Experiences with Starting Strength? page

[JL22]

Just wondering if anyone here has had any experience on the routine, I've got my first workout tomorrow and I'm quite looking forward to it, if anyone has made any progress on it please let me know, some motivation would be good!

[Mr. Koozie]

I see from one of your other posts that your stats are:

19 years old
Male
5'11”
194lbs
18.5% body fat

Based on that info I think Starting Strength would be good for you. Possibly great. It is geared more towards people your age. I did it for about 6 months and while I did make some impressive strength gains (well, impressive to me anyway) I gained very little muscle. I did however gain A LOT of fat. But keep in mind I’m 40 years old and have always had a weight problem. It also messed up my shoulder a little. I liked the program for a while but after 4 or 5 months I got really bored. It doesn’t really change and I was sick of doing squats for every single workout. I was eating much more food than normal, and eating clean, and also drinking a lot of milk, which according to Mark Rippetoe is an absolute requirement.

My experience may not sound like a ringing endorsement but I still recommend that anyone interested in lifting weights buy the book. Even if you don’t plan on doing the workout, the info in the book is well worth the $30. It has 64 pages alone on how to properly squat. I can’t actually fault the program for my lack of muscle building because the purpose of the book is to teach proper technique and build strength. It delivered on both fronts.

[Fernaldo]

Just by asking these questions, YNDTP!!!

Now, SHUT UP AND SQUAT!!! oh yeah , eat too...

[zilog]

Based on that info I think Starting Strength would be good for you. Possibly great. It is geared more towards people your age. I did it for about 6 months and while I did make some impressive strength gains (well, impressive to me anyway) I gained very little muscle. I did however gain A LOT of fat. But keep in mind I’m 40 years old and have always had a weight problem. It also messed up my shoulder a little. I liked the program for a while but after 4 or 5 months I got really bored. It doesn’t really change and I was sick of doing squats for every single workout. I was eating much more food than normal, and eating clean, and also drinking a lot of milk, which according to Mark Rippetoe is an absolute requirement.

My experience may not sound like a ringing endorsement but I still recommend that anyone interested in lifting weights buy the book. Even if you don’t plan on doing the workout, the info in the book is well worth the $30. It has 64 pages alone on how to properly squat. I can’t actually fault the program for my lack of muscle building because the purpose of the book is to teach proper technique and build strength. It delivered on both fronts.

I agree with these comments 100% especially the last paragraph about the book being very useful for teaching proper form. I also found that, since I do a lot of other activities (including a lot of cycling) squatting every other day was just too much and I could not recover sufficiently between each workout. I have since moved onto a Leangains style RPT - I actually find these workouts more exhausting than SS but the recovery window is a lot longer.

[Bestill]

Just wondering if anyone here has had any experience on the routine, I've got my first workout tomorrow and I'm quite looking forward to it, if anyone has made any progress on it please let me know, some motivation would be good!

I used SS for about 8 months and saw great strength gains. I did not bump my calories sufficiently to see its full potential, but for me it was a great strength builder. Some mass gains too, but modest in comparison to my strength gains.

[Gadsie]

Very good program. I've got impossible genes and even though SS works a lot slower for me than for most it actuallly works. So amazing

[JL22]

I used SS for about 8 months and saw great strength gains. I did not bump my calories sufficiently to see its full potential, but for me it was a great strength builder. Some mass gains too, but modest in comparison to my strength gains.

I wish I were able to do it with a good calorific surplus, I'll admit. I'm currently trying to do it in either a deficit or maintenance to keep my strength up whilst I try to lose weight, but I'll see how it goes. I quite like the premise of workouts like SS and Stronglifts though, especially as you can adapt them to only doing them twice a week quite easily, as to fit in with the Primal Blueprint philosophy.

[Mr. Koozie]

I'm currently trying to do it in either a deficit or maintenance to keep my strength up whilst I try to lose weight, but I'll see how it goes.

I tried that after a while and it didn't "work". Strength suffered and the lifts were much harder. If you plan to do SS on maintenance or deficit then as Coach Rip would say YNDTFP!!

[jfreaksho]

Not SS, but SL5x5 (StrongLifts 5x5, a very similar program). I really enjoyed it, but thankfully my wife (and some random guy at the gym) were really good at spotting when my form was jacked up, especially with barbell rows. Something about those rows that just didn't work for me for some reason, and I never felt like I really "got" it.

[loganchristopher]

SS is in my opinion the best beginner program out there !