The Art of Manliness - #75 Barbell Training with Mark Rippetoe Part 1

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well we're back

00:00:22.520 from a summer break needed some time to recuperate but now we're back on track for a regular weekly

00:00:29.680 podcast schedule and i'm excited about the guest we're coming back with his name is mark ripeto and

00:00:36.200 if i'm sure a lot of you are listening know who this guy is i've heard of him anytime we write

00:00:40.620 about strength training on the website his name and the book that he published back in 2005 always

00:00:46.740 comes up he's the author of the book starting strength basic barbell training that's what it's

00:00:52.040 about it's about lifting heavy with barbells doing squats deadlifts presses and bench presses to get

00:00:59.540 strong mark has over 30 years experience in power lifting being an olympic weightlifting coach

00:01:07.080 as a gym owner and in the past almost like past 10 years he's had a lot of influence in the resurgence

00:01:14.460 of just simple back to basics barbell training and so i'm really excited to talk to him today

00:01:21.580 we're going to discuss why a man should be strong you know why you should be able to lift heavy things

00:01:27.300 we're going to talk about the basics of barbell training we're going to discuss crossfit we're

00:01:33.140 going to discuss uh chesticles if you don't know what those are you're going to find out today

00:01:37.360 um i divided this podcast into half because it went a little long um so we'll have the second half next

00:01:44.160 week i've been having a longer podcast but lately and i've had a few people reach out to me saying hey

00:01:49.540 it's a little long can you shorten them a little bit so that's what i'm going to do get back to our

00:01:53.700 usual 30 minute long podcast so this uh week we'll talk sort of the basics of barbell training

00:01:59.280 and the next week i took questions from twitter from followers to ask directly to mark and we'll

00:02:04.720 uh answer those questions that people had from mark riptoe so there we go let's do this

00:02:11.160 mark riptoe welcome to the show thanks for having me brad i appreciate your call

00:02:20.260 and i appreciate the opportunity to talk to your people well yeah i appreciate i'm a i'm a big fan

00:02:25.780 of yours um your your book starting strength has been a big influence on my strength training

00:02:31.120 and um we're going to get to the nitty-gritty about your philosophy towards barbell training but before

00:02:37.040 we get there i want to kind of think you know look at big picture because here's something i've noticed

00:02:42.560 whenever we published articles about you know lifting heavy strength training we usually get some

00:02:47.980 person that chimes in with some sort of comment like well you know if you if you're not playing

00:02:52.920 football or some team sport or if you don't have a job that requires you to be really strong

00:02:57.880 you know there's really no point to dead lifting 600 pounds um so i mean what's your answer to that

00:03:04.820 i mean to someone you know why should a man be strong even if they're you know a desk jockey

00:03:10.580 for a living well a man ought to be strong because a man ought to just be strong 0.99

00:03:15.120 and that's what a man ought to be i mean you know what we say all the time is uh and this is kind

00:03:21.940 of tongue in cheek but a grown man weighs 200 pounds uh i mean there are just dark standards that

00:03:27.980 must be maintained and that's just what we do uh we're not you know i've never said that everybody

00:03:34.080 ought to deadlift 600 pounds all i'm saying is is that probably you ought to be dead lifting more

00:03:40.180 than you are now and that's not the same thing as recommending that everybody be a competitive

00:03:45.240 power lifter but everybody ought to be strong enough to be useful as a human male and uh you know we still

00:03:53.040 have to lift things and and move things around physically and we ought to be able to do that without hurting

00:03:58.720 ourselves because it's just you know shameful and uh it's you know i've i've written on this

00:04:06.520 extensively strength is uh it's if nothing else strength is the thing that keeps muscle mass on

00:04:15.580 you training for strength maintains your muscle mass and maintaining your muscle mass is an extremely

00:04:20.440 important part of maintaining your health uh for reasons of uh biology and immune system mechanics

00:04:29.600 and this sort of thing it's uh the number one thing that happens to us as we get older that affects our

00:04:35.860 quality of life is the loss of muscle mass and the accompanying loss of bone density that comes from

00:04:43.320 the process by which you lose your strength so the maintenance of strength and the maintenance of bone

00:04:49.640 density is what enables our quality of life to be maintained at old age uh running doesn't prevent that

00:04:56.600 from happening in fact running may accelerate the process uh the only thing that keeps that from

00:05:02.260 happening is is for guys when they get into their 40s at least to say i must now

00:05:10.280 deliberately as a part of my day strive to maintain and increase my strength

00:05:19.580 and as a result i mean you've got to do strength training yeah and uh what's expected of you yeah

