People who are into lifting are more likely to associate the term Weightlifting with the practice of Olympic Weightlifting. This article is about powerlifting.
Olympic lifting focuses on the two dynamic, technique-driven main movements. The clean and jerk, which is a two-part lift and the snatch, which is a single movement lift. Up until 1972, the press was also an olympic movement, but it became too hard to judge and was so removed. There are rigorous criteria in competitions.
Powerlifting, as the article goes onto state is centered around three movements, the squat, the deadlift and the bench press. Just like olympic lifting (or weightlifting), powerlifting has strict criteria for competition lifts. The aim of powerlifting though is to move as much weight as possible.
For people who do not lift, they typically hear the phrase "weightlifting" and think of the practice of bodybuilding which is concerned with hypertrophy of muscle groups to build a balanced and awe-inducing physique.
Context: I like to dabble in weightlifting as a fun pursuit and held a very minor title for a short time period. It was a hollow victory, as due to my only competitor weighing in 0.4kg too light, I ended up as the only person in my age/weight category. I won because I made all my lifts. I was competing against myself.
To make it a little more confusing, olympic weightlifting's lifts are more powerful (think watts--energy over time--explosiveness) than the three power lifts.
Weightlifting is very technical. If you want to compete in weightlifting (or just perfect more complicated lifts than the power lifts), go do it. I'm not aware of weightlifting (properly coached) being any more dangerous than powerlifting - anecdotally, I know more injured powerlifters than weightlifters.
The older I get, the more I want to be a 'jack of all trades, master of none' in terms of fitness, but that's just a personal bias. I don't have the patience or the motivation to ever learn how to do a snatch or squat clean properly, but I see the appeal.
I feel the part of weightlifting that makes it more dangerous is probably why weightlifters are less injured than powerlifters. Weightlifting is technically hard, and most weightlifters start from day one with a coach. Powerlifts are "simple," and as such most powerlifters don't start with a coach and end up doing things wrong and hurting themself.
Or, you could go the route I did, and start with a coach, and still injure yourself.
Just because you know how to do something correctly doesn't mean you always will. I personally believe the combination of speed and weight makes olympic lifts inherently dangerous.
Most sports have a lot of survivorship bias. It looks like people can do them forever because a lot of other people have dropped out.
Powerlifters will definately bench press more because weightlifters don't bench.
When comparing the squat - powerlifters perform a low bar squat and hence you cannot compare it to the high bar squat the weightlifters do. I think weightlifters have much more powerful legs though - when you compare across the same lifts.
Weightlifters dont specialize in the deadlift however it is a part of their training and I think weightlifters will out deadlift powerlifters if they focus on it.
Good summary! One could almost say that the main point of weightlifting is maximum power production, while the main point of powerlifting is moving as much weight as possible. Ha!
I'm in this world and never bring this up when people are discussing it. It's like bringing up difference between hacker/cracker. People don't care and their eyes will glaze over in disinterest.
Do I really need to squeeze my shoulder blades together and pull my shoulders down during bench? It feels SO unnatural..but otherwise my shoulders hurt.
You don't need to. But it will allow you to press more weight with less risk of injury. It only feels unnatural because you're used to just lying flat on the bench with a relaxed back - doing that now feels "unnatural" to me.
Try this: walk over to a nearby wall and "try" to push it over. That is, put yourself into the position that feels like you have the best brace and power to transfer force into the wall, and actually do it. Notice where your hands, elbows and shoulder blades end up. That's basically the same position as a good powerlifting bench.
Do my push-wall exercise in front of a mirror, and look at your back. I bet you it's arched.
Obviously, don't do something that's painful. But it's important to recognize the difference between "painful" and "uncomfortable." One is a sign you are doing something detrimental to your body; the other is a sign you are doing something you are unfamiliar with. If a low to moderate arch is what works for you, that's fine. I bench with a low to moderate arch, and yes, my bench is also considerably weaker than my other lifts.
335 squat, 440 deadlift, 215 bench... I feel my deadlift and squat are good. Squat a bit weak but it's progressing. I've been at 215-235 bench for years.
It took me over a year of benching before I realized that my shoulders shouldn't feel anything from benching correctly. There are a ton of good youtube videos on scapular retraction, if you learn to do that and make it part of your routine you'll never have shoulder pain again. I'm not sure if it makes benching more or less efficient, but I'm able to recover significantly quicker and so I've made better progress since learning to retract.
If you feel nothing in your pecs you might have your hands too close together. Hand separation generally selects from a gradient of tricep vs chest for me.
