Teaching someone proper form and them mastering it, is two different things.
I completely agree. However, learning a serviceable level of technique is achievable when the new lifter is exposed to the proper resources.
I think teaching a beginner proper form(from a fucking video to boot), then sending them off on their own to try and gauge their 1RM at the gym is crazy.
The preferred way of learning form is certainly through hands-on coaching from someone whose understanding of technique is reasonably strong. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to a great coach and technique is poor across the board among lifters. Those with good technique are the exceptions. Therefore, it's probably preferential one learns form from a Rippetoe book and video than from the mimicry of other gym goers or from a training partner that is unlikely to have a proper grasp on technique themselves.
In regards to a 1RM: I do understand were your reservations about testing a 1RM come from. However, a novice is far removed from their absolute strength. Their physiology can handle squatting 165 pounds. Even for a more experienced lifter embarking on a new modality of training, the negative physiological repercussions of testing a 1RM once every four months (as in 5/3/1) or establishing a baseline is not comparable to testing a 1RM with frequency (every week or every month).
I don't care what these coaches say, because they won't be training anyone here.
Who you listen to is certainly you're own prerogative. However, I'm not following the reason behind ignoring their advice. Their information is made available so that lifters who do not have access to them can benefit from their experience.
Just an aside, if one wants direct access to Rippetoe or Wendler specifically, Rippetoe frequently posts on his forum and Wendler responds to Q&A questions at EliteFTS with very reasonable promptness.
Tons of newbies that come here won't even have a personal trainer. They'll have a video, a sticky, and maybe a website/book.
We can only do the best that we can with the limitations that exist. Essentially all we can do is field questions -- that is constant regardless of the programming.
What about these "beginners" that these coaches train? Are they really beginners to exercise or just to weight training. They're more than likely athletes who are trying to improve their performance. That is not the same as grabbing a couch potato and training them. No doubt we've seen some couch potato's visit this board looking for advise.
Starting Strength is most directly designed for coaching teenagers. Absolute beginners.
Just an aside: by Rippetoe's admittance, Starting Strength isn't anything out of the ordinary. It's not really his 'masterpiece' or anything like that. They are not even entirely his own ideas. It all stems from Bulgarian/Eastern Bloc/Russian training. Same thing goes with Westside (a more advanced protocol not intended for novices) and any program that involves periodization. Starting Strength is the collective work of all those that came before Rippetoe and is ultimately filtered down into core principles that are consistent with a multitude of complete programs. It's simply linear periodization -- there are no secrets or mysteries beyond why it is effective. Basically any logical linear periodization program will yield the same results and basically any linear periodization program will look extremely similar to Starting Strength.
Regardless, most people here are simply not going to have the resources that these coaches provide and base their results off.
I urge you to actually read the books. I think you may be over-complicating what the program entails. It's the same
linear periodization that is in our stickies. The problem isn't that we don't have the information, the problem is that it's not being applied.
In Starting Strength, one basically squats, deadlifts, cleans, and benches in the five rep range and then increases weight until they cannot increase weight anymore. Once they cannot increase weight (properly recover) they have 'graduated' from the program.
After that period, I feel that 5/3/1 is fantastic. It's the same idea: squat, bench, deadlift, press and (if one chooses) clean. The book just sets up programming (especially periodization) in an organized manner that can be easily modified.
I also think guesstimation of when to move up in weight is fine for a beginner, since the goal of their first routine shouldn't be maximum strength gains.
The novice period, however long it may last, permits the greatest gains relative to any other point in a lifter's career. The most efficient and effective programming allows the novice to take advantage of that period to the greatest extent.
Simplicity, higher repetition, and less weight. Leading to improved form and confidence.
However, without specific direction for manipulating the load, the lifter is sacrificing the gains that can be made in that novice period.
Someone that doesn't have sufficient experience in the exercises shouldn't be trusted to have good form at heavier weight.
Sure, but heavy weight is relative to their absolute strength. No one is going to rupture a pec benching 135x5.
A caveat: injury can occur at any essentially any load if the lifter isn't probably warmed up. However, an improper warmup protocol lends to an incomplete program.
Who is going to assist the people that come here asking for advice on any exercise? You gonna fly down there to help them train? No, they're gonna be by themselves. Armed only with a video, sticky, and maybe a book or website. Have you ever taught someone proper squat form who's never squated and isn't much of an athlete? It takes a little bit for them to get it, and that's just using bodyweight. So from there they're now ready to go into the gym alone and test their 1RM? I think advising a handful of compound exercises, using moderate weight, and focusing on their form is better advice for the average beginner who visits this board. If the person comes back after a few months looking for more advice, then I would direct them to some more advanced routines.
PushAndPull, I really do appreciate you taking the time to rebut, it's exactly what I was looking for. However, if you read the books, I that you'll recognize that Starting Strength and 5/3/1 have very similar principles towards what you believe is ideal for training a novice/intermediate. The major difference being that Starting Strength takes the effort to capitalize on the novice gains. Frankly, most of us probably cannot recover fast enough to do that program -- it is truly designed for the beginner. Whether the programming lasts for three months or a year or is matter of nutrition, lifestyle, and genetics -- the better the lifter can recover, the longer then can sustain increasing the load before needing to employ more advanced techniques.
5/3/1 is excellent for the lifter that has left that initial period, even though it can still be used by absolute beginners.
The point isn't that I'm trying to pimp these books and that they contain the secret to training. The same information is held in our stickies.
The issue is that it I believe it is overwhelming for a novice to try to assimilate all the information needed to assemble a proper warmup, determine intensities/rep ranges/movements, and then figure out progression. Explaining all of this puts a huge burden on us as well -- it's a lot of information to go over with any user.
We actually do the same thing with our Nutrition section. Aside from carb cycling, which has less "moving parts" than training, we frequently recommend that lifters read The Ultimate Diet 2.0 or The Rapid Fatloss Handbook. I recognize that those diets are for more 'advanced' dieters, but I think the message still applies -- it's a matter of using the best resources to help lifters succeed
The message of the books fit very well into the training beliefs of our 'usual posters' with the addition of stressing periodization which I typically do not see stressed here. To reiterate, the benefits of those two training books is in their organization. From warmup to movement selection/reps/ intensity to periodization, the book organizes all the information so that anyone can follow it. The intention isn't to be lazy -- I just wholeheartedly feel that novices/intermediates would be better served having the information that we normally give them available, with the addition of periodization, in a medium that they can be easily referenced.
Additionally,
here's a podcast were Jim Wendler talks about 5/3/1 with the Fitcast people.
thats a huge bench, nice work. Ted is old school, haha. Makes you wonder how wrestlers these days would fare in powerlifting...
