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Originally Posted by Jeffo
YOU and SENTINEL: "Always modify the program at the beginning to take care of a few things that tend to be a problem for some people."
ME: " Basically start it as written, with less aggressive loading, unless/until modifications are necessary."
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no. when did i say "modify" the program? im insisting on not doing that exact program. period. we're dealing with concepts here. if you say that Rippetoe's SS is a "program", then any "modification" you make to it will make it something other than "Rippetoe's". so im not asking anyone to modify the program at all. i dont even know why this sudden hype for Rippetoe's Starting Strength. prior to this the bible for weightlifting used to be Arnie's Encyclopedia. then came a lot of other stuff like dinosaur training, etc etc...beyond brawn ofcourse. i can almost imagine that in the oh so very near future more russian manuals will be translated and people will then veer towards training "russian" style and rippetoe's program will rot in the dust...
my principles are pretty simple. infact, id rather call them guidelines because i dont want it to appear that i am stating these as the be all and end all of training. that would make me no different than rippetoe saying "the best way to progress is..."
1.) there is no just one best thing. there is not just ONE way to progress, there is no just ONE exercise. there are many many ways to reach rome and similarly there are PLENTY of ways to get big, strong and stay healthy. this reminds me: we are all discussing this progression and training, etc and we forget how important it is to stay healthy.
2.) if you're going to train a beginner, you dont NEED to stick to full body workouts or splits or upper-lowers. there have been a whole bunch of roundtable discussions at t-nation with tate, cressey, etc and more with waterbury, thibaudeau, etc each one of these has its merits. i for one dont like "splits" because it divides the body into muscle groups whereas i prefer splitting up the lifts. as in one day for bench and squats, one for the deadlift and overhead press, etc etc. full body programs are good but if you REALLY want to load aggressively then full body programs dont always work out. ive been training upper lower style for almost a year now and i love it.
3.) exercise variations. choose a few. you dont need to choose each and every exercise that exists, but a good handful. unilateral movements are awesome to choose here. just a few ofcouse.
4.) different set-rep combinations.
5.) the ability to be flexible. you should be able to use an exercise for a while and then dump it for something else but keep the overall program the same. for example, if you're doing full body training 3x a week, and on friday's you have bench press for 5x5, you can (after like 3-4 weeks) drop the bench 5x5 to 3x5 and do 2 sets of unilateral dumbbell bench presses for 2x10-12. its no big deal. then after 4-5 weeks you can drop the unilateral work and go back to bench press 5x5. who knows? there are so many many options.
in the end i think my only point is that i like the training to be flexible. even if it is for a beginner. beginner's are still human beings. they dont necessarily have to be a bunch of bumbling idiots who dont know what they're doing
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jeffo
We don't need to add GHR's, shoulder pre-hab stuff, and something that works the bottom half of the bench press unless/until those things are needed. Certain situations require certain modifications, but we don't need to make those modifications unless one of those situations somehow applies.
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so you want to wait till shit starts hitting the roof and THEN you want to try and work the problem out? this reminds me of that fable i used to read when i was a kid...about the grass hopper and the ant....
Jeffo, we dont differ just at the beginning. i think thats where we have nothing in common. we probably only agree about the part where you say "non-agressive loading".
also, i like what Eric said....its like he's talking to his older self. in a way i feel like im talking to me when i was a Rippetoe Nazi too. i mean, i used to call up the man and have conversations with him about training (when i was on the texas method). but ive learnt SO much since from personal experience and from reading other people's journals. its not about simple loading and only one way of doing things...see the way i see it is if beginners can do anything and grow, why not make them do unilateral work, etc because they're ability to become healthier and stronger will be so much more. so that way they'll probably have less problems in the future. thats how i see it and this applies to shoulder stability work, weak point training, etc.