Beginner's Strength Program by Bill Starr

[EricT]

Guys, this is something someone authored based loosely on a Bill Starr Template. It is not a schedule written out by Starr himself. He prob wouldn't even have had deadlifts and rows in there anyway, preferring powercleans, high pulls, chins....

There is some bodyduilderish stuff in there and imo some superfluous stuff for an abslute beginner. Whether it's too much would depend on the individual. The alternating weeks isn't something I've read him talking about. The idea was to progress on A LIFT week in and week out pretty much by only adding 5 pounds to it. Even if it was easy. If you can't do it you hold it over. Perhaps someone whose read the book can speak on what Starr says, but to me an ACTUAL NOVICE has NO NEED to alternate lifts in this way. And the list of alternate back exercises intermixes lower back and upper back not to mention treating the deads as just another alternate back movement instead of a core movement.

My criticisms would be: Deadlift OR Bent Over Rows makes no sense. One is not a replacement for the other. Monday should be either power cleans or rows and take out the deadlift or GM variation on Wednesday and use deadlfits there. Look at what Odom posted.

[Ozzi]

I personally believe that you can't progress everybody by 5 pounds a week. Some people might progress quicker, others might have trouble.

I also think that exercises using stabillizer muscles should be kept to a minimum, For example, for the back I'd simply have them work with cable rows and lat pulldowns. Free weights is a progression.

You can't throw an absolute beginner in the deep end, that's how injuries occour.

[EricT]

^^^^Well of course everyone can't progress by 5 pounds a week. Although that was the roundabout progression Starr recommended. Since then there have been improvements by others who borrowed from him just as he borrowed from others. But an ABSOLUTE beginner using intensity cycling? Most likely the AVERAGE natural lifter can add 5 pounds a week and then make new maxes after around week 4.

Keep in mind that Starr himself said progress by 5 pounds if you can and if not hold it over. It's gonna be the same whatever you load the bar with. As far as injuries spending some time learning correct form and movement patterns and getting the joints ready has some value. But when you combine the intensity cycling and the fact that a true novice is not yet able to generate the intensity that he will later, I don't think there is as much a fear of injury as people make out. I've said it before and so have much smarter people than me: heavy has a different definition for a novice.

I am not speaking of this particular permutation of the 5x5 but this kind of thing certainly can be used with success by a beginner with the proper programming. Lot's of people use the so called "Rippletoe 3x5" as absolute beginners, and I got news for you, it's tougher than this with the ramp ups.

There are lots of better writeups than this, though, I agree.

[Kane]

Originally Posted by Ozzi

I also think that exercises using stabillizer muscles should be kept to a minimum, For example, for the back I'd simply have them work with cable rows and lat pulldowns. Free weights is a progression.

You can't throw an absolute beginner in the deep end, that's how injuries occour.

I would say the opposite. Why put them on the cable machines and build muscle...only to have them hop onto the barbell, load it up sice theyre strong on the cable machines now, and have no stability. To me that would be more dangerous.

I would advocate using Dumbbells, then barbells, then machines....if you're talking about a complete noobie

[EricT]

^^^completely agree. This starting with cables lulls people into this sense of security causing them to overload the bar when they do go to free weights which is more likely to lead to injury since in fact, they are not prepared and there is not a one to one correlation. And I have bad news: plenty of people do lots of pulldowns to start and then later on find they still suck at pullups.

[Ozzi]

Solid points. But really it's down to educating the masses. Newbies are better of getting some experiance on a machine that is generally safer than free weights, rather than jumping straight into barbells and overloading themselves and hurting themselves because they aren't stable and haven't been progressed into it.
Even the experianced guys drop a barbell once in a while.
So either way there is a catch, but most people serious about it do some research or hire trainers thankfully.

