Need your advise - Coach Rippetoe

[Jim]

Dear Coach Rippetoe

I started with crossfit about 4 months ago in Cleveland. Purchased
your book "Starting Strength" about a month ago. I am 58 years old, 6'-2"
and weigh 210 lbs. I was a jogger until 2 years ago and blew out my
knee ( medial meniscus tear and repair with arthroscopic surgery) and put
on 15 lbs in the last two years. I took off 5 lbs since I have been
doing crossfit.
I never lifted in my life and have done 105 lbs for shoulder press,
135 lbs for dead lift and squat. My goal is to improve my strength and
lose some belly fat. What is a reasonable goal for my lifts weight
wise? Should I keep the weight low with more reps, I am not sure. Any
advise would be appreciated. I typically do a scaled down version of the
WOD.
Thank you in advance.
Jim

[Mark Rippetoe]

Are you asking me how strong you can eventually be, how strong you should try to be, or how fast you will get that way?

[fat bastard]

how did you hurt your knee?

[Jim]

I hurt the knee playing tennis and jogging

[Mark Rippetoe]

So your question is "What is a reasonable goal for my lifts weight
wise?" A reasonable goal is to get as strong as possible using good technique. But if you want me to tell you in pounds, I can't, and neither can anyone else. I don't know your genetic potential, your dietary habits, your motivation, your equipment limitations, or the ability of your family and friends to tolerate you. And neither do you, yet. "Possible" is a big variable composed of a lot of little variables.

A range of normal responses for athletes that do not specialize in the lifts is tabled in the back of PPST, but these are intended as rough guidelines only and give a reasonable idea of where most people are in a reasonable amount of time, and they may be what you had in mind. But further precision is impossible, unnecessary, and pointless.

[bango skank]

A range of normal responses for athletes that do not specialize in the lifts is tabled in the back of PPST, but these are intended as rough guidelines only and give a reasonable idea of where most people are in a reasonable amount of time, and they may be what you had in mind. But further precision is impossible, unnecessary, and pointless.

Coach, just a quick question about that. Are those numbers 1RMs?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Yessir.