I think the point to remember about a pre workout is that it’s ultimately and primarily a stimulant, bundled with BCAA, creatine, or any number of a few other supplements that supposedly aid muscle recovery/development. But again, it’s basically meant to get you kinda tweaked before you go exercise, and it will…

Takei his words for it.

I happened to see this extremely bad take. It was incredibly frustrating and disturbing. I want to quote a different commenter, who has some academic experience in these matters. This is from Arnheim:

You know an easy way to end this argument about what level of terribleness this current iteration of concentration camp is, is to, oh I dunno, not have them at all?

But you know what you can’t call it?”

You can make the argument that the straps are letting you progress asymmetrically, though. If you are chasing a number, then you’ll likely want to use straps. 

Instead of that reddit sub r/murderedbywords, we’ll have to start a r/murderedbyOJ .

So now he's taking a stab at social media?

Oh dear God.

The guy you are talking to is a Rippetoe fan boy.

+100 stars for a humane and decent discussion.

That’s fair. Dumpster it is, then!

Goodness no. The smith machine should never be used for heavy anything except maybe shrugs. You are setting yourself up for injury if you do that.

EVERYONE!!! Read to the end! This was me at first.

Don’t forget about the Smith Machine. Since no one should use a Smith Machine for squats and it’s too big to fit in the average dumpster, using it for unspotted 1RM bench press is probably its only real use.

Fair enough.

you can squat far more than your body weight, you just haven’t learned how to pull it off yet. it may be that your thoracic strength is inadequate to support the weight while squatting, or maybe you have flat feet and don’t transfer weight through the movement affectively. maybe you’re like me and get super afraid for…

A person once complained to me about not “losing weight”, but she was looking better. I pointed out that you can get “better” information by tracking percent body fat than weight. I said she probably lost a pound of fat, but gained a pound of muscle. She is healthier, looks better, but the weight is unchanged. And I…

I have also struggled with squats, and only recently began to see discernible gains. Now some of that, if I’m being honest, is because I never really trained legs properly. It sounds like you and I deal with similar issues of leg power by way of mobility. My squat depth was always embarrassingly shallow to the point…

I feel, in particular, like I’ve plateaued with squats. Adding to the frustration is that the “plateau” is absolutely pathetic. I’m by no means a big guy, 5'5" 140. Oddly enough, my legs look far bigger than the average person my size and had good definition and I’m very active... but I can’t squat my body weight...…