Yep, pecs triceps and lats are where I feel it when I bench. "Proper" hand positioning should be double the length of your clavicle, if you can measure it.
Yes. But like all things, it takes time and practice doing something different before it feels natural. Doing it this way is better for your shoulders.
Good idea to do this during squats as well, but for a different reason: engaging the lats (the "pulling my shoulders down" part) helps to make your back more rigid.
“No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training…what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” - Socrates
“In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection.” - Plato
I don't mean to be a killjoy but both these quotes are obviously fake for anyone familiar with Plato. (The concept of god was not used like this in Ancient Greece and Socrates didn't talk like that.)
"No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training…what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."
Closest quote:
"Besides, it is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit." - Xen. Mem. 3.12
Mistranslated/corrupted:
"In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these two means, man can attain perfection."
Closest quote:
"For these two, then, it seems there are two arts which I would say some god gave to mankind, music and gymnastics for the service of the high-spirited principle and the love of knowledge in them—not for the soul and the body except incidentally, but for the harmonious adjustment of these two principles." - Plat. Rep. 3.411e
As those who do not train the body cannot perform the functions proper to the body, so those who do not train the soul cannot perform the functions of the soul. (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Memorabilia_(Xenophon))
There is a difference between maintaining your body's strength andrunning after PRs at all cost (over feeding, spending hours in the gym, drugs, &c.). Stoics especially don't value "externals" that much, which includes the body.
> For although the body needs many things in order to be strong, yet the mind grows from within, giving to itself nourishment and exercise. Yonder athletes must have copious food, copious drink, copious quantities of oil, and long training besides; but you can acquire virtue without equipment and without expense. All that goes to make you a good man lies within yourself.
> Now there are short and simple exercises which tire the body rapidly, and so save our time; and time is something of which we ought to keep strict account. These exercises are running, brandishing weights, and jumping, – high-jumping or broad-jumping, or the kind which I may call, "the Priest's dance," or, in slighting terms, "the clothes-cleaner's jump." Select for practice any one of these, and you will find it plain and easy.
But whatever you do, come back soon from body to mind. The mind must be exercised both day and night, for it is nourished by moderate labour. and this form of exercise need not be hampered by cold or hot weather, or even by old age. Cultivate that good which improves with the years.
It’s kinda strange you read into my comment I’m pushing Ancient Greek ideas which include slavery and pedophilia.
>No need to appeal to the ancients. Appeal to facts instead.
I’m going to let you in on a secret, it’s a fact that the world has been influenced by Socrates and Pluto for 2,500 years and the world is going to continue to reference and qoute them for the foreseeable future for all sorts of reasons...the least of which will be to push slavery and pedophilia. if you’d like to take up the good fight to stamp out any references to Socrates and Plato by calling it an appeal to authority and pushing slavery and pedofilia, good luck.
>forcing people to commit suicide via hemlock ( as what happened to socrates himself ).
This is actually much more interesting. Socrates was indeed sentenced to death, but as was the way his friends/students broke in the take Socrates out of the city (like a quasi prison escape/excommunication) but he refused and had a debate as to why he would not escape and but see the sentence through. I’d share some of the dialogue but I know how you feel about quoting ancient works.
Justifying or defending something based on a quotes is recipe for contradictions and disaster.
For every quote, you can find an equal and opposite quote.
"Actions speak louder than words." vs "Pen is mightier than the sword."
"Many hands make light work." vs "Too many cooks spoil the broth."
It's like the bible, I can find a quote to justify pretty much anything. And then I can find a quote to denounce the same.
I think it's silly to advocate for physical activity with a quote. I think it's better to defend physical activity because it keeps you healthy physically and even mentally. I used to be a big quote collector ( from benjamin franklin to the bible ). I'm not any longer.
A majority of modern day office workers would really benefit from learning the deadlift. Sitting for hundreds of hours a month, mixed with the standard American diet is really bad for your health. The deadlift is a fantastic compound movement that targets so many areas weakend by sitting, it also incorporates a hip hinge which is a quite natural movement.
I never made progress getting my hands past my toes in a pike (I attribute that to a lot of sitting) until I started strengthening my glutes and hamstrings with the deadlift. The muscle fatigue post-workout paired with stretching finally got my muscles to relax and lengthen.
Plus I have an ass now. So many upsides to doing deadlift.
Yes, you can get an idea of what shape people are in by looking at the 'team lift' threshold for picking up boxes. I recently assembled a weight storage rack which came in a team lift box and had cautions in the instructions that if you wanted to move it around you should use two people.
