Starting Strength is a beginner barbell training program from a dude named Mark Ripptoe. It is one of the more popular beginner barbell programs and for good reason: it works! Mr. Ripptoe definitely knows his stuff and has written an excellent book in Starting Strength, now in it’s 3rd edition. It is highly recommended reading as it discusses the benefits of strength, why barbells are the most effective tool to gain strength, and the important lifts that will make any human, even puny ones like myself, strong like ox. That’s just the tip of the iceberg though, as this book comes in at over a whopping 300 pages. The attention to detail regarding the physics, mechanics, and technique is really impressive and you can definitely tell Ripptoe knows his stuff. Do you need to read the book to start the Starting Strength program? Nope, but it is a good idea to read it anyway. If reading isn’t your cup of tea, at the very least watch Ripptoe teach proper form on the lifts on youtube because doing the lifts incorrectly is not only dangerous, but it slows down your gains. If you are worried about form in any way, hire a personal trainer. If you can’t afford one, ask a friend who knows what he’s doing. If you don’t have one of those, video tape yourself and post it on Ripptoe’s forum so that he can critique you. If you don’t have a camera, ask on the forums and practice using light weights. If you can’t do any of that then get the hell out of here because this post isn’t for you.
The program itself is really simple. There are different versions of Starting Strength, and I did the one called “The Wichita Falls Novice Program”. In nice bullet point form, what you need to know:
– Lift 3x/week
– Squat every workout. Squats are boss. Ripptoe suggests the lowbar squat (that just means lower on the upper back, as opposed to high bar squat)
– Alternate bench press with overhead press. These are your pushing movements. So Monday bench, Friday overhead press, repeat
– Alternate deadlift with power cleans. These are your pulling movements. I did deadlift with overhead press.
– Alternate chinups with pullups. Alternate them with the deadlift/power cleans. Huh?? Keep reading.
– every exercise you do 3 sets of 5. That means you do the exercise 5 times, take a break, then do it again 2 more times. That’s 3×5. The exceptions to this are the deadlift (do it 1×5), and the power clean (do it 5×3). Why? Once you start lifting the deadlift you’ll know why. It’s draining as hell. If you can do it 3×5 you have wolverine like abilities. Good shit. As for the power clean, because it’s a movement where form is uber important, you get more breaks and get to lift it less reps.
– Ripptoe also suggests to pack on muscle (and tons of fat) to drink a gallon of milk a day (gomad). That’s crazy town, and I ignored this bit. Die hards will say that I didn’t follow the program. Cool, I’m fine with that. Onwards!
Example week:
Monday – squat, overhead press, deadlift
Wednesday – squat, bench press, chinup
Friday – squat, overhead press, power clean
The next week:
Monday – squat, bench press, pullup
Wednesday – squat, overhead press, deadlift
Friday – squat, bench press, chinup
Rinse. Repeat.
Progressive overload is your friend. That’s how you get strong. This means that if you hit your numbers for the day, you add more weight on the next workout for that exercise. For example, if you do 3×5 bench press at 100 lbs on Monday, then on Friday you’ll try 110 lbs 3×5 bench press. How long does this go on? Forever, if you can handle it (don’t worry, you can’t). How much weight should you be adding for the next workout? When you are just starting out, you should see some big jumps. So go up 10-15lbs at a time for some of the more full body lifts like squat and deadlift, and 5-10lbs for the other ones. Scale back once you start failing on some lifts, and only go up 10lb or 5lb increments. In other words, do what you can handle, not more, not less.
Some tips and tricks to help you along the way. Use the bare minimum amount of gear possible. For newbies who have absolutely no idea what they are doing and who don’t have experienced trainers watching them, at least get a belt. That’s what I did. You know why? Because when I didn’t have a belt on I threw out my back. Yeah, that set me back a month and it hurt to sit, shit, sleep, walk, move, and breathe. In other words, it sucked. So don’t be stupid like me, HOWEVER using a belt, chalk, powerlifting gear, straps on the deadlift, etc. is slowing down your progress. Leave all of that stuff to the pros or until you can’t help yourself any longer. At least try to get a base level of strength. For a 200 lb male, aim for a 1xbodyweight bench press, a 1.75xbodyweight squat, and a 2xdeadlift. Some of your lifts will move faster than others, for me the deadlift and the squat kept on going but the bench and overhead press kept stalling out. So when are you done? Ideally, when your squat stalls after 2 resets and your deadlift stalls after 1 reset. What’s a reset? Well, when you get stuck and can’t move the weight any higher, drop 10% of the weight and try again on the next workout, hopefully working your way past where you stalled. Hopefully that takes you a long time and you become much stronger in the process. One final tip: check your ego at the door. If you’ve never lifted before, you’re most likely weak. Get over it. The barbell doesn’t lie. You can lift it or you can’t. There’s no room for gigantic egos on this program, unless of course you love getting injured. And yes, nagging soreness and injuries will pop up here and there. That’s just the nature of the game. If you can lift, then lift. If you can’t, then lighten the load, do more reps, or take a day off. You’ll start to get an intuitive sense of your own body, so listen to it, not your ego. I messed up my wrists on the very first day of doing power cleans and 5 months later I’m still messed up and was never able to do power cleans. I did deadlift on those days instead. So every other week I did deadlift twice/week, which was tiring as hell, but thems the breaks. For recovery, don’t forget to foam roll. I also like to take hot/cold showers, drown myself in epsom salts on occasion, and perhaps some supplements like fish oil, etc. Speaking of supplements, check out my homey’s kickass site, Examine.com . It is hands down the most definitive source on supplementation on the internets. So kudos to the examine team for cutting through the bullshit and getting down to business.
For me, I’m hooked on barbell training. Thanks Starting Strength for the good times. I’ve now moved on to a reverse pyramid training set up, as my lifts all stalled out on SS, and I’m looking to continue on my strength journey. I ended up with decent numbers that I’m happy with at just under 6 months of training with SS. At last measure, I weighed in at 135 lbs and ended with a 150lb bench, 107.5lb overhead press, a 255lb squat, a 315lbs deadlift, and weighted chins at 42.5lbs and weighted pullups at 37.5lbs. I’d love to get my bench to 200lbs, squat to 300lbs, and deadlift to 400lbs by the end of the year, but I know I have my work cut out for me. It’s alright though, I love the challenge.
Starting Strength is an awesome program and highly recommended for anybody looking to gain strength and muscle. I recommend Ripptoe’s superbly awesome book as well. For additional resources, check out the Starting Strength wiki at http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Starting_Strength_Wiki, which I referred to often. New year, new beginnings. Now’s as good a time as any to get stronger.