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    326 views221 pages

    Starting Strength

    Uploaded by

    James Bourke

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 221
    .y LOGE) = =, SIMPLE AND PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR COACHING BEGINNERS 5 Mark Rippetoe = with Lon Kilgore Table of Contents Foreward 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 ‘The Squat .. 15 Chapter 3 "The Bench Press... . 67 Chapter 4 The Deadlift... 105 Chapter 5 ‘The Press . 137 Chapter 6 “The Power Clean... _ 155 Chapter 7 Programming siinc.ictiaisisiasiss . 187 Chapter 8 Misconceptions about Training Youth sininsieuninninnnnns 215 Gre ssa es ansleneneaurau sittin c ODS Index ... 29 The AUthOFS ...csccsnnenrn nnn 2H ‘Auman being should be able 1a change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, seta bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly. Spesialieation is for insects. Robert Heinlein Foreward | Starting Strengels This book is the result of a conversation between Lon Kilgere, Michael Hartman, and me, in the summer of 2004, These guys basically accused me of laziness in having not yet written down what I knew about teaching the lifts. I hadn't actually considered thar 1 had. anything especially valuable to say about teaching them, but I have in fact been coaching, barbells.a while so I said I would start with the squat chapter and see what happened. I had. -written afew things for publication before, having started im 1980 with a small article for “Mike Lambert's legendary publication Powerlifting USA. At the time it wasn’t legendary, and I'm afraid my little piece didn't really do much toward propelling it in that direction Twas working in Colorado then and was not yet in the gym business as an owner, I had been working in the health club business for several years, was just starting a competitive career in powerlifting, and was in Colorado on a working sabbatical from a geology degree and a personal tragedy that had deeply affected my general usefulness, Ehad continued to train, and had in fact intended to continue writing while 1 was there. But I actually dida’t have much useful to say at that point in my career, so any writing I might have done at that time will not be missed anyway, Shortly after returning home to Wichita Falls from Colorado to see to my mother's health and finish my degree, Thad the opportunity to buy the gym I was training ia, and the gym business in Wichita Falls has never been the sume. [decimated the competition, and rendered it embarrassing to be caught training anywhere else. A slight exaggeration, granted, but Wichita Falls Athletic Club is one of the oldest sole-proprietorship black iron gyms in the country. “The writing started back up years later, once [ had become entitled to an opinion through more years of experience and study. I had made it the policy of Wichita Falls Athletic Club that everyone who joined and who was physically capable of doing squats would learn how to do them correctly, My intention was that all my members be at least exposed to the classic barbell exercises, so as to carry on the traditional approach to gym exercise that had been the norm prior to the advent of Nautilusstyle health clubs, In teaching everybody that joined to squat (in excess of 2500 people over more than 20 years), I had established the mechanism for accumulating a rather large body of experience and empirical data regarding the problems associated with teaching squats. ‘The other barbell exercises suffered the samme fate, being taught to thousands of more or less-willing innocents who trusted me with their rain Tris still interesting to me that I waited five years to unpack my boxes, my intentions always being to go back to Colorado. Actually, this book is the result of my having met my coach and friend Bill Starr in the summer of 1979. He was in town during and after the April 10 tornado taking care of a daughter who was injured in the storm. [ran into him at one of the two miserable little weight rooms in existence in the Falls at the time, where I and a couple of equally poorly- informed training parners-were trying to get big, or at least bigger. Billy graciously took me Starting Strength under his tutelage and gave me the tools I needed to get done whatever I might have later accomplished. There are many of us, “Friends of Bill", who owe competitive and professional careers to his guidance and influence. ‘There have been other people from whom I have learned a great deal, and to whom I ‘owe great deal. My years of self-employment - the situation thar allowed me to be in a position to know some few things about training and coaching ~ is due in large part to my oldest friend and associate Mark Tucker, who told me many years ago how success would be measured, He and my father were good examples of men that trusted themselves first. Glenn, Pendlay has been a tremendous help over the past few years, with his ability to examine and analyze huge amounts of data, distilling important concepts from the background noise in a way no one else has done. The range of his abilities continues to amaze me, Some of the most important concepts in this book are the result of our working, teaining, and thinking together. Dr. Kilgore has been the catalyst for most of what has occurred in the development of Olympic weightlifting in North Texas since he came to Midwestern State University in 1997. His obvious artistic talents and organizational skills have made this book possible, and I would not even consider a project like this without him, Dr, Philip Colee, who served as the