00:05:28.080 and you also i mean i think it's a great point and you also write in starting strength in the

00:05:31.660 introduction that there's just like a confidence that comes with being able to lift heavy things like

00:05:36.400 sure you know i know i feel great whenever i make a new personal a pr on a lift i mean it carries

00:05:43.160 down somewhere in the that's deep in the dna i think yeah you know yeah all right so uh for our

00:05:51.240 listeners who aren't familiar with uh your most i guess most popular most famous work it's a book

00:05:57.160 called starting strength and it's all about barbell training yeah starting strength basic barbell

00:06:03.320 training is now in its third edition yeah how when when did it originally when was it originally

00:06:08.000 published it was first published in 2005 uh it's been through three editions the third edition

00:06:13.620 uh has sold the best because it's the best book the first two were works in progress and i think we've

00:06:21.240 got it nailed down on the on the third edition uh in fact in all three editions the books have sold

00:06:27.620 250,000 copies wow and for an independent publisher i'm told that's good that's really good and that's

00:06:35.380 the thing like you don't really i mean you don't do any public you know publicity on it it's just sort

00:06:39.800 of like word of mouth i found out about it from a friend yeah we have not really ever marketed the

00:06:44.860 book uh we probably should we're taking steps in that direction now but the book has sold itself

00:06:51.720 uh over the web and uh people hear about it people have good luck with it people write about it we've got

00:07:00.480 probably 95 percent of our amazon reviews or five star yeah you know it comes up in searches prominently

00:07:08.560 people look at it and they think you know this makes sense at a certain level even before they

00:07:14.960 hear the details yeah i mean the the basic program is that you go you do the basic barbell exercises which

00:07:24.120 constitute the entire program the squat the press the deadlift the bench press and for most people we

00:07:33.500 do power cleans and possibly power snatches and then we do some chins these basic exercises work all of

00:07:40.040 the muscles in the body in the way that they work under normal anatomical use in other words your knees

00:07:50.000 and hips bend so when you squat down and stand back up that's a normal human movement it uses all of

00:07:56.560 that musculature well if we put a barbell on your back and we have you do uh sets of five reps with 1.00

00:08:05.840 the barbell fives work best for reasons that would take an hour to explain fives work best and uh and then 0.99

00:08:14.600 we we increase the weight on on that until we find out till we find a weight that first day that's

00:08:20.940 you know not terribly difficult but is beginning to be a stress and then the next time you come in we go

00:08:27.360 up five pounds and the next time after that five pounds and then five pounds and then five pounds

00:08:33.280 and we do that until that doesn't work anymore and when that doesn't work anymore then we get more

00:08:38.380 complicated but until it's necessary to be complicated simple works just fine so uh that that

00:08:47.180 that process extends over all of these lifts chins don't work that way chins don't work that fast but 1.00

00:08:53.180 we're using chins as assistance exercise but one of the things that barbells uh do is the big barbell 0.96

00:09:00.600 exercises are the only lifts that you can do that will continue to increase in strength for years

00:09:07.500 machines don't do that you can't make progress on your leg extension for years and years like you

00:09:14.060 can your deadlift because there aren't enough muscles involved in the exercise and as a result

00:09:19.280 the the performance of the exercise doesn't produce sufficient systemic stress to cause a

00:09:25.240 systemic response and that's what we're we're looking for when we do barbell training we want the

00:09:30.660 whole body to get strong because the whole body functions as a unit and if we train it as a system

00:09:36.840 instead of isolated components then the system gets stronger while the constituent components get

00:09:45.680 strong too so the the program is really very simple and straightforward i didn't invent it it's been

00:09:52.220 used for decades if not centuries you know they were of course predicating this on the invention of

00:10:00.220 the barbell the the good thing about the barbell is that it's incrementally increaseable we can go up

00:10:05.900 on our bench press two pounds of workout if we need to and that enables us to continue to drive an

00:10:12.780 adaptation for a very long time so the barbells the invention of the barbells can is responsible for

00:10:20.180 the facilitation of this program but i didn't invent this i just wrote it now and uh in a comprehensive

00:10:27.180 understandable way that collated everything that i've learned about it over my decades in the gym

00:10:33.360 business and uh it's a simple program it works every time it's tried yeah and that's the interesting

00:10:39.260 thing is that you know this book you know starting strength is just insanely popular people see it

00:10:44.380 and they're like wow this is crazy you know i this is like it's new to them right because they probably

00:10:49.500 grew up in a time when it was just all about the machines or just simple dumbbell lifts well i think

