For discussion purposes (as I haven't completed strong before) I checked the book. In week 1 starting from scratch it will entail about 30 clean and press and 30 front squat reps. This is within the 6 sessions/week.
Granted, by week 16 or thereabouts it's about 110 reps of each. This is using the slow n steady phase 2.
Still, it sounds doable. What am I missing?
You're missing what
@jhpowers said in the previous post, which I fully second.
Don't get me wrong, but have you ever done a program based on a double kettlebell 3RM? Double kettlebells are very, very different from singles. It's just not double the weight, it's the way this twice as much goes on the body. To give you an example, let's keep talking about the clean and press: sure you can just count kg/lbs from the shoulder on, but you can't quite do that for the whole core, in example. Let me try to exaplin better: if you press one bell, your whole core works on the lift, not just half of it (as happens for the upper limbs in the clean and press), it means your actually pressing, more or less, with one shoulder/arm and almost 100% of your core (and hips, and legs) activation. Moreover, you can
cheat a little by adjusting your posture. Now let's take the same weight and double it. You still are pressing each bell with one shoulder/arm, but you can't acrivate the rest of your body much beyond the sinlge bell effort. Although there's a powerlifting legitimate hip thrust to ease the weight up in the overhead press, that move is very hard to execute without risk (and is, in fact, advised against by all the coaches I've seen using it), and it doesn't allow for much more weight on the bar (kettlebells, in this case), and you can't adjust yourself under a bilateral load as easely and
safely.
Again: I'm not saying it cannot be done six times a week, I'm saying both Geoff and my experience seem to point in the opposite direction.
I have a little experience in all the program I listed above, and I'll give you one more example.
I'm now cycling S&T for the second time around (and I'm thinking about opening a training log). I decided I want to get
really strong with double 24kg in the press, before going up. My goal is a 10 reps pyramid in TTC with the C&P. I do C&P and rows one day, snatches and goblet squats the other (rowa, snatches and goblet squats are performed at weight heavier than 24 kg). I also do some kind of aerobic activity at least four times a week, being that rucking or heavy bag work, both below MAF. S&T is gentle, it let's me train like this and still be fresh, and I'm not a hulk by any means.
STRONG!, on the other hand, progresses much faster and the more it goes on, the less it will allow for much else without compromising recovery, and if I learnt anything from the physical culture world in these last two years, is that mass, strength and endurance are built more on recovery than on training.
