Novice program heresy?

[cwd]

There have also been several folks run non-novice programming from the start (like a 531 variant) and made nearly identical progress to an expected SS trainee over a longer period of time.
That’s because the avoided stalls and resets that put the focus of blame on the lifter.

(1) I ran Texas Method with a squat 5RM of 145 pounds. Then ran 5-3-1 for a few months with little to show for it.

This was because my problems weren't program-related, they were bad form and the resulting injuries. I needed a coach. I think most true novices need a coach to succeed. Particularly lifetime non-athletes like myself.

(2) A coach makes RPE for the novice lifter unnecessary. The coach picks the weight increases, using formal or informal RPE metrics, and the transition to a long-term program, etc. The lifter just does as (s)he's told. So SSLP for a properly coached novice is fine w/o RPE.

Also, true beginners can't rate RPE for shit.

(3) I was led astray by the SSBBT v2 book I bought. I thought I could do it w/o a coach. I think Rippetoe et. al. have realized their mistake and are pushing the coaching angle now. They are right.

(4) If SSBBT and PPST had included information about RPE, it would have been helpful for me in the transition to intermediate programming. Maybe I could have gotten decent at self-coaching in 3 years instead of 6. But I still would have needed a coach at the beginning.

PPST is not a self-help book for new intermediate lifters coaching themselves, which is what I wanted it to be. None of the program templates in that book work for an inexperienced lifter because they cannot gauge how much intensity/volume to pile on. If PPST were a self-help book, it would have RPE in it.

[JonA]

Base is a strength base.

Is it? I always considered it to be the conditioning/metabolic aspect. Eg, the capacity to actual work.

[GregoryDomnin]

Okay, thanks for the answer. I still think you/we are being too narrow-minded. Why make the assumption that everyone has the same goals or should have the same goals?

"If you start with 3x10 you will go slower progress" I don't understand why fives are better for everyone (within some age demographic, or whatever). What assumptions are you making about their goals. Putting that aside, let's assume we're talking about "strength" and assume that means a 10rm (is that okay??). I got into the discussion once with Hanley back in Egypt, but still don't know the answer. Why wouldn't doing 10s make one better at doing 10s?

I have to drop out for a while. Will be back later...

5's are not best for everyone but 10's are worse especially for beginners. The shortest answer is testosterone. In order to get hypertrophy you need 2 basic hormones testosterone and IGF-1. You get IGF-1 from diet and specifically from protein. You get testosterone from lifting the most weight over the largest range of motion. Most weight is going to be at lower reps ranges not higher. Testosterone declines with age. This is why older people and women go with lower reps, as in 3's, as their novice progression nears its end.

You can incorporate the same scheme with Westside Barbell for Skinny Bastards as you can with Starting Strength or Stronglifts.

[GregoryDomnin]

Base is a strength base.

Is it? I always considered it to be the conditioning/metabolic aspect. Eg, the capacity to actual work.

For the purposes of this discussion yes, but yes it can also mean conditioning.

[Chebass88]

Okay, thanks for the answer. I still think you/we are being too narrow-minded. Why make the assumption that everyone has the same goals or should have the same goals?

"If you start with 3x10 you will go slower progress" I don't understand why fives are better for everyone (within some age demographic, or whatever). What assumptions are you making about their goals. Putting that aside, let's assume we're talking about "strength" and assume that means a 10rm (is that okay??). I got into the discussion once with Hanley back in Egypt, but still don't know the answer. Why wouldn't doing 10s make one better at doing 10s?

I have to drop out for a while. Will be back later...

I always got a kick out of this. Why is the rate of progress important? As I understand it, the Rippetoe Novice program gets a novice lifter to challenging weights relatively quickly. Okay, so beyond a few weeks, what’s the rush?

And progression on 3x10 - not as rapid as what other progression, and in the pursuit of what goal? If someone takes a month to put 10-20lbs on that 3x10 weight, WGAF? The only time the rate of progress is important is when you’ve booked a spot in a lifting competition. For a general strength trainee, some excellent progression can be done with doing higher rep sets, especially if weight is added once total number of reps met.