I snapped a photo of my 16-year-old (not some massive ox of a child either) picking it off the ground with his middle finger.
+1 for deadlifting. Also easier to coach than the squat. Personally I think the hex bar deadlift is the safest movement for untrained people as it reduces the technical issues. I haven't experimented on people with this but I would intuitively suspect that some form of Zercher or strongman influenced move would be another good thing for the sedentary (obvs with lighter weights) as in Real Life, many objects are not conveniently barbell shaped.
Everyone would benefit from learning the deadlift. As you've mentioned, office workers, but also more physical trades -- it's a great way to improve posture and build strength, especially for younger workers.
Plus, once you really get into it, diet improves. When one can feel the effects of the terrible food they ate, people tend to naturally gravitate towards a high protein diet with enough carbs to support their growth. Also helps improve sleep patterns in my experience.
I've met enough powerlifters to know this isn't remotely true. A lot of people stagger out of heavy PL sessions in search of cheeseburgers. Lots of cheeseburgers. Hard powerlifting sessions can awaken a hunger that is grossly out of proportion to calories burned, which may or may not explain why many powerlifters can't see their feet. With a big enough back arch, you can bounce your bench off your giant belly!
I'm being flip - and I've also felt the same effect - i.e. "with all this effort in the gym, let's not act like a f*wit in the kitchen". But it's not guaranteed.
Deadlifting is my favorite exercise, but squatting is so much more beneficial to sedentary people in my opinon - it targets all the areas of the deadlift, but better and more effectively.
Most importantly though: squatting didn't just make my physically stronger, it made me psychologically stronger. Your main risk in failing a deadlift is making a lot of noise dropping the bar. Failing a squat is much scarier, and the prospect of being at the bottom of a squat and having the choice to give up and figure out a way to get the bar off your back without getting crushed or to just fucking stand up really forces you to toughen up mentally.
I realized I was capable of so much more than what I gave myself credit for, and that is something that every person should feel about themselves.
I agree. After one bad accident where I was lucky to not be injured beyond a strained back, I went out and spent the money on a good power rack so I can safely dump the bar at the bottom of a failed bench press or squat.
I've failed plenty of squats before back when I used to do powerlifting, and it's not scary at all. You just let the bar go (i.e. release your grip and let it roll off your back), and fall backwards after it. You might end up with a bruised ego, but that's pretty much it.
I have seen a newbie fall forwards though, and that can be scary and dangerous. But they fell forwards because their form was horribly wrong.
I have lifted for years, and deadlifts and squats just kill my back every time. I just had to take a week off lifting, having to support myself like an old man every time I had to bend over, after another failed attempt at deadlifting. Putting my socks on was excruciating. I'm not even 30. Right now I just cop out with the leg press machine.
I've had professional instruction, I don't arch my back, I've watched countless videos, and nothing seems to help. It's a big shame, as I've always liked to put a big focus below the waist, but it just doesn't work for me.
Well my guess is that probably your back/hip muscles are weak and not used to working together. You really shouldnt be putting a lot of weight when you start learning a tough movement like deadlift, squat. In deadlift concentrate contracting your lower back muscles as you lift and if you feel they are getting tired and you're starting to compensate with other muscles, lower weights and focus on technique. Also the movement itself can be tricky eg not to hit your shins with the bar.
Then squat is even harder but for me helped to focus on keeping foot pressure midfoot, not heels. Also i realized my hips/glutes were weak and i had never trained them properly, hence my form was bad and overusing quads. It took me a while to be able to go full range of motion with glutes contracted. So i first did like 3/4 squats, then 1/2 and now ass to the grass
But this is just if the problem is about the muscles/technique. If your back is damaged somehow, it won't fix that. But it could be that you just haven't learned to activate your back muscles properly and then do way too much weight, with your body compensating with your spine/other muscles
Hmm not really, no. I might do legs too or other back muscles but you can't really train deadlift by doing other than deadlift. You should rather focus on doing a very good warm-up to enable easier contraction of those muscles and then doing a lot of low-weight training sets just to get the muscle memory right. There's a ton of good videos on Youtube about this, so pick whatever works for you and slowly move to doing the lift faster and heavier. With squat the warm-up I'd say is even more important. The ability to even squat low enough with proper movement that keeps the glutes activated takes a long while. But don't give up! I have hurt my back with deadlift too and it took a long time for it to heal. There's no shame using low-weights and you'll be so much happier in the long run having learnt the technique properly so spend time on it.
