[quote]johnnytang24 wrote:
I think it’s great he uses the word ‘yay’ in his training log. I don’t think I’ve used that word since I was 3 years old.[/quote]
When I play scrabble on my iphone using ‘yay’ on certain parts of the board will net you a pretty good score.
Oh yeah, who’s Mehdi?
About Mehdi
Mehdi
Mehdi is author & founder of StrongLifts.com, a website with tens of thousands of daily visitors. His StrongLifts 5Ã?5 routine has helped people from all over the world to build muscle & lose fat through strength training.
Mehdi got into strength training in 1997 doing Push-ups at home. He joined a gym in 1999 and started lifting weights doing bodybuilding routines. In 2004, he built a home gym and began training for strength solely.
Mehdi has read hundreds of books about strength training, weight lifting and nutrition and spent hours on forums learning from the best. People where he lives know he has been training for years. He gets questions about it all the time and has helped family & friends build muscle, lose fat and lift weights.
One day Mehdi realized he could change peopleâ??s life on a worldwide scale. May 1st 2007 StrongLifts.com goes online. Within a few months it establishes itself as the #1 strength training site in the world with readers from +180 countries.
Mehdi is 28 and lives near Brussels in Belgium. The name â??Mehdiâ?? is of arabic origin and pronounced â??Médiâ??.
Successful man and probaly a rich man.
However, pathetic lifts for that time training. I don’t know much about him for for almost 15years training seriously atrocious.
[quote]Woundedbyravens wrote:
About Mehdi
Mehdi
Mehdi is author & founder of StrongLifts.com, a website with tens of thousands of daily visitors. His StrongLifts 5Ã??5 routine has helped people from all over the world to build muscle & lose fat through strength training.
Mehdi got into strength training in 1997 doing Push-ups at home. He joined a gym in 1999 and started lifting weights doing bodybuilding routines. In 2004, he built a home gym and began training for strength solely.
Mehdi has read hundreds of books about strength training, weight lifting and nutrition and spent hours on forums learning from the best. People where he lives know he has been training for years. He gets questions about it all the time and has helped family & friends build muscle, lose fat and lift weights.
One day Mehdi realized he could change peopleâ??s life on a worldwide scale. May 1st 2007 StrongLifts.com goes online. Within a few months it establishes itself as the #1 strength training site in the world with readers from +180 countries.
Mehdi is 28 and lives near Brussels in Belgium. The name â??Mehdiâ?? is of arabic origin and pronounced â??M�©diâ??.
[/quote]
He’s changed this about page also, He used to have a clothed pic of himself which is no longer there.
Also in his old about page he talked about bodybuilding and wanting to get big. Once in a while someone in the forums would call him out on his size he would reply that he didn’t care what his body looks like anymore and just wanted to strength train.
I used to like reading his articles but lately some of the things he’s been writing about are kinda sketchy, like not eating breakfast, fasting and his view on steady state vs. HIIT.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[quote]caveman101 wrote:
wait, those are mehdi’s lifts? WTF![/quote]
Why does that surprise you?
It’s a beginner program. Which all beginners apparently MUST do.
Except that any beginner can beat the lifts the people on that site take 2 years to obtain… By doing some shitty 4-way (everything ramped though) for 6 months (provided said beginner eats right…). Won’t even need good technique… And he’ll probably grow more than just a pair of thighs in the process.
Nowadays I wouldn’t use that type of routine with any beginning trainee unless someone forced me at gunpoint.
And then I’d have to apologize to the trainee in advance.
[/quote]
<3 C_C…Can I have permission to quote this anytime some one recommends stronglifts/rippetoe to some one looking to grow a huge aesthetic body?
Not everyone that does that Rippetoe program is weak as hell. I have a feeling Mehdi wouldn’t be particularly strong no matter which program he did. But no matter he should have realized long ago this isn’t the best way for him to train, and if it is, bowling can be fun.
No one should be too worried about the material he is spouting off, he doesn’t consider himself too much of an authority seeing as though most of his content is ripped word for word from Rippetoe.
I started out on stronglifts a year ago - it was good way to get into things for about 3 months.
Stronglifts is also good for stuff on glute activation, thoracic mobility etc.
[quote]thrasher wrote:
[quote]Woundedbyravens wrote:
About Mehdi
Also in his old about page he talked about bodybuilding and wanting to get big. Once in a while someone in the forums would call him out on his size he would reply that he didn’t care what his body looks like anymore and just wanted to strength train.
I used to like reading his articles but lately some of the things he’s been writing about are kinda sketchy, like not eating breakfast, fasting and his view on steady state vs. HIIT.[/quote]
i reckon he posts articles up on his site containing differing info so people could make up their own minds recently.
and if he wants to strength train? - 5/3/1 
[quote]skinnyman wrote:
14/10/2009
Box Squat
3x5 105kg BOOOOOOOO!!!
Bench
3x5 67,5kg BOOOOOOO!!!
Deadlift
1x5 132,5kg BOOO!!!
[/quote]
Fixed.
I used his program as a beginner and I made some very fast gains.
100kg squat
130-140kg dead lift
90-100kg bench press
I am very surprised at his low strength, thinking that somebody who created and would follow his own program would have more strength than a kid weighing 65kg.(at that time)
I started with the first stronglifts 5x5 program, and also made serious gains, thought not fast.
I recommend this 5x5 version only for motivated, ALONE, patient beginners. And people caring about doing things right from the start. Those articles really teach you the lifts and mobility well.
