Er by 'the guy' I was referring to Mark Rippetoe, although I realized that I misinterpreted what he said.
For young males that weigh between 150-200 lbs., deadlifts can move up 15-20 lbs. per workout, squats 10-15 lbs., with continued steady progress for 3-4 weeks before slowing down to half that rate. Bench presses, presses, and cleans can move up 5-10 lbs. per workout, with progress on these exercises slowing down to 2.5-5 lbs. per workout after only 2-3 weeks. Young women make progress on the squat and the deadlift at about the same rate, adjusted for bodyweight, but much slower on the press, the bench press, cleans, and assistance exercises. – Mark Rippetoe, Practical Programming, Pg. 122
I guess I missed the part about 2-3 weeks. It seemed like he was roughly claiming that you would increase your benching weight by e.g. 7.5 pounds a week (for a sustained period of time), which seems like a ridiculous speed to make gains at.
I think in this context he's talking about the 'beginner response' where strength gains are largely due to increased neuromuscular efficiency in UNTRAINED athletes.
I believe he says, without reading my own copy to make sure:
1) 5-10 lbs per 3-4 weeks in the presses is the normal rate of progression for novices for the first several months of training--until they have an intermediate level of strength.
2) weights will then increase in smaller increments, such as 1lb
3) then more complex programming is used
If you've been training for two years you have probably already used up your super-fast awesome beginner strength gains.
I've just read the Four-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. It seems on the face of it like ridiculously valuable material, if true - like what the completed version of Michael Vassar's proposed reboot of dietary science would look like at the finish point if dieting turned out to be more susceptible to Munchkinism than in my wildest dreams. Ferriss also talks the rationalist talk quite well in this book, much more so than in Four-Hour Workweek; he cites the experiments and occasionally says things like "I spent a lot of money on this and I expected it to work and it didn't work at all" or "I tried this and it seemed to work and I have no idea why it worked and I think it was probably a placebo effect."
Does the LessWrong hivemind have an opinion about 4HB? Has anyone tried it and found that it doesn't work, or that it does work, or that it works but not as well as Ferriss thinks it should work?