In addition to eliminating my back problems, the deadlift helped me in one unexpected area: I had a mild RSI and now I don't. I started from not being able to bend over to pick something off the floor without pain, and got to 495lbs for 5 reps. I also eat much better now, another unexpected side benefit, because you can't really make progress at this without eating the right things.
You all have not met the hogs that I've met in PL, then. I've met people with trash diets (plenty of macros, obtained largely through cheeseburgers and the like) who are strong as hell. I love deadlifting (favorite lift of the 3) but the idea that PL is somehow a cure-all for bad lifestyles is pretty laughable.
I really love the deadlift - both for strength building and the "nervous system workout", but I'd have to disagree that the hip hinge is a natural movement. I and most new deadlifters I've seen will intuitively lift incorrectly with the back. It's a fantastic workout for the typical office worker though.
Yeah, I had a huge improvement in my posture from a lifting regimen, it really counteracts the bad habits from sitting all day. Deadlifts and front squats feel like they're the most effective. The great thing about lifting is that it trains your muscles to want to hold correct posture (as in, you don't need to constantly remember to sit up straight). Wish I had gotten introduced to lifting earlier in life, it always seemed like some intimidating thing that was just for the bros club.
Weightlifting, in general, is a pretty safe sport. It has a way lower injury rate per hour spent than soccer or running. The deadlift, specifically, is a very easy lift to learn how to perform. And if you perform it properly and only add 5lbs to your max from workout to workout, you’d have a pretty difficult time injuring yourself.
I'm surprised to see no mention of Sacks' mental state at the time. The gloss seems a little too upbeat.
He was clearly unhappy in his late 20s and early 30s. Despondent at Oxford, he spent a summer in Israel working on a Kibbutz. After finishing his medical degree, he travelled across Canada and tried to joint the Canadian Air Force as a pilot. When he began working in San Francisco, he was drawn to obsessive weightlifting. He also began to regularly consume copious amounts of hallucinogenic drugs, and briefly joined Hell's Angels.
Sacks says that things only fell into place when he began writing.
Also not mentioned: He was a gay man, which he never seemingly really came to terms with after coming out to his father at 18 and then being unwillingly outed to his mother who declared him an "abomination", and it clearly fucked him up. He remained celibate for decades and never directly addressed the issue until his memoir written/released when he had terminal cancer. It's hard not to think of his interest in weightlifting as related to his internal conflicts over gayness and masculinity.
I am an avid weightlifter, I think its really great and overall healthy, but the linked article paints a rosy picture of something more complicated for Sacks.
Oliver Sachs being mentioned always strikes my attention since having a read a couple of books by him. I was not aware though of his troubled past. Makes him more relatable in some way. Also brings this article into perspective. For all the positives that come with lifting weights (of what ever kind) it is obvious that most of the time it is born out of a desire to compensate a perceived shortcoming.
I would add that many people who do brainwork that isn't physically demanding feel the urge to engage in something physically strenuous as well; I certainly feel that way. And the history of people interested in developing the body goes back a long ways; the book The Temple of Perfection is okay on this subject: https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/T/....
I suppose we need a new truth then addressing the 90% of the adult population who neither work physically nor mentally (to any significant degree). How are they supposed to cope?
I wish they would change the title of the article to powerlifting, not weightlifting. I blame the sub-editor of the website. It's correct in the article text.
Yep, newbie gains will be almost entirely about the nervous system. You'll get stronger without adding much if any bulk. Then as you continue over time, you need to add rest to your routine. It's counterintuitive to a degree.
It's not all about that. It's also about building muscle which is about training over time with appropriate rest and diet and can't really be short circuited without steroids.
It's all tied to the nervous system. But given a certain muscle mass, there's a limit to how much weight you can move, even with optimal technique and an optimally trained nervous system. Eventually, you'll need to add more muscle in order to move more weight. Of course, more realistically, beginners will add more muscle over the course of normal training. Intermediate and advanced lifters will need to schedule muscle-building blocks into their training to add muscle.
Great article! My only knowledge of Oliver Sacks comes from his appearances on Radio Lab. I've just added On the Move to my wishlist. He seems like an interesting fellow.
If somebody wanted to get into weightlifting, where would they even start?
If you're just starting out, a newbie walking into the gym, I'd recommend looking at a 5x5 program like Stronglifts. It's an iPhone/Adroid app with a website and a ton of information. It isn't perfect because nothing is but it will give you a basis, a starting point.
You'll have a program of exercises, squat, bench, ... and sequence. You'll do the exercises and learn about form. It's a start.
Taking classes like Bodypump is another approach. You won't learn anything about form and the weights will be more about endurance and tone but it's a start.