[JonA]

(2) A coach makes RPE for the novice lifter unnecessary. The coach picks the weight increases, using formal or informal RPE metrics, and the transition to a long-term program, etc. The lifter just does as (s)he's told. So SSLP for a properly coached novice is fine w/o RPE.

True. I went through my first LP about 20 years ago under the watchful eye of my college S&C coach. Only we didn't call it LP, it was "Freshman Weight Training Bootcamp". And it wasn't 3x5, it was 5x5 with ramping sets for warm up, with the top 3x5 sets at ~80%. After each lift, the coach would say "That looked pretty easy." and write a note in his book, and next session, there would be 5, 10, sometimes 15lbs more weight on the bar.

[JonA]

I always got a kick out of this. Why is the rate of progress important? As I understand it, the Rippetoe Novice program gets a novice lifter to challenging weights relatively quickly. Okay, so beyond a few weeks, what’s the rush?

It's just tradition, a carry-over from Starr, who was training athletes for their seasonal sports. You get the kids lifting over the summer, try to get them as strong as possible before football training camp, then just try to maintain during the season. After football, you lose the kids to basketball/baseball/etc.. Then next summer, restart LP and do it all over again.

It works because the kids are still growing, so repeating the LP over the summer months can work over and over again.

[Manveer]

PPST is not a self-help book for new intermediate lifters coaching themselves, which is what I wanted it to be. None of the program templates in that book work for an inexperienced lifter because they cannot gauge how much intensity/volume to pile on. If PPST were a self-help book, it would have RPE in it.

LOL! Thanks for the laugh (at the idea of RPE being included). So many SSCs are against using a numerical scale to rate effort under the bar for no good reason it is hilarious.

Notable exceptions include: Baraki, Feigenbaum, Lutz ... but they are weak and inexperienced.

[LexAnderson]

PPST is not a self-help book for new intermediate lifters coaching themselves, which is what I wanted it to be. None of the program templates in that book work for an inexperienced lifter because they cannot gauge how much intensity/volume to pile on. If PPST were a self-help book, it would have RPE in it.

I have to agree with this point wholeheartedly. As a inexperienced lifter you have no idea how to gauge these variables, so how can you actually do the program listed when you can't figure out how much weight to add. But I do know that a lot of people are hesitant to approach RPE based on the beliefs that its difficult to learn.

[KOTJ]

Practical Programming For Strength Training (PPST) is not a good book for programming.

I would not recommend anyone spend money on it. I bought it thinking I would learn how to program effectively. Nope.

Starting Strength (SS) is a good program for new, non-lifters. It is not the greatest. It's just solid. The fact is most of the strong people out there have never done it, yet we're able to get past the novice phase.

At the time, when SS came out, the internet was a shitfest for finding good programming information. Bodybuilding.com was just about bodybuilding.

Nobody was talking about "macros" or running block periodization. All that was hard to find.

With more information and experience, SS can be judged more accurately.

Power cleans for functional fitness...oops, I mean, power cleans for "general strength"? Lolwut? Fuck that nonsense. Oh, and it's going to be self taught? Lol, ok kid, sure.

Edited because autocorrect put "shortest" instead of "shitfest".

[Wilhelm]

Practical Programming For Strength Training (PPST) is not a good book for programming.

I would not recommend anyone spend money on it. I bought it thinking I would learn how to program effectively. Nope.

Starting Strength (SS) is a good program for new, non-lifters. It is not the greatest. It's just solid. The fact is most of the strong people out there have never done it, yet we're able to get past the novice phase.

At the time, when SS came out, the internet was a shortest for finding good programming information. Bodybuilding.com was just about bodybuilding.

Nobody was talking about "macros" or running block periodization. All that was hard to find.

With more information and experience, SS can be judged more accurately.

Power cleans for functional fitness...oops, I mean, power cleans for "general strength"? Lolwut? Fuck that nonsense. Oh, and it's going to be self taught? Lol, ok kid, sure.

Scientific Principles of Strength Training seemed much better to me.
Even though i shortened my expected run on a volume block, it has paid dividends in the 6 weeks since i've gone back to strength range work.

I'm looking at putting all that together better after this meet which i had to kind of fit in after i started the accumulation block.
It's good that since then i also found this place.