Afterwards, you stall quite quick, but the site recomends T-Muscle, so that’s how I got here.
So thanks Mehdi for helping me begin, and thanks Wendler for helping me continue…
i did ripptoe/starr 5x5 as my first actual routine in getting seriouse about lifting ages ago. amazing program for beginners. lifting heavy for the bench, press, clean , squat, and deadlift. cant think of many beginner programs that lay such good foundations. i also thought the advanced version for intermediate lifters was good. superior to 5/3/1 for beginners in my opinion, beginners shouldn’t be concerned with breaking maxes. form frequency and intensity are the first keys.
that being said my lifts were higher than medhi’s supposed numbers after my first shot at 5x5. very odd.
The trouble is that Mehdi seems to STILL follow his program after 10 years of training!?!?
If you’re not a rank beginner, get off that shit after you’ve learnt the basic movements and gotten to at least a novice level, and start REAL training.
So I do think the guy needs to reevaluate his own training and diet. He shouldn’t keep following what he tells rank beginners to do in the gym and unfortunately he has already lost valuable time by sticking with his program for so long.
That said, I don’t see the point of ragging on the guy. He doesn’t claim to be a bodybuilder OR a powerlifter, his site and advice helps people get started and thats it.
[quote]tribunaldude wrote:
That said, I don’t see the point of ragging on the guy. He doesn’t claim to be a bodybuilder OR a powerlifter, his site and advice helps people get started and thats it. [/quote]
I agree. It’s where I started. As a beginner with no exposure to strength training whatsoever, it is a simple, uncomplicated, pared down, training template. It gets you started in the right direction.
However, the recent articles on fasting and skipping breakfast make me want to cry.
You guys that follow this soap opera like action are so fucking gay that there is no analogy to your gayness.
Now grow some balls, quit sucking so much dick, and if you must start a thread like this do it on a site where you will be rewarded with some of that skanky butt love which you so direly seek.
Yes, thanks to Wendler my progress is finally continuing. 
[quote]skinnyman wrote:
Some guy on the Mens Health UK forum called out Mehdi from Stronglifts (can’t post link here, but you can find it):
" I mentioned this before, but I am even more shocked now than before.
I just had a look on this Stronglifts site which people are still raging about. I mentioned before about him having some pretty pathetic lifts for his time training, and I am shocked at just how bad they are. The ones he lists on his bio must be 1RMs because in his log on the site, they are a lot lower.
14/10/2009
Box Squat
3x5 105kg yay
Bench
3x5 67,5kg yay
Deadlift
1x5 132,5kg yay
Yay?! Wtf! I do not think any of those lifts deserve a yay. The man has been weight training for 10 years! 10 years and he can’t even bench 70kg for 5! "
Who gives a shit what some jokers on Mens Health think? Apparently Mehdi does, as he has since taken down his current training log, and even his old logs. I like his site, but this was a weak move in my opinion.[/quote]
Bullshit to quote his site
"As a drug-free strength trainer, Mehdi has lifted weights consistently for over 11 years, averaging at least 45 weeks of training per year. And although heâ??s not a powerlifter, heâ??s now nearing the 500lbs raw Deadlift at 165lbs body-weight (3x his body-weight), and aims for a 1200lbs raw total at 165lbs BW.
Mehdi never did any sport until age 15, when he lost at arm wrestling to his friends and then a girl. That day he decided to do daily Push-up to increase his strength. He couldnâ??t do a single rep the first time, but his persistence paid off: 3 years later he was doing 70 Push-ups in a row on his knuckles.
"
sure, alot of people on this site are stronger. but alot of them have always been strong. Mehdi is a success story for a person with no genetics on his side.
[quote]Carlitosway wrote:
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[quote]caveman101 wrote:
wait, those are mehdi’s lifts? WTF![/quote]
Why does that surprise you?
It’s a beginner program. Which all beginners apparently MUST do.
Except that any beginner can beat the lifts the people on that site take 2 years to obtain… By doing some shitty 4-way (everything ramped though) for 6 months (provided said beginner eats right…). Won’t even need good technique… And he’ll probably grow more than just a pair of thighs in the process.
Nowadays I wouldn’t use that type of routine with any beginning trainee unless someone forced me at gunpoint.
And then I’d have to apologize to the trainee in advance.
[/quote]
<3 C_C…Can I have permission to quote this anytime some one recommends stronglifts/rippetoe to some one looking to grow a huge aesthetic body?[/quote]
I just got cut down for suggesting as much in the Rippetoe article discussion thread this week.
[quote]wanderingmax wrote:
sure, alot of people on this site are stronger. but alot of them have always been strong. Mehdi is a success story for a person with no genetics on his side.[/quote]
The point is that his own log (which was removed) indicated substantially poorer lifts than the ones claimed in that blurb. That makes him a liar, assuming that the log was not fabricated. I don’t think anyone on this site gives a shit either way though.
I had a buddy that was getting started with weight lifting about the time I was first starting to run 5/3/1. My buddy was brand new to weight training, and chose to run the 5x5 program. I looked at the program and I actually think it’s great for beginners because of the strong emphasis that it puts on the big core movements, which is a ground foundation for learning.
With that being said, in 6 months time I had made better gains using 5/3/1 than my buddy did using 5x5, which is pretty strange considering that (1) beginners usually make gains very quickly, and (2) 5x5 has squats increasing 10 lbs per week (supposedly).