to lose his shit!
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