Bodybuilding.net - Bodybuilding Forum - View Single Post - Guide to Novice Barbell Training, aka the Official Rippetoe-Starting Strength FAQ

_Wolf_ · 01-14-2007, 09:32 PM

VII. Will This Program Meet My Goals? Part 3

Question - I'm 15 years old, 5'11, 135 lbs. Will this program help me build up teh bicept p33k?

Kid, you weigh less than my left ass cheek. Worry less about your biceps peak and more about putting on some muscular bodyweight. Even if you develop a pair of 15-inch "guns", you will look like a skinny geek when you put a t-shirt on. You will have outstanding success by putting on 20-30 lbs of muscle. Your shoulders and back will fill out, your chest will bulge, and lo' and behold, your arms will grow as well!

At 135 lbs, you don't need to worry about your peak. Your biceps peak isn't your weak point, your entire body is your weak point. Train with that in mind.

If you simply must Must MUST have a biceps peak above all else, then I suggest you do the following workout:

5 sets barbell curls
5 sets DB curls
5 sets concentration curls
5 sets spider curls
5 sets EZ bar curls
5 sets Hammer Curls
5 sets Incline curls

do this workout 3x daily for the next month, and don't bother me until you're done with the entire month. Now go away.

and stay the hell out of the squat rack while you're doing your curls, mmmmkay?

Question - How can I get big only doing 3 exercises per day? Where is all the isolation work?

How many exercises are necessary to get big? Is it advantageous to do more of a less-effective exercise, or is it advantageous to focus on the most effective exercises?

The gyst of this routine is three-fold

1) Focus your efforts each day where they provide the most "bang for the buck" - i.e. each day, focus on the squat, a press, and a pull from the floor

2) Add weight to the bar and get stronger in those exercises gradually, and you will get big and strong all over your body

3) By learning only a few exercises rather than several exercises, you can progress toward mastery of those exercises more rapidly because your attention isn't divided.

Isolation work is added later in the program, once a base mastery of the truly important "benchmarks" has occured. Anything that takes focus off of the main exercises, or slows progress on the main exercises, is "bad". Anything (legal, moral, and healthy) that helps advance progress on the main exercises is "good". If isolations don't help advance progress, then they are "bad". Since most novices lack the conditioning and the discipline to incorporate isolation exercises into their program without significant amounts of supervision, isolation exercises, for the rankest novice, are "bad", generally for the first week or three.

There is nothing inherently evil or immoral about isolation exercises. In order to obtain a fully developed physique, isolation exercises are not only desirable, but necessary. However, the novice is nowhere near having a "fully developed physique", so this point is moot.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe, pg. 114, Practical Programming
Since the trainee is both inefficient and unadapted, only a few basic exercises should be used, and they should be repeated frequently to establish the basic motor pathways and basic strength....(the) core strength and power exercises develop the foundation of strength and motor control that will allow for later inclusions of more technically demanding exercises, because they utilize all the muscles in the same coordinated fashion that more advanced exercises do

Does this program have enough hamstring work? What about traps and forearms? And what about teh bicepts?

Hamstrings are addressed directly with the deep, full squat. When you lower your hips while maintaining an upright torso position such as in the full squat, your pelvic girdle will pull the hamstrings into a nice stretch. This will elicit an incredibly powerful contraction of the hamstrings at the bottom of the full squat, and in fact, once you go past parallel, your hamstrings take on a very large share of the load, both in hip extension as well as knee joint stabilization. Additionally, all pulls from the floor will activate the hamstrings to some degree from significant (Deadlifts) to moderate (cleans/rows)

Traps and forearms both will get hit hard and heavy during deadlifts, cleans and rows. Traps get additional work from overhead presses as well as squats (gotta hold that bar on the traps!)

Teh bicept gets hit from the rows, as well as chinups. Some people will develop elbow flexor strength and size pretty rapidly from the rows and chins. Others will find they need direct work. Direct biceps work is added in somewhere around the 3rd or 4th week, so don't fret, you'll be able to do your precious curls soon enough.