Starting strength and other beginner programs

I am still keeping my eyes peeled for one of Mark Rippetoe’s athletes to show up somewhere. Seriously, if anyone ever finds one, please let me know. I figure I could even put the picture on a milk carton; you know one of his lifters would see it then.

With how long Mark Rippetoe has been around, how much he writes, ho well looked up to his is, etc etc, I still don’t know of a single lifter he has trained. I feel like the law of averages would dictate at least ONE guy would come out of the wood work.

Comical to observe is the sliding scale that coincides with how much “crazy” someone preaches. Mark Rippetoe has never seen a “7” as the first number on his deadlift, and yet he is touted like some sort of lifting Messiah because his work is incredibly focused on the basics that everyone agrees with. George Leeman deadlifted over 900lbs in his early 20s, and people will constantly point out that Eddie Hall pulls more, therefore George must not know crap. Why is this? Because George talks about evil ideas like high reps for strength, touch and go deadlifting with straps, non-full ROM movements, and pretty much trains completely “wrong”. George could deadlift 1100lbs tomorrow, and people would still say he is successful DESPITE his methods.

Most intelligent coaches utilize some form of block periodization (general trend of lower intensity/more variation to higher intensity/more specificity) for beginners and do not program like SS/Rippetoe. No one who understands basic programming is going to have their athletes go into the gym and squat 3x5 3x at a relative high intensity and expect them to do well in the long run. Specificity should increase over time, not start high, as this leads to plateau and overuse injuries. It is also simply not needed, lifters just starting out can make gains that translate to the S/B/D without using highly specific/high intensity protocols.

Zatiorsky, professor and author of Science and Practice of Strength Training, discusses the 3 year rule in his book in regard to training young athletes. Where they should spend 3 years doing general exercise and athletics before heavy barbell training. He also speaks about how 6-8 weeks of preparatory exercises should be used before transitioning to heavy barbell movements.

Sheiko programs his beginners with box squats, db pressing, and a lot of hypertrophy work and GPP. He uses lower intensity than the SS crowd as well, if I remember utilizing sets of 6 based on what the athlete can hit for a technically sufficient set of 10.

The NSCA recommends that beginner athletes should train with a variety of exercises in the 50-70% range with sets of 10-12 to avoid overuse injuries and to have an athlete intelligently transition into resistance training.

I can go on and on with examples of other lifters, texts, etc, but I hope people see a general trend and that is the most successful, educated, and evidence driven coaches/professors/organizations do not suggest anything like SS. SS is popular because it is easy for people to understand who do not have a background in exercise science, not because it is what successful coaches are using or because it is optimal or backed by evidence