I'm assuming you're a complete newbie walking into a gym needing a sustainable start. Do this for 3-6 months then try to connect with a powerlifting program.
If you really want to know a LOT, look at Stronger By Science.
I'm going to go against most of the replies and start with a question, because without a clear answer you're going to probably have mixed results, at best.
What is your motivation and what do you hope to achieve?
If the answer is clearly "I want to move as much weight as possible", then you should pursue a powerlifting track. It's very unlikely you would start with Olympic lifts an and end goal, but in the off chance, ditto that.
If the answer has a component centered around muscularity and body image, then you may want to start with an elementary bodybuilding program. What's the difference? You'll do more reps at lower weights (as %1RM), and you'll do a lot more accessory lifts, as opposed to primarily focusing with intent on [mostly] just the major compound lifts.
If your goal is to become more athletic, then you'll probably end up with a blend that combines the major compound lifts, accessory lifts, and explosive functional movements with resistance.
In my case, my first goal was "get stronger so I can perform better at my sports of choice", so I started with bootcamp style HIIT classes, then added more explicit functional movements and accessory lifts, and only then started adding compound lifts for total body strength & power.
Point being, identify your objectives first, then choose a training program. And, if you're a complete newbie, do not try to do this by yourself. Join a class, hire a trainer, or find an experienced buddy -- you'll have more fun, probably experience faster gains, and reduce your chances of injury.
Those are great questions but at this point in a newbie's path, I think they can be overwhelming even as they are well intentioned. I think it's best to just introduce them to lifting and get them into a gym with a sustainable routine and show them that they can enjoy it and make progress.
I'll be 50 years old next year and I'm losing my strength. I want to get stronger and add some muscle mass. I'm not concerned about weight and I'm not trying to get ripped.
I already have a bunch of equipment in my garage that I can use (pull up bar, lots of kettle bells, rowing machine, a bar and plates, and a set of dumbbells). I want to start with that and then I'm also thinking about signing up for a BJJ class, but first I have to drop something to make space in my schedule.
It's an updated approach to Starting Strength. It builds a weekly routine around the core lifts of bench, incline bench, overhead press, squat, and deadlift.
And while he dives into some iffy science at times and the diet section is – while informative and eye opening to me in the beginning about how much I needed to change my diet – it's also extremely unrealistic, especially for a beginner.
But, if you keep those things in mind, it's a strong base to build a lifting habit around.
I've been lifting 5 times a week for a couple years now and, while I've since modified much of the book to fit my personal goals and approach, it helped me get somewhere from no previous lifting experience (other than aimlessly wandering around the Y in my teens and 20s).
By finding a coach to set up a proper form for the lifts. That is, if we are talking about powerlifting, learning how to properly do bench press, squat, and deadlift. Internet is awash with materials about it, but each person is different and you really want someone experienced checking your lifts.
I have been somewhat seriously lifting for more than a year (~350 Wilks, raw), never had a coach and it's my only regret that I had not worked out the forms with someone early on. I didn't think much of the sport at first and was doing it just for fun. But as I hit heavier weights I had to re-learn all the lifts multiple times because the "canonical" forms I learned from youtube were often ill suited for my body structure.
I've been doing various sports on/off since I was a student (10+ years ago), mostly martial arts. There were some periods when I was out of shape, but in general I kept myself fit. I was never into lifting though, I could barely bench my own weight, and never even tried deadlifts. Two years ago I tore a tendon in my shoulder rendering me incapable of doing most MA things. While in recovery I started playing with free weights. A local powerlifter noticed me and told me that my numbers can win me local meets if I work on my form. So around January 2018 I started looking up powerlifting and went through two cycles of Candito's 6 Week Program.
Last June I attended my first meet and tanked it: failed all three deadlift attempts due to errors (not following commands, double movement, etc). I started working on technique and won the two local meets that followed. I cannot say I enjoy it as much as I enjoy martial arts, but at the moment I'm just curious to see how much my body can progress within my normal sleep/rest/nutrition regimen.
Weightlifting is easy. It's so easy that all sorts of misguided people can do all manner of stupid things and still make reasonable progress.
* Consistency: 3 to 5 times a week, every week, with periodic deloads (once every month or two, give yourself an easy week where you cut the weight in half or so).
* Intensity: you want to challenge yourself, but not overdo it such that it's hard to recover. Part of learning means you have to push to find your limits, but overall you shouldn't be going nuts until you're more of an advanced lifter.
