Starting Strength transformed my approach to strength training. In hindsight, this might not have been that big of an accomplishment. Because, at the time, my lifting could have been mistaken for LARPing. I trained in my garage. I had a pair of adjustable dumbbells. I had a bench less sturdy than soufflé. I’d do seventeen [...]
Starting Strength transformed my approach to strength training. In hindsight, this might not have been that big of an accomplishment. Because, at the time, my lifting could have been mistaken for LARPing.
I trained in my garage. I had a pair of adjustable dumbbells. I had a bench less sturdy than soufflé. I'd do seventeen different types of biceps curls, followed by twelve different types of shoulder raises, followed by… you get the idea.
This was the way lifting culture seemed to lean at the time. Bodybuilding magazines showcased advanced body part split routines consisting of dozens of exercises for each major muscle group with no mention of progressive overload.
Starting Strength came along and said, “You don't need to do an insane number of exercises in order to get stronger… and you need to get stronger. Especially if you want to build muscle. Catching a pump is overrated. Getting stronger on basic multi-joint exercises drives muscular progress. Taking your back squat from 95-pounds to 315-pounds will grow your quads better than any leg extension machine, just as taking your overhead press from 45-pounds to 185-pounds will grow your shoulders better than any lateral raise.”
Here's Phase One of the program:
Day A
- Squat: 5 reps x 3 sets
- Press/Bench Press: 5 reps x 3 sets
- Deadlift: 5 reps x 1 set
Day B
- Squat: 5 reps x 3 sets
- Press/Bench Press: 5 reps x 3 sets
- Deadlift: 5 reps x 1 set
You train three non-consecutive days per week, like the classic: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You alternate between Day A and Day B. You add weight to every single exercise every single training session.
Talk about culture shock. If anyone but my mentor referred me to Starting Strength, I don't think I would have been so easily brainwashed. But I was. And after I bought a proper barbell, a squat rack, and a bench more structurally sound than sponge cake, I began Starting Strength.
I couldn't believe the results. A few months later, I was a different person. I could squat 315-pounds. I could deadlift 405-pounds. My quads were huge.
And yet, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't do Starting Strength.
Because the exercises will give you hemorrhoids and turn your firstborn into a flat earth theorist.
Just kidding.
If I could go back in time, here's what I'd tell myself prior to falling down the Starting Strength rabbit hole:
Your lower-body is going to respond well to the program. You'll squat and deadlift weights you never thought possible. Your quads will remind you of Tetsuo Shima's monster arm.
Unfortunately, your upper-body is going to struggle. In plainclothes, you won't look much different than you do now. The girl across from you at Olive Garden eating chicken marsala won't even know you lift. She doesn't know who Tetsuo is either, so don't compare the size of your quads to his arm. As a matter of fact, don't even talk about your quads. She doesn't care.
You're going to wonder why Starting Strength gave you an adolescent upper-body. Here's one of a few reasons:
There aren't any upper-body pulls in Phase One of the program.
Rippetoe and his cronies are powerlifters at heart. You aren't. You want an x-physique. You need a big upper-back. Your upper-back will respond best to overt upper-body pull exercises. Throw some pull-ups and rows into the program.
And while you're rearranging the furniture, you might as well do incline bench presses instead of flat bench presses. You're insecure about your chest proportions. Your lower-chest dominates your upper-chest. Inline presses should help with this… somewhat.
Your pressing muscles will probably lag behind. Not from a lack of effort. You just suck at pressing. You're 6'4″, and your skeleton can floss teeth. You can wrap your hand around your opposite wrist and touch pinky finger to thumb. You aren't designed to be a pressing powerhouse… at least, this is the narrative you'll come to accept in order to rationalize your eternal inadequacies in this department.
So don't beat yourself up when your pressing progress pauses. Because it will. Early. That's okay. Rippetoe and his cronies are advocates of drinking a gallon of milk a day (GOMAD) to prolong linear progress. Don't. Buy some fractional plates. Instead of adding five-pounds to your presses every training session, add two-pounds. And decrease to one-pound sooner rather than later.
Micro-loading earlier should help. It might not. Either way, don't get too down on yourself when your linear progress on any exercise comes to an end. You aren't a failure if you don't add weight to the bar every week for the rest of your life.
I wouldn't do Starting Strength again… but I'd do something pretty damn similar.
Starting Strength is, by and large, a powerlifting program. Powerlifting is a specific sport. Powerlifters perform the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. Their goal is to lift the most weight (total) across these three lifts and only these three lifts.
You don’t need to be @steak_umm to see Starting Strength‘s powerlifting fingerprint. Three of the four total exercises in Phase One the program are the powerlifts. And if there’s one thing toothpaste commercials have taught us, it’s that three out of four is statistically significant.
Starting Strength‘s powerlifting fingerprint matters for one spectacular reason: I'm not a powerlifter. Never was. Never will be.
I was a skinny-fat kid. I looked like Spielberg’s E.T. I hated my body. I had my narrow shoulders tied to toothpick arms. My stomach was squishier than gravy sealed inside of a Ziploc bag. I was built opposite of the way I wanted to be built.
I wanted to be lean and muscular, but, at the same time, I didn’t want to look like a thwomp. I didn’t like how bodybuilders looked. I wanted a lean and sleek athletic physique. I wanted comically broad shoulders that funneled into a narrow waist.
I cared about my physique more than I cared about squatting, benching, and deadlifting.
Of course, I'm older and wiser now. I know there is overlap between the two. Becoming a powerlifter and building an x-physique are more similar than they are different.
In the end, to grow your muscles, you need to expose them to increasingly higher levels of supergravity stress. This is the backbone of Starting Strength, in support of a powerlifting end.
If you wanna know how I'd crack Starting Strength‘s back in support of a slightly more aesthetic outcome, read between the lines of the letter I wrote to my former self… or just join the Arcade and check out my mod of Starting Strength: Boring Barbell Program.