Thoughts on Mark Rippetoe?

Training
161

[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:

I respect Rip and his solid reputation, but I still think it’s strange how he teaches lifters to raise their hips before their shoulders when coming out of the whole during a barbell squat. Most here know that this is what happens when your quads get tired at the end of your set. I don’t get why he teaches that type of (fatigued?) form for every single rep. It reduces quad involvement.[/quote]

I flipped through SS and I couldn’t find anywhere where he says that. He does talk about hip drive, and he does say to not raise the shoulders before the hips (puts you off balance), but I couldn’t find anywhere where he says to raise the hips before the shoulders. He even includes a diagram (fig 2-22) indicating the shoulders and hips should move together.

The deadlift on the other hand…

162

[quote]some_dude wrote:

[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:

I respect Rip and his solid reputation, but I still think it’s strange how he teaches lifters to raise their hips before their shoulders when coming out of the whole during a barbell squat. Most here know that this is what happens when your quads get tired at the end of your set. I don’t get why he teaches that type of (fatigued?) form for every single rep. It reduces quad involvement.[/quote]

I flipped through SS and I couldn’t find anywhere where he says that. He does talk about hip drive, and he does say to not raise the shoulders before the hips (puts you off balance), but I couldn’t find anywhere where he says to raise the hips before the shoulders. He even includes a diagram (fig 2-22) indicating the shoulders and hips should move together.

The deadlift on the other hand…[/quote]

He was coaching it to someone in a video. Maybe it was meant for that trainer specifically.

163

[quote]some_dude wrote:

[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:

I respect Rip and his solid reputation, but I still think it’s strange how he teaches lifters to raise their hips before their shoulders when coming out of the whole during a barbell squat. Most here know that this is what happens when your quads get tired at the end of your set. I don’t get why he teaches that type of (fatigued?) form for every single rep. It reduces quad involvement.[/quote]

I flipped through SS and I couldn’t find anywhere where he says that. He does talk about hip drive, and he does say to not raise the shoulders before the hips (puts you off balance), but I couldn’t find anywhere where he says to raise the hips before the shoulders. He even includes a diagram (fig 2-22) indicating the shoulders and hips should move together.

The deadlift on the other hand…[/quote]

I have since watched a lot more videos of him lately and I’m really starting to like his stuff.

164

from my expierance, 16-18yr kids that walk in a gym for the first time, weather alone or a group, and start off with some sort of magazine program, blitzing a bodypart to death a day, the big percentage don’t do well, drifting away, or turning to juice.

If I take these kids and put them on a Rippetoe, or Wendler program for a year or until a 1000lb total is reached, they end up with a solid base for life, a base in : nutrition, rest, progression, and a solid understanding of doing a proper rep, with : squat, dead, bench, military, row. I’ve witnesed with my own eyes these kids being light years ahead of their buddies at the end of the year, that chose not to work with me, and go the BBing rout from the start, both in strength and in size.

Once they hit their goal, and they decide what direction they want to go : BBing, PLing, or atletics, they have the base to move forward, recently we’ve had goodluck with young BBer’s going to the max OT for their second year, it seems a nice fit, and then a futher split after that. The main problem I see is that variety for the sake of variety doesn’t work, and when they start on a magazine program, kids end up changing programs every other week, they get no solid base, and no solid understanding of basic lifts, most kids will gravitate to easy pumping type exercise, if not following a solid program.

I have been doing this for 20yrs, and spent 14hrs a day in a gym for the last 5yrs, this is what I’ve witnesed. To many kids can tell you the name of Jay Cutler’s dog, but can’t demonstrate a proper squat, and a basic program for the first year changes that, for this reason I think Rips programs are first class. 2cents

165

Anytime Jake gets it. Lots of poor reading comprehension in this thread. I would bet my shirt that the naysayers here don’t even own Rip’s books anyway. The people arguing against SS are probably the people who need it. They are the ones who have been lifting for a few years with very little to show for it, asthetically or otherwise. I was one of those people too. Now I am doing SS and I am bigger and stronger.

166

[quote]optheta wrote:
Every kid who does starting strength wants to BB so why the FUCK do you do a NONE BBing program.

Biggest waist of my time. [/quote]

No, not every kid who does SS wants to be a bodybuilder. Some use it to build a base of strength for sports. Some will continue to use variations as they get stronger. An example is the BIll Starr four day / week routine

I agree there are better ways to train for BBing then to use SS, even for beginners. But you are misinformed to think every kid wants to body build. It may not have fit your needs but SS and similar programs have done well for many others with other goals.