* Movements: the core of lifting weights consists of the Squat, Deadlift, Benchpress, and Overhead Press. Any reasonable program will make good use of these movements. Add in accessory work as you like: rows, pull/chin-ups, arm work, ab work, etc.
* Diet: Sufficient calories and protein to support muscle growth. ~0.6g/lbs. of body weight is a reasonable protein target. You can count calories, but use the scale as the real test of whether you're hitting your calorie goal. If you want to get bigger, the scale better be moving up.
Starting Strength is good but IMO the best way to start is to book some sessions with a trainer and go and actually lift some heavy things. In my experience it is very helpful to have someone knowledgeable help you with your form early on and it also gives you someone to spot you and to push you.
A good lifting coach is much better than DIY Starting Strength, because they'll help you develop good form before you start lifting really heavy weights. Agreed.
However, there are a lot of unqualified lifting coaches out there, and many fitness certifications don't cover lifting well. So if you just walk into your local fitness club and ask for a trainer, you can easily wind up with the incompetent leading the ignorant.
A practical compromise might be to buy a phone tripod, record your lifts, and work online with a qualified coach. Just looking at the larger Starting Strength community, I've been deeply impressed by Barbell Medicine, and some people seem to like Starting Strength Online Coaching.
There are lots of other good programs out there besides Starting Strength, obviously. And honestly, all the uninjured, grey-haired lifters I've met were careful bodybuilders and not powerlifters (but my sample size is small).
Mark Rippetoe, the author, is a broken old man as a result of his methods. He is also known as a loudmouth that gets more attention than he deserves in the community. I would not recommend his methods or book. Although his book got popular among amateurs, it has no place in modern powerlifting and is considered antiquated and rife with bad advice.
Rippetoe has a video of him deadlifting 500 pounds at age 56. He's not the peak of physical fitness, but he is significantly stronger than most people.
To say that his advice is antiquated is controversial at best. SS is written for the brand new beginner, and is advertised as such. Its prototypical student is a high school freshman that weighs 140 lbs and needs to get bigger and stronger to make the football team.
Another commenter said it ignores other factors like diet and rest. This is objectively incorrect. The book harps on eating and sleeping/resting. Rest days are sacred. If you are trying to go from. 100 lb squat to 300 in a few months, you sleep and eat, taking occasional breaks to lift heavy. If you are fat, eat slightly less.
SS isn't about body building, it's about a brand new lifter getting to a non-embarassing level of strength. That means eating an adequate amount of food, erroring on the side of eating too much, and just cut back the calories after you have a 300+ lb squat. People like to make a meme of things like the 'Gallon of Milk A Day' advice. That's not general advice. That's for the 110 lb 15 year old who doesn't like eating food and wants to get bigger. It's not advice for the 20 something software dev trying to go from weak and fat to bodybuilder
On the contrary, Rippetoe is the only author who has a rigorous, physics-based framework that explains why he recommends doing the lifts the way he does. Speaking frankly, the rest of the industry is mostly jackasses selling lifting-bro bullshit and crackpot theories.
That's news to me, but based on my gut reaction to the way Rippetoe writes and speaks (bloviating and seemingly over-certain about the science of things, which gives the impression that he actually knows very little about the science) I'm not surprised! Do you know of any alternative books or other sources that don't suffer from the same issues?
I have not read the book, but Chad is a respected competitor and coach in the community. I have watched the Juggernaut Training YouTube channel for a few years now, and they always have sound advice for both beginner and expert lifters.
FWIW it was a good bootcamp for me and helped me learn about the big lifts and what to use them for, but sleep, diet, and muscle imbalance are all left as an exercise for the reader. Wound up stopping the program to focus more on all those other things.
1. Resistance bands. These are a smaller, lighter, cheaper, and less intrusive investment than a weight set or a gym membership, and they continue to be a useful training supplement at all levels of training because the maximal resistance with bands comes near the end of the movement, when they're stretched, instead of at the beginning when picking up a weight. Lifters have devised combinations of weights and bands for a steady resistance gradient through the whole range of motion.
2. Focus the workouts on studying the technique. Even the simplest of movements has something to study in it. Initiation in a new technique can be done with books, videos, personal trainers, etc. but most of the work is in learning to do the movement more efficiently. Spend each workout sampling techniques and trying for good form before adding difficulty.
3. Log your progress. The real game of weight training is in the "progressive" part of "progressive overload", and logging each workout provides you with a benchmark to exceed in each session: you can aim to increase weight, reps, sets, try a more difficult form of a movement, etc. Calculations like "total volume" (weight × reps) let you adjust the composition of your training so that you don't stagnate. There are many apps that help you with logging - I started using "FitNotes" on Android years ago and never stopped.
