SS and SL- can and should beginners do more? Or do it differently?

pokerandbeer said:
I get what you are saying and I notice the same thing. But yes thats exactly what I did over a 7 month period. It is very squat centric obviously(compared to upper body) but the reasons he gives for including the OHP in the book are sound(which decreases the amount you bench and vice versa). I mean look at PLTW novice powerlifting program where you only bench because it is specific to powerlifting for example. My experience of productive lifting period really isnt that much ive run a shortened starting strength(and a short stint with a 5/3/1 variation before and the BFS program in high school. So really i started from square one when I got to those numbers.
Click to expand...

What was your bench at the start of that 7 month period?
 
I dont have it logged but i started my stint at about 240x5x3 with roughly 27 bench workouts during that period
 
Last edited:
Well that's not that surprising to me then. Starting at 240 x 5 x 3 on bench for Starting Strength is going to be very unusual. That's why 365 lbs for a 1RM after 7 months seemed insane.
 
indeed it is...i have a good bench but thats what i was pointing out earlier some lifts are just going to be better for some lifters are just built better for a given lift but that isnt the programs fault
 
Answering the original question... yes, they can and should do more and/or differently... under coaching. I think SS/SL are great for someone going out and lifting without a coach. Yes both can be tweaked a little, or explained better perhaps, to adress some issues (upper back in SS, for example), but whatever. But if someones coaching a newbie I don't think SS is the way to go... taking away the thinking aspect off the lifter, and with inmediate feedback and a coach to push them or stop them when necessary, a beginner should add variaty.
 
There's nothing complex about doing Starting Strength but adding in some dumbbell rows, curls, hypers, planks or whatever to build some hypertrophy. That's more what Viskovitz was alluding to.

I like Rippetoe's brutal approach of Just Do The Fucking Program, because he realises that there are so many variables with novices that keeping it extremely simple is effective for people who will be all over the place physically. Essentially, Starting Strength is the Minimum Effective Dose required to progress, however that's not to say it's optimal. Ditto Stronglifts.

I must admit, I bought into the Stronglifts marketing when i first started lifting and that's what kept me with lifting. All the anti-bodybuilder and anti-broscience language made me appreciate the beauty of hard training in the big 4.
 
Obscure Terror said:
There's nothing complex about doing Starting Strength but adding in some dumbbell rows, curls, hypers, planks or whatever to build some hypertrophy. That's more what Viskovitz was alluding to.
Click to expand...

That and also not doing everything 3x5 always. Doing something x8 or x10-12 some weeks, or even going AMRAP for the last set could be good.. again under a coach, a novice wouldn't know when to stop or when to push it.

I saw someone mentioned Canditos Linaar Program for beginners... and well, that's not for total beginners, even Candito says so. And having run it... doing heavy DLs 2x6 right after heavy squats 3x6 it's hard as fuck. It's even worse doing paused DL's after paused squats. I love the program but you need some understanding and some time under the bar to run it IMO.
 
No not really. Rippetoe and that crew have expiremented with other rep ranges in trainess and have concluded that sets of 5 are what is best.
 
pokerandbeer said:
No not really. Rippetoe and that crew have expiremented with other rep ranges in trainess and have concluded that sets of 5 are what is best.
Click to expand...

So the guy selling the books and training methods says HE has concluded its JUST THE BEST. Who would've thought?

Oh, can he prove it? No, his answer to "can you prove it" its:

A.- I just know it!
b.- Science? That's for pussies!

And I (kinda, sometimes) like Rip and reading Starting Strength (and this forum) has changed my life to the better, but come on...
 
Doing 8s-12s plus is not enough intensity to drive strength gains in novice...that is science....this is why greyskull and the base 5/3/1 program are no good....you MuST have volume in the money rep range to drive strength and myofibrillar hypertrophy. The rep range DOES matter not only is it backed by science it is backed anecdotely by MANY lifters(thousdands). As Ed Coan would say"5s are the best gains you can make"
 
Sets of 5 roughly straddle the area between pure strength and hypertrophy, there is no magic bullet rep wise. Karwoski used to do 8's, 5's, 3's, doubles in the run up to a powerlifting comp and swore by that - if we're playing the "appeal to authority" card.