[EricT]

^^^^I take it your a trainer. More power to you, bro. But I must say that a trainer isn't a trainer isn't a trainer. Hiring one isn't a guarantee of anything (bearing no supposed reflection on you). Research can kind of follow the same winding path. Here's the rub if you really pay attention. All these injuries that people talk about beginners getting....they pale next to the chronic overuse injuries that people develop or the catastrophic injuries that advanced lifters get sometimes.

Of course you need education and proper guidance. But with proper guidance and starting out with apporpriate weight the idea that a beginner is gonna pick it up and "pop" there goes a muscle is poppycock to me. Much more likely is that he'll be fine and dandy but will never learn proper movement patterns or how to structure a balanced workout, maybe because some "trainer" didn't really know either (again, no offense) and all that years down the road will lead to a bunch of chronic injuries. And in the beginning it will have nothing to do with free weights but simply with "bad learning". I'm not trying to just disagree with you. I'm being realistic about where most of the injuries actually come from.

[Darkhorse]

rather than jumping straight into barbells and overloading themselves and hurting themselves because they aren't stable and haven't been progressed into it.

See, the problem is that if they rely on learning with a machine which has an fixed plane of motion, then they definately won't have the stability to use free weights... That's the heart of the debate.

My vote's for using free weight multi-joint compound exercises, zero isolations, and minimal machines. You cannot expect someone to learn how to squat by doing it on a leg press machine or bench press on an hammer strength. I also can say with a fair level of certainty that only a small percentage of lifters ever started out with a personal trainer teaching them. I know a lot of the top trainers, such as Glenn Pendlay for example, who start kids as young as 12 out with free weight compounds only. Of course there's very minimal weight involved. Olympic coaches are ALL prime examples of this line of thinking. Most kids, according to Glenn, need to start training around 12 years old latest.

And I understand everyone's talking about the 18-20 year old newbies, but if these kids start with compounds, I fail to see why grown men need to be treated like they're made out of paper mache.
Matter of fact, I just went on a female website where they have all their women doing free weights exclusively as well. LOL.

rather than jumping straight into barbells and overloading themselves and hurting themselves because they aren't stable and haven't been progressed into it.
Even the experianced guys drop a barbell once in a while.

If a neophyte doesn't possess the mental skills necessary to get a spotter for an upcoming iffy set, then "break a leg". I've yet to see anyone bite off more than they can chew.. I can see experienced guys being more prone to injury from the heavier weight vs. a newbie with a hundred pounds on the bar. From what I've experienced, newbie's rarely get involved with heavy (for them) weights because they're just not comfortable. But, they're also not made out of glass either. If they fail on something like the bench press with 135 on the bar, I don't think their chest would cave in while they're asking for some help.

[EricT]

^^^^Yep

Even with a simple cable pulldown it's not the same as a pullup by any means. With pulldowns you body is not moving through space so you're moving the weight through a fixed plane. Plus you can cheat and use your lower back to get more momentum.

In fact you're getting into open kinetic chain exercises and closed kinetic chain exercises. There are no hard and fast rules because of difficulty of applying load progression to certain closed chain exercises (for example push ups) but in general I can confidently assert that closed chain exercises like squat and pullups may make you much better at open chain ones like pulldowns and leg press, but the open chains don't prepare you anywhere near as much for the closed chain ones.

OOPS, there goes that lab talk

[EricT]

Originally Posted by 0311

I can see experienced guys being more prone to injury from the heavier weight vs. a newbie with a hundred pounds on the bar.

Totally, that's what I'm saying right there. And a newbie just can't apply the intensity yet. Heavy for a novice has a different definition than heavy does for an intermediate or advanced guy. In the end it can come down to programming. Besides learning proper form and simple rules of progression a total newbie just doesn't need much advanced programming to gain strength. It's when you get into more advanced areas that complicated programming schemes are needed to PREVENT injury simply owing to the incredible amount of intensity they are able to generate.

In Matt's interviews with Pendlay and Rippletoe it goes into their philosophy with training kids.