There are lots of comments suggesting starting with a low-rep high-weight compound approach like Rippetoe's Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5. I also started there because it is everyone's go-to. It never worked great for me, I maxed out at like 185 squat and 135 bench. I'm now starting over with Michael Yessis's 1x20 program. This is a mixture of compound and single-joint exercises that are intended to build overall strength and avoid weak spots that can prevent progress in other approaches. I'll have to tell you how it works out but he has a lot of good arguments as to why it is best to start with an 8-12 week cycle of 1x20 before you start working on powerlifting 5x5 or 5x3. He's not opposed to powerlifting lifts, just doesn't think it's the right foundation for a new athlete.
Also, if you're like me and have long thighs and a short torso, the back squat is not the best exercise for developing strength as your leverages are bad. When I learned about that, and that the parallel-grip deadlift would be a better one for me, I was disappointed that Rippetoe didn't really promote alternatives to the back squat.
Also, if you want to learn more about Oliver Sacks outside of his weightlifting, check out Awakenings (his book, later made into a movie starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams, with the latter playing Sacks) or The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. He wrote a number of other books that are also interesting - exploring the way the brain works by understanding when it fails - but those two are probably the best known.
Starting out all you need to do is go to the gym and figure out what exercises/activities make you feel good enough that going to the gym becomes a habit. The main battle for most people is just showing up, figure out how to win that one first. For me it was totally vanity, I did it for maybe 3-4 weeks and came home one day after lifting and was like "whoa I have muscles" when I looked in the mirror. Super cheesy and vain, but the endorphin spike from that kept me going 3-5X a week, and I still am 14 years later.
Secondly its a lifelong expedition, there are a million programs of exercise/diet/sleep/supplements online. Your body is unique so the only way to know is to try them out. Be ready to make progress, regress, get frustrated, get injured, feel really strong, and feel really weak.
My partner got me back into lifting via the her membership to NerdFitness Academy. Helpful for those who might benefit from some gamification and gives a decent set of "levels" to progress through to get into it without going the full on coaching route. That said, I agree with others that you probably would want to get some coaching, or at least do a lot of self study when progressing to heavier lifts (like the dead lift). Source: lots of thankfully minor injuries before I started really learning form.
For me I got a great intro by doing Crossfit. They’re pretty welcoming to newbies and they include both powerlifting and olympic lifting (although they usually don’t do bench presses). The gyms use rubber weights & floors so that you can always drop the barbell, which is pretty nice while learning.
Either way, definitely find something where you have an in-person coach. Its way too easy to develop bad form habits if you’re just learning from Youtube or something.
Former competitive powerlifter here. Find a team. If you search around, you are guaranteed to find some dungeon gym that has a group that trains together. It won't be a big-box gym. It will have rusty iron. This is where you want to be, this is essential. You need 2 or 3 people to properly spot a powerlifting squat, don't bother doing it alone.
I’ve wondered about this. Is there no way to do it well with the safety bars? I know with a bench press you can get benches with safety bars that seem quite effective.
But squats are more complicated. Are the safeties really useless? It’s a bit hard in my area to find such a group, though I could look around. Have taken time off of lifts to fix some muscular issues.
The safeties are a fail safe when every other safety system fails. It is not your primary safety component.
A team or partner serves many needs:
- safety in terms of spotting
- safety in terms of feedback to guide you to proper form
- safety in terms of damage control if you suffer an injury and need medical attention (especially if you have a stroke or aneurysm during a lift)
- encouragement to maibtain your routine
Thanks! I’m going to see if I can find one when I return to lifting. So minimum team number is 3. How long do sessions usually last? I’m guessing you lift during others’ breaks, so it doesn’t add as much extra time as if it were all in sequence.
It depends on what you mean by safety bars. If you mean a smith machine, yes, don't use those.
But if you mean "I have failed my lift, prevent me from crushing myself" safety bars, there shouldn't be a problem with those as long as they are set at an appropriate height.
Safety bars keep you from dying if you have to bail, but bailing is still bad. Basically you want to say "take" and have the weight immediately removed. There is no use in straining yourself or risking injury on a bail; you have the lift or you don't.
Front squats are also not so bad if you have safety bars to drop the barbell forwards onto.
Starting Strength style low-bar squats are trickier. I've previously found myself having to sort of roll forwards until the safety bars catch the barbell, then crawl out on hands and knees. Slightly scary the first couple of times but still pretty safe.
Thanks! With front squats can you just drop it, or do you need to jump as well? A friend had recommended those as being safer on the back.