finish editor for this text, has been teaching me things for a very long time, I hope he continues to be willing to do so. Stef Bradford has been by my side the entire time, with good advice, dispassionate analysis, and many different types of support. And my many members are due a great deal of thanks, both for providing me with *lab eats* that also pay dues, and for putting up with religious and political diatribe while trying to train. The opportunity to learn how large numbers of humans respond to exercise has been invaluable Iris my sincerest hope that my version of the way things are done contributes to the success of your athletes and your program, Rip Strength: Why and How Starting Strength Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be oF not. As humanity has developed throughout history, physical strength has become less critical 10 our daily existence, but no less important to our lives. Our strength, more than any other thing we possess, still determines the quality and the quantity of our time here in these bodies, Whereas previously our physical strength determined how much food we ate aad how warm and dry we stayed, it now merely determines how well we function in these ‘new surroundings we have crafted for ourselves as our culture has accumulated, But we are animals ~ our physical existence is, in the final analysis, the oaly one that actually matters. A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. Th zeality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual 10 take precedence, It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up. As the nature of our culture has changed, our relationship with physical activity has changed along with it, We previously were physically strong as a function of our comtinued existence in a simple physical world, We were adapted to this existence well, since we had no other choice. Those whose strength was adequate to the task of staying alive continued daing so. This shaped our basic physiology, and that of all our vertebrate associates on the bushy little t2ee of life. It remains with us today. The relatively recent innovation known as the Division of Labor is not so remote that our genetic composition has had time to adapt again. Since most of us now have been freed from the necessity of personally obtaining our subsistence, physical activity is regarded as optional. Indeed itis, from the standpoint of immediate necessity, but the reality of millions of years of adaptation to a ruggedly physical existence will not just go away because desks were invented. Like it oF not, we remain the possessors of potentially strong muscle, bone, sinew, and nerve, and these hard-won commodities demand our attention. They were too long in the making to just be ignored, and we do so at our peril. They are the very components of our existence, the quality of which now depends on our conscious, directed effort at giving them the stimulus they need to stay in the condition that is normal to them, Exercise is that stimulus Over and above any considerations of performance for sports, exercise is the stimulus that returns our bodies to the conditions for which they were designed. Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort. Exercise is not a thing we do to fix a problem ~ it isa thing we must do anyway, a thing without Which there will always be problems, Exercise is the thing we must do to replicate the conditions under which our physiology was adapted, the conditions under which we are physically normal. In other wards, exercise is substitute cave-man activity ~ the thing we need to make our bodies, and ia fact our minds, normal in the 21° century, And merely normal, for most worthwhile humans, is not goad enough. ‘An athlete's decision to begin a strength training program may be motivated by a desire to join a team sport that requires it, or it might be for more personal reasons. Many individuals feel that their strength is inadequate, or could be improved beyond what it is, Starting Strength without the carrot of team membership. Whatever the motivation, they need to be taught what to do by somebody, and that somebody is yon. It is for those people that find themselves in this position that this book is intended. Many people have started lifting weights on their own - either at home, at school with equally inexperienced buddies, or under the unqualified supervision of inexperienced coaches who do more harm than good. It is extremely difficult for anovice lifter to learn correct technique from pictures in magazines or by trial and error, without an experienced eye providing the feedback on position and form that he cannot feel and see himself, The vast majority of people who start without good supervision either get hurt or fail to make sufficient progress to reinforce their enthusiasm, and end up quitting. So, your role here is very important. You can coach correctly ~ from the standpoint of a proper biomechanical analysis of the exercises ~ and produce athletes that will be able to-use correet form and obtain great progress toward their potential strength throughout the rest of their careers in sport. Or you can follow the trends established in the popular fitness media and produce typical health club members. Novices carry with them the habits acquired as they first learn to train. Although some can un-learn the bad and rise above a poor start, most do not. Itis infinitely better to first learn correctly from a well-trained and experienced professional. This book is an attempt to provide some insight into the things that are necessary to know to be that professional. Coaching