By your logic SL is better than SS because it has 5x5 instead of 3x5 - more volume is better. Rippetoe would like it to be black and white but it just isn't. If you ran SS with 4x6 instead of 3x5 and kept the linear progression & exercise selection the same there would be similar results. Worse for some people, better for some people, but overall statistically similar.
 
I will stop you right there. Coan and Karwoski did other rep ranges as part of a different block(hypertrophy)they were by definition advanced lifters. look at Andy Boltons book he even recommends beginners to do 5s as the base of training then when you advance you branch out to other rep ranges but nothing more or exotic should be used for a novice to the barbell. A novice doesnt need a hypertrophy block because 5s like you said is right in the anaerobic middle to drive both strength and size concurrently.

And stronglifts even switches to 3x5 and even 1x5 as you advanced. For technique practice this could be beneficial but if you tried to 5x5 the whole way through to the end of a linear progression you wont go as far doing it. Thousands of lifters have proven that 3x5 is the optimal amount of volume(and intenisty) time and time again. You could use autoregulation on a novice program to optimize the volume as well but again you would be complicating something that need not be so when straight weight volume and fixed increments have proven the test of time.
 
pokerandbeer said:
Doing 8s-12s plus is not enough intensity to drive strength gains in novice...that is science....this is why greyskull and the base 5/3/1 program are no good....you MuST have volume in the money rep range to drive strength and myofibrillar hypertrophy. The rep range DOES matter not only is it backed by science it is backed anecdotely by MANY lifters(thousdands). As Ed Coan would say"5s are the best gains you can make"
Click to expand...

Novices can make strength gains with as little as %40 of their estimated max. I'll eat my shoe if you can show me a controlled study that says only sets of 5 or less produce strength improvements in untrained or novice lifters. I'll eat both if that study was replicated and made it into a peer reviewed literature review.
 
A novice will make strength gains doing bodyweight only if you want to take it there. A untrained novice will gain strength by walking(this will promotly stall out in a few weeks at best)Thats not the problem though. The problem is long term strength and throwing in 10s for a novice is wasted time when they can get stronger in a linear fashion every time they hit the gym. Novices dont need hypertrophy blocks period for the aforementioned reasons. A more advanced lifter a hypertrophy block can be beneficial though but for a novice doing 5a increases nueral efficiency and cross sectional area in an optimal manner for a novice. That which makes you the strongest also makes you the biggest by the time you can actually say you are strong and want to train for the "pump" then that is where higher rep ranges can be beneficial to your goals.
 
pokerandbeer said:
Doing 8s-12s plus is not enough intensity to drive strength gains in novice...that is science....this is why greyskull and the base 5/3/1 program are no good....you MuST have volume in the money rep range to drive strength and myofibrillar hypertrophy. The rep range DOES matter not only is it backed by science it is backed anecdotely by MANY lifters(thousdands). As Ed Coan would say"5s are the best gains you can make"
Click to expand...

what the fuck.
 
What, Jim being astonished at someone posting such erroneous information? Yep, that's like him.

If the weight you're using for 3x10 goes up week to week, you got stronger.

If the weight you're using for 3x8 goes up week to week, you got stronger.

If the weight you're using for 3x5 goes up week to week, you got stronger.

If the weight you're using for 3x3 goes up week to week, you got stronger.

Rep ranges are useful but total volume has been shown time and time again to be the defining factor in strength gains.
 
No you are both wrong again...you cannot linear progress with 10s for any good length of time because volume is not the main driver of progress in startin strength it is intensity. I know because it has been tried many times before and failed. One you wont be able to recover from high reps like that in a linear fashion it will not work.

Peep this thread....http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/archive/index.php/t-16102.html

It is charactistic of Jim because he has shown over and over again in our interactions on here that he likes acting like a punk bitch rather debate the topic. He just makes comments like that and attacks the poster instead of having legitimate discussion.

What you call "erroneous" i call absolutely correct.
 
This is why starting strength can technically be used once per week and progress will be made because of the intensity of the sets and NOT the overall volume of the program.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,237,028
Messages
55,462,535
Members
174,786
Latest member
Santos FC 1912

Share this page

Back
Top