167

I think he is accurate in that weightlifting should revolve around the basic barbell lifts. But he gets sidetracked when talking about athletes. I play basketball 4 times a week, and anybody that plays a sport knows that you need a lot more then just basic strength to succeed. Personally, I love playing against the guy who only lifts…they have no wind, no quickness and 10 minutes into the game they are done. He downplays “exercise”, that exercise is increasing your cardio so you can effetively compete for a period of time.

Personally, I have grown to really love lifting. But it should be part of the package for an athlete, you can’t get by on just basic lifting. You have to be in shape, you have to work on quickness just you like you do in lifting. The lifting should be done, to increase your athletic ability, not as means onto itself.

168

[quote]stlcardsfan wrote:
I think he is accurate in that weightlifting should revolve around the basic barbell lifts. But he gets sidetracked when talking about athletes. I play basketball 4 times a week, and anybody that plays a sport knows that you need a lot more then just basic strength to succeed. Personally, I love playing against the guy who only lifts…they have no wind, no quickness and 10 minutes into the game they are done. He downplays “exercise”, that exercise is increasing your cardio so you can effetively compete for a period of time. [/quote]

Have you even read his book?

“If you are already very strong you need to devote most of your attention to the development of other aspects of performance”

  • Rippetoe

“Exercise is physical activity for its own sake, a workout done for the effect it produces today, during the workout or right after you’re through. Training is physical activity done with a longer-term goal in mind, the constituent workouts of which are specifically designed to achieve that goal. If a program of physical activity is not designed to get you stronger or faster or better conditioned by producing a specific stress to which a specific desirable adaptation can occur, you don’t get to call it training. It is just exercise. For most people, exercise is perfectly adequate - it’s certainly better than sitting on your ass.”

  • Rippetoe
169

No I haven’t read his book, but I was responding to the article that was listed. I don’t think he is wrong, and again I’m not a trainer, but just responding to the thought behind his article. Even the quote you listed doesn’t make sense to me. He states that Exercise is an activity for the effect it produces today…what does this mean.

What exercise doesn’t give you some type of long term benefit. I would be the first to admit that I haven’t been at this long enough to even offer a good judgement on his work, but training is exercise. I would call anything you do that benefits your conditioning is exercise. Better conditioning results in better performance.

170

[quote]stlcardsfan wrote:
No I haven’t read his book, but I was responding to the article that was listed. I don’t think he is wrong, and again I’m not a trainer, but just responding to the thought behind his article. Even the quote you listed doesn’t make sense to me. He states that Exercise is an activity for the effect it produces today…what does this mean.

What exercise doesn’t give you some type of long term benefit. I would be the first to admit that I haven’t been at this long enough to even offer a good judgement on his work, but training is exercise. I would call anything you do that benefits your conditioning is exercise. Better conditioning results in better performance.

[/quote]

Its just semantics at this point. Rippetoe distinguishes between training and exercising in the quote listed above. Exercising is working out for the sake of getting a workout in and having no real long term plan as to that workouts place in helping you achieve your goals.

Training is taking each workout as a piece of a greater effort intended to improve your performance at a given task. I would also add that practice is a little different than either of these. Practice is the act of performing a specific skill (dribbling, shooting, learning plays) to improve at that skill and hopefully your TRAINING has given your body the ability to perform these skills more efficiently or explosively.

171

[quote]some_dude wrote:

[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:

I respect Rip and his solid reputation, but I still think it’s strange how he teaches lifters to raise their hips before their shoulders when coming out of the whole during a barbell squat. Most here know that this is what happens when your quads get tired at the end of your set. I don’t get why he teaches that type of (fatigued?) form for every single rep. It reduces quad involvement.[/quote]

I flipped through SS and I couldn’t find anywhere where he says that. He does talk about hip drive, and he does say to not raise the shoulders before the hips (puts you off balance), but I couldn’t find anywhere where he says to raise the hips before the shoulders. He even includes a diagram (fig 2-22) indicating the shoulders and hips should move together.