Coaching, at its most essential, is being able to tell someone the thing he needs to hear to get him to do with his body the thing he is trying to do, Coaching football on the playing field during « game is not coaching in the sense used here - that is more generalship, or command, a different type of skill altogether. The development of gymnasts, or fencers, or Olympic weightlifters requires the skills of the coaching of movement. Some people are good avthis, and some are not. Interestingly enough, very good natural athletes often make very poor coaches. They have never been in the situation of not being able to perform well, and cannot understand how to explain something that they never actually had to Jearm themselves. ‘The best coaches are usually former athletes of modest accomplishment, They worked hard swith less-than-perfect genetic abilities and achieved some success through perseverance and acquired skill. They learned how the hard way, and gained the experience necessary to teach others the same things. If they also happen to be articulate individuals, they aze able to communicate their experiences to others. If they are intelligent, they can continue to analyze the ever-growing data pool that a bunch of novice trainees provides, and obtain new insights into what works and what doesn't. And if they are the kind of folks whose egos can remain in check, they stay receptive to learning from other coaches and experienced professionals. People who possess all these traits are exceptional ~ most coaches are less effective because one or more of these key components is lacking. “There are two key elements to coaching complicated physical movement: knowing what the movement looks like when it is done correctly, and understanding what the athlete experiences when the movement is done correctly. The first is an observational skill, the Starting Sirengah primary way the coach obtains information about the athlete's performance of the movement. The second is acquired by doing the movement, and it is why some experience with the sport is necessary to coach it. Iris critical to an understanding of the athlete's problems in learning the movement, and provides insight into what to say to get him to do it right. Many coaches rely primarily on their ability to observe, and this warks fine most of the time. Buca truly effective coach brings both talents to bear when he helps his athletes improve their performance. The “coaching eye” is the name for a set of observational and analytical skills necessary to evaluate athletic performance. Most sports are explosive (or at least quick) in nature, and coaching them requires that the movements involved be assessed accurately at the speed with which they actually occur, Itis not possible to slow down a pitch or a back flip for the convenience of the coach. It is usually inconvenient, albeit possible, to use video technology to evaluate movements repeatedly in slow motion. This would slow down the workout, and delay the immediate feedback necessary for technique improvement, So the coach must develop the ability to see all the relevant angles, distances, and relationships in real time under the actual conditions of performance. ‘The coaching eye is developed through practice, even as the skills of the sport are acquired by your trainees. It takes many hours of observation ~ with the focused intent to analyze that which is being seen — to get good at it. For mast of the movements we will do in this program, the best position to observe is the 45° oblique, either from the front or back, depending on the exercise and facility layout, In this position, all the body segment angles can be accurately observed. The exception is the bench press, which is best coached from the spotting position directly behind the lifter’s head. If the path of the bar needs to be observed, itis best seen end-on, from a position direetly perpendicular to the lifter (gure 1). “Those of us whose interest is in human performance are concerned with producing the best examples of the human phenotype that we can, in ourselves and in those we have been trusted with training. For this reason, most efiective coaches train themselves ~ either with their athletes or by themselves alter practice. The effective coach understands what his trainees are feeling and experiencing as he coaches them, and the only way he can know these things is to have done them himself, preferably recently, The best coaches have learned from themselves as they train, and the continued experience of doing it firsthand is invaluable in explaining it to others. Coaches who themselves train also have another important advantage over their sedentary, disengaged counterparts. Their own motivation to improve puts them in the shoes of their athletes, and builds an important bond between athlete and coach that cannot exist unless the athlete knows that the coach trains and occasionally sees him do it. This connection should not be underestimated: athletes respect a coach who is willing to do the same things he asks of his trainees. Even older coaches who cannot perform as they previously could, need to train, both for themselves as a matter of continued fitness and coaching competence, and as away of “practicing what you preach.” Starting Strengih Figure 1. Coaching is about observation. Good vantage points are a must for effective analysis and feedback. Clackwise: Coaching positions for the squat, bench press, press, and deadlift (and power clean). Different types of athletes (and in fact all athletes are different) respond differently t0

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