Suggestions and Input

[jefflance1]

Hi,
This is my second time posting and first time asking for input from users. Here is my basic information:
1rm bench 210
squat 395
dead 415
all done in gym so not competition but all are raw numbers. Only knee wraps for support and a belt were used. I am 5'11" and about 180 and 37 yo. I just finished a cycle of going heavy to get my 1rm where they are and felt I made some great improvement such as going from 340 to 415 on the dead lift (partially due to discovering the hook grip) but at a price to my body. I had to cut my 8 week cycle short by 2 weeks due to shoulder pain and coming down with the flu (which may or may not have been due directly to over training). I used a routine of concentrating on one core lift a day with 2 -3 accessory lifts. I did the core lift for 5 rep warm up and then went into a 3,3,3,1,1,1,1 rep scheme for my working sets. Beat me up pretty good as I said.

Now, onto my question and sorry for being so long winded with my history. I have noticed Rippetoe's videos on youtube and crossfit and have gained some good knowledge as far as form goes. Does anyone have enough knowledge of his Starting Strength program to make an educated guess as to whether I could benefit from it? I was thinking if nothing else I might be able to improve my form with the book if nothing else. Any and all input is welcome. Thanks in advance and I would like to say I really like this site.

[jtrink]

i know the starting strength routine was designed to take advantage of "newb" gains. I don't know whether or not someone will benefit enough that has hypothetically passed the "newb" gain stage. Another program that you might want to check out is bill starr's 5x5 program.

[jefflance1]

Thanks for the tip on Bill Starr's 5x5. I checked out the Madcow variation and plan on starting with it this week.

[JasonLift]

I may have mis read but it sounds like you are making good progress so you might want to stick with what you are doing, maybe change up some of your accessory lifts, and do some max work with similar lifts to the big three. Like in place of squats work your max to good mornings. Maybe do close grip incline presses to max instead of bench press.

I cannot really comment on starting strength, but most of my early lifting was pretty basic until I kind of got stuck then I researched different training methods of Louie Simmons as well as the Russian and Eastern European books he learned from. From there I made something basic that worked for me.

One thing that definitely helped me was improving my GPP and working hard on my getting my conditioning level up.

[jefflance1]

Thanks for the input JasonLift and yes I was making gains on my program but I seemed to be feeling stale and run down at the end of my cycle. I was just trying to come up with alternatives to my current routine that maybe wouldn't drag my overall feeling of wellness down. What I was planning on doing was something different for 8 - 10 weeks and then go back to what I was doing before. I have to reiterate that I really love this web site because I don't have a lot of people around me into pl'ing so bouncing ideas off of other people with the same mind set is great.