The deadlift on the other hand…[/quote]

I’ll have to flip through my copy of starting strength again, but I’m pretty sure he does say to initiate the ascent with the hips. I’ve seen him cue guys by putting his hand on their lower back and telling them to come out of the hole pushing against his hand. I’ve tried squatting this way, and theres conflicting views on it, but It def makes it more of a posterior chain exercise. Its more about teaching hip drive and activating more posterior chain musculature than it is about minimizing quad involvement if I’m not mistaken. RIp is all about training the most muscles at once and the body functioning as an entire system.

172

[quote]stlcardsfan wrote:
No I haven’t read his book, but I was responding to the article that was listed. I don’t think he is wrong, and again I’m not a trainer, but just responding to the thought behind his article. Even the quote you listed doesn’t make sense to me. He states that Exercise is an activity for the effect it produces today…what does this mean.

What exercise doesn’t give you some type of long term benefit. I would be the first to admit that I haven’t been at this long enough to even offer a good judgement on his work, but training is exercise. I would call anything you do that benefits your conditioning is exercise. Better conditioning results in better performance.

[/quote]

It’s about focus and training economy. If I spend an hour doing some random exercises I’ll achieve random results. If I spend an hour doing programmed exercises I’ll achieve programmed results. A lot of what he’s saying is semantics, but he’s basically trying to keep people focused on optimizing training to produce the desired end result instead of choosing personal satisfaction today with no regard to how it’ll affect performance a week, month or year down the road.

173

[quote]bulkNcut wrote:

[quote]some_dude wrote:

[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:

I respect Rip and his solid reputation, but I still think it’s strange how he teaches lifters to raise their hips before their shoulders when coming out of the whole during a barbell squat. Most here know that this is what happens when your quads get tired at the end of your set. I don’t get why he teaches that type of (fatigued?) form for every single rep. It reduces quad involvement.[/quote]

I flipped through SS and I couldn’t find anywhere where he says that. He does talk about hip drive, and he does say to not raise the shoulders before the hips (puts you off balance), but I couldn’t find anywhere where he says to raise the hips before the shoulders. He even includes a diagram (fig 2-22) indicating the shoulders and hips should move together.

The deadlift on the other hand…[/quote]

I’ll have to flip through my copy of starting strength again, but I’m pretty sure he does say to initiate the ascent with the hips. I’ve seen him cue guys by putting his hand on their lower back and telling them to come out of the hole pushing against his hand. I’ve tried squatting this way, and theres conflicting views on it, but It def makes it more of a posterior chain exercise. Its more about teaching hip drive and activating more posterior chain musculature than it is about minimizing quad involvement if I’m not mistaken. RIp is all about training the most muscles at once and the body functioning as an entire system. [/quote]

He does say to initiate from the hips, but he doesn’t say to raise the hips before the shoulders.

174

[quote]some_dude wrote:

[quote]stlcardsfan wrote:
No I haven’t read his book, but I was responding to the article that was listed. I don’t think he is wrong, and again I’m not a trainer, but just responding to the thought behind his article. Even the quote you listed doesn’t make sense to me. He states that Exercise is an activity for the effect it produces today…what does this mean.

What exercise doesn’t give you some type of long term benefit. I would be the first to admit that I haven’t been at this long enough to even offer a good judgement on his work, but training is exercise. I would call anything you do that benefits your conditioning is exercise. Better conditioning results in better performance.

[/quote]

It’s about focus and training economy. If I spend an hour doing some random exercises I’ll achieve random results. If I spend an hour doing programmed exercises I’ll achieve programmed results. A lot of what he’s saying is semantics, but he’s basically trying to keep people focused on optimizing training to produce the desired end result instead of choosing personal satisfaction today with no regard to how it’ll affect performance a week, month or year down the road.[/quote]

That is a good point. I’ve been doing the 5/3/1 plan, so that is training. It’s been a huge benefit having a “plan” when I work out and my gains have been so much better then when I just used to go in and did what I felt like, which is the exercise that he is talking about. I’ve only been at this for about 6 months now and wish I had started much sooner.

175

Has anybody tried the Starting Strength programme while following a reletively hard conditioning regime concurrently? I know Rippetoe advises against this for pure strength gains and the reasons are obvious, but I was wondering if anybody has consistently improved their lifts when additional conditioning goals must at very least be maintained?

I am a road cyclist and am currently trying to focus on increasing absolute strength. During this phase I have decreased my cycling sessions to 3-4 a week and I also reduced the frequency of the SS programme to 2-3 times per week. My gains were linear at first but very recently have started to plateau somewhat, although my squat is still increasing.