My worry is I won't really need the safeties until I have 200+ pounds on my back and if I exit wrong I could hurt myself. I tried practicing at the gym but it was very loud and the staff warned me not to.
You shouldn't need to jump, just be moving backwards yourself as you push the bar off forwards.
I don't think front squats are inherently more or less safe than back squats; both are safe if performed with good form.
I understand the worry about heavy weights. If possible, you should try to find a gym that will let you drop weights (one mark of a good gym). Then you can practice to your heart's content.
He has almost certainly failed countless reps in his training and he's still alive and training like this :)
On the other hand - he appears to have injured his wrist few months ago, although not by failing to finish the lift but by missing the rack when putting the bar back.
I'd like to put my hat in to support the 5/3/1 approach over traditional 5x5s. I managed to get my way to a ~317 wilks on a 5x5 program and after taking a few years off and getting back in with 5/3/1, I wish I had had the patience to leverage a more well rounded approach like 5/3/1.
I love 5/3/1 but I don't know if I would recommend it to a beginner. The progression is just too slow compared to one of the daily progression programs like 5x5 or StartingStrength.
Yeah, I totally agree - you don't need to progress that slowly at the beginning, so why would you? 5 lbs a workout is totally doable, not 5/10 lbs a month. I'm a big fan of slow and steady, but there's a difference between that and a flagrant waste of time.
You don’t even technically _need_ a program if you’re just doing it for fun.
I work out twice a week, bench both days and squat/deadlift on each of the other. Some days I do 6 sets of 5-10 reps, some days I do heavy doubles/triples, whatever I feel like doing, depending on how I feel that day. I’m almost 40 so I’m sure if I had started 15 years ago I’d have way better numbers.
~325 wilks with a poor squat because of an old hip injury (it’s less than my bench)
The benefits of weightlidting are very marginal compared to cardio. There’s very little weifhtlifting does anything for your body besides getting stronger. Cardio on the other hand increases cognitive performance, life expectancy, decreases chances of getting dementia and parkinson’s.
What's funny with this is that the stand-sit test is an excellent indicator of longevity, has nothing to do with cardio, and is a huge test of strength.
I'm far more into cardio that weightlifting but your comment that weightlifting "does [nothing]... besides getting stronger" is demonstrably false.
> All participants were given cognitive tests at the beginning and end of the study and 12 months after they finished the study. The group that did the weight training scored significantly higher at the end of the study than at the beginning and retained that gain at 12 months. The gain in test scores was also greatest for those who had the greatest gains in strength. The scores of the group who performed stretching exercises declined somewhat.
I agree but I think it is worth pointing out the two activities (cardio vs lifting) use different energy pathways (aerobic vs anaerobic). You almost certainly know that, so my comment is aimed at giving other readers some deeper context.
It's also worth pointing out that no energy pathway acts alone. You're always using all of them in some degree, but a particular activity will use one of them over the others. You will strengthen them in conjunction, though what you focus on will improve the most.
It is not. At least the slow lifts are too restrictive on blood flow. Fred Hatfield did claim that Olympic lifting did interesting/good things for ejection fraction (IIRC) but these lifts have very little time under tension so are a different animal.
I would suspect you were reasonably fit before, needed some more leg strength to hit your peak speed, and didn't lose too much cardio from not doing it for a month.
This may be a random link[1] to a page on the internet, but this author seems to have picked out a lot of benefits and whilst the page is aimed at seniors, much can apply to adults in general.
People who are into lifting are more likely to associate the term Weightlifting with the practice of Olympic Weightlifting. This article is about powerlifting.
Olympic lifting focuses on the two dynamic, technique-driven main movements. The clean and jerk, which is a two-part lift and the snatch, which is a single movement lift. Up until 1972, the press was also an olympic movement, but it became too hard to judge and was so removed. There are rigorous criteria in competitions.
Powerlifting, as the article goes onto state is centered around three movements, the squat, the deadlift and the bench press. Just like olympic lifting (or weightlifting), powerlifting has strict criteria for competition lifts. The aim of powerlifting though is to move as much weight as possible.
For people who do not lift, they typically hear the phrase "weightlifting" and think of the practice of bodybuilding which is concerned with hypertrophy of muscle groups to build a balanced and awe-inducing physique.
Context: I like to dabble in weightlifting as a fun pursuit and held a very minor title for a short time period. It was a hollow victory, as due to my only competitor weighing in 0.4kg too light, I ended up as the only person in my age/weight category. I won because I made all my lifts. I was competing against myself.