[TimK]

I always got a kick out of this. Why is the rate of progress important? As I understand it, the Rippetoe Novice program gets a novice lifter to challenging weights relatively quickly. Okay, so beyond a few weeks, what’s the rush?

It's just tradition, a carry-over from Starr, who was training athletes for their seasonal sports. You get the kids lifting over the summer, try to get them as strong as possible before football training camp, then just try to maintain during the season. After football, you lose the kids to basketball/baseball/etc.. Then next summer, restart LP and do it all over again.

It works because the kids are still growing, so repeating the LP over the summer months can work over and over again.

Why wouldn't you want to progress as fast as possible? Sure, when you get to the point that you're just grinding out reps at a higher and higher RPE every session because your true 5RM increases are not staying ahead of the weight on the bar, it's probably counter productive to keep bashing your head against that wall for too long. But I know for myself, adding weight to the bar every workout was EXTREMELY motivating and got me to stick with the program through the first month or two when there were no "visible results" (meaning I didn't look like a greek god after 6 weeks of lifting weights). If I had been doing a program with a much slower progression where I was coming in and lifting the same weights for a week or more before raising them and it took me three times as long to get through the LP stage it would have been very demotivating for me and I probably wouldn't have stuck with it.

As far as grinding and RPE, how can you ever learn to gauge RPE if you've never pushed yourself to failure? I think the latter, super grindy stage of LP, while being easy to go overboard with and cause problems, is also necessary because a lot of people would give up too soon and never figure out what a true limit set feels like. It's valuable experience in my opinion, as long as you don't turn it into your whole training philosophy.

[d0uevenlift]

How much of a difference is there between a SS novice progression and some old 5x5 double progression guys like Arnold and Reg Park recommended if everything else is equal (talent, effort, coaching)? With 5 progressively heavier sets your total tonnage is higher with a lower average intensity. But does this make much of a difference in a 3-6 month period?

The tonnage is supposed to decrease under both Starting Strength and Stronglifts (Reg Parker's). In stronglifts you start with a 5x5 and then move down to 4x5 and then 3x5 as fatigue makes it too difficult. Then both require you to do 3x1 and 2x5 at reduced weight for total of 3X5 over time or 1x5 and to 2 back off sets of 5. I believe both also ask you to do 80% on Wednesday (second workout) after the second deload.

So in perspective, total results should be about the same.

So if we think of SSLP as a peaking phase with mostly the muscle you already have, where you're improving technique and neurological efficiency (maybe the same thing), switching to 3x5, 2x5, 3x3, etc. would be the taper that gives you the illusion that you're still getting stronger, when in fact you're just displaying the strength you've developed in the earlier stages of LP.

[Hanley]

"If you start with 3x10 you will go slower progress" I don't understand why fives are better for everyone (within some age demographic, or whatever). What assumptions are you making about their goals. Putting that aside, let's assume we're talking about "strength" and assume that means a 10rm (is that okay??). I got into the discussion once with Hanley back in Egypt, but still don't know the answer. Why wouldn't doing 10s make one better at doing 10s?

I have to drop out for a while. Will be back later...

I vaguely remember our discussion. Sorta.

I think the different loads you’d use for 10s (68ish%) vs 5s (80ish%) train the highest threshold motor units differently. With 80ish% (and volitionally moving the weight as fast a possible) I’m firing lots of high threshold MUs...in a synchronized way.

With the lower load (68%), I can’t fire everything at once (or I’d throw the bar a little)*. I’m cycling through high threshold MUs. So, the high threshold MUs will work and hypertrophy, but the firing pattern is all wonky.

^ this wonkification can fuck you when it comes to power output or peak strength.

^ the science on all this sucked circa 3 years ago, and I haven’t read a goddamned thing since then. So [hand wave to all of it]

Personal experience: when I spent too much time in hypertrophy zone (65-75% 1rm) my SVJ suffered.

[topfen]

How much of a difference is there between a SS novice progression and some old 5x5 double progression guys like Arnold and Reg Park recommended if everything else is equal (talent, effort, coaching)? With 5 progressively heavier sets your total tonnage is higher with a lower average intensity. But does this make much of a difference in a 3-6 month period?

The tonnage is supposed to decrease under both Starting Strength and Stronglifts (Reg Parker's). In stronglifts you start with a 5x5 and then move down to 4x5 and then 3x5 as fatigue makes it too difficult. Then both require you to do 3x1 and 2x5 at reduced weight for total of 3X5 over time or 1x5 and to 2 back off sets of 5. I believe both also ask you to do 80% on Wednesday (second workout) after the second deload.

So in perspective, total results should be about the same.

OK, thanks. Still trying to figure out what metrics are used to evaluate strength programs. I don't doubt that the SS novice progression works great but I have a hard time understanding why the SS crowd pushes this as something special. To me (someone who has no experience with barbells but a lot with organized sports) training really hard, trying to improve every training session and all that under the watchfull eye of a capable coach (1 on 1 coaching makes a huge difference in a ton of other sports) sounds much more important than 3x5 and hip drive 3 times a week.

[cwd]

I think a lot of the design of SSLP is about the minds of newbies, not their muscles.

PRs every session for motivation.
Sets of 5 because that's how long they can concentrate on good form.
Short list of big exercises because they can see progress easier and to avoid confusion.
Focus on lower body because (again) its easier to set PRs there, as many beginners have already been benching.
Maybe power cleans because they are fun, and show off your pulling strength?

If you had a detrained person who already had the mind-set of a lifelong lifter, you wouldn't train them this way. But newbies think differently and have a very strong tendency to not show up next session. As a gym owner, you need some tricks to get them to show up long enough to start a firm habit.

[d0uevenlift]

It's easy to forget that it isn't just about progression and strength, but practice of the skill. If you've never squatted before, 3x a week seems like good practice.

[JonA]

Personal experience: when I spent too much time in hypertrophy zone (65-75% 1rm) my SVJ suffered.

WIld ass speculation: A big part of SVJ, (and other explosive movements) isn't just the contraction of the hams/glutes/quads, but relaxing the opposing muscles (Eg, hip flexors in the SVJ. Ever try stretching them good before an SVJ attempt? )

It seems to me that slower, high rep hypertrophy range training would allow the opposite effect. Eg, the hip flexors can remain 'activated' through the lift.

[KOTJ]

I think a lot of the design of SSLP is about the minds of newbies, not their muscles.

PRs every session for motivation.
Sets of 5 because that's how long they can concentrate on good form.
Short list of big exercises because they can see progress easier and to avoid confusion.
Focus on lower body because (again) its easier to set PRs there, as many beginners have already been benching.
Maybe power cleans because they are fun, and show off your pulling strength?

If you had a detrained person who already had the mind-set of a lifelong lifter, you wouldn't train them this way. But newbies think differently and have a very strong tendency to not show up next session. As a gym owner, you need some tricks to get them to show up long enough to start a firm habit.

Based on the incredibly low percentage of program compliance and lack of financial success WFAC has/had, I think it's reasonable to say that increasing weight each time you lift, is not significant to program compliance.

[Mahendra]

I think a lot of the design of SSLP is about the minds of newbies, not their muscles.

PRs every session for motivation.
Sets of 5 because that's how long they can concentrate on good form.
Short list of big exercises because they can see progress easier and to avoid confusion.
Focus on lower body because (again) its easier to set PRs there, as many beginners have already been benching.
Maybe power cleans because they are fun, and show off your pulling strength?

If you had a detrained person who already had the mind-set of a lifelong lifter, you wouldn't train them this way. But newbies think differently and have a very strong tendency to not show up next session. As a gym owner, you need some tricks to get them to show up long enough to start a firm habit.

Based on the incredibly low percentage of program compliance and lack of financial success WFAC has/had, I think it's reasonable to say that increasing weight each time you lift, is not significant to program compliance.

When my lady was training SSLP, she hated how boring it was that it turned her off from lifting completely. When I try to get others to do SSLP, they give it up because it's only ~4-5 exercises and the same thing each session. They wanted some variety.

I'm no coach, so maybe my approach sucks. But I recently put my sister on a program that had more variety in it... and guess what... she's been training regularly and consistently, and has been making progress.