00:10:55.580 that they've most people have never had this simple straightforward explanation presented to them

00:11:01.480 before uh again this is not complicated material it is merely uh uh a utilitarian adaptation of the

00:11:14.620 simple biological principle of stress recovery adaptation if an organism is stressed

00:11:23.900 and the stress doesn't kill the organism organism recovers from the stress and adapts itself so that

00:11:33.800 a repeated dose of that same stress doesn't constitute a stress anymore yeah all organisms this is just a

00:11:40.440 function of of of life everything that's alive responds to stress in this way and all we're doing is

00:11:48.340 capitalizing on that by making sure that a stress is applied that can be recovered from now if i took a novice

00:11:57.920 into the gym the first day and i had him do a hundred squats a hundred bench presses a hundred deadlifts 0.93

00:12:06.900 a hundred cleans that obviously would be both stupid and unprofessional because a person that is not 0.97

00:12:18.200 adapted to a stress can't recover from an overwhelming stress and uh the stress overwhelms it can't be 0.57

00:12:25.980 recovered from so the idea behind strength training is to apply a specifically tailored stress

00:12:34.020 to the body that allows that forces an adaptation to take place because it can be recovered from

00:12:42.420 so the processes of recovery you're obviously nutrition and sleep and these sorts of things but uh

00:12:49.760 but the process is so simple and obvious that uh i think for a long time people just

00:12:57.460 didn't see it laying there yeah you know because all i did is organize it for yeah it's one of those

00:13:04.260 things it's it's so simple people they why why would it work right because it's so it's so simple

00:13:09.800 we're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsor hey art of manliness listeners if you've

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00:13:48.560 back to the show here's the interesting thing i i you bring up in the beginning of the book talking

00:13:54.280 about um you know barbells have been used for almost a century decades right yeah and you talked about

00:14:01.960 like the strength and the power that weightlifters had back in the day because like one of the things

00:14:07.700 i do is i like to collect old men's magazines and old fitness magazines and you see some health from

00:14:13.460 back in the 60s yeah and you see what some of these guys are doing like what they're lifting just sort

00:14:18.020 of as normal it's insane i mean it's just it's but like in today you really don't see that all

00:14:24.000 that often unless you are a you know competitive power lifter or the like but uh there was a

00:14:30.200 different mindset towards i guess strength training um say 40 50 years ago than compared

00:14:37.220 to what's going on today well i like to use the example of the of the press now you mentioned the

00:14:43.380 overhead press we just call it the press because that's what it was called in antiquity we the press

00:14:49.440 is the standing overhead barbell press anything besides that gets a qualifier so if it's a if it's a

00:14:57.320 seated press then it's understood that you're seated if it's a dumbbell press you're using

00:15:01.880 dumbbells if it doesn't say bench it's assumed you're pressing overhead so back 50 years ago

00:15:10.520 a body weight press i weigh 225 loading a barbell at 225 and pressing it was considered pretty good

00:15:21.080 you know a good place to start yeah uh a 75 pounds over body weight press was considered a good press

00:15:30.560 of course you know the the old york guys were big pressers bill march and vet narski and all these

00:15:41.860 you know ernie pickett all these guys we write about on the website uh were good pressers

00:15:49.320 you know it we had people in this country pressing

00:15:53.300 you know in the 500 at vet narski press up close to 500 496 i think wow i i can't i don't i'm i'm not

00:16:04.260 good with those numbers uh but we have a series of articles written by both bill starr and marty

00:16:11.420 gallagher on our website to detail this very thing and we specifically include that stuff

00:16:16.920 in our in our library of of things to read because i specifically want people to know

00:16:24.160 where we were at one time and where we're not now yeah and see i guess the emphasis like there was a

00:16:32.140 switch where people started focusing more on aesthetics right like they want the the shredded 0.83

00:16:37.680 six-pack and like yeah it's all about sex right the pecs pecs bodybuilding you know that's when we

00:16:44.800 stopped pressing and started laying down doing our doing our pressing on the bench yeah because 0.97

00:16:49.320 you get to lay down now it's uh i call the pecs the chesticles yeah but you know people people think

00:16:57.100 that uh that you know well bodybuilding made pecs fashionable if you look at the old pictures of

00:17:04.640 grimmick his pecs were not out of proportion to the rest of his physique uh he had a flawless physique

00:17:12.340 and you'll notice that the absence of overwhelmingly large pectoral muscles

00:17:19.380 and that happened back in the in the late 60s and 70s when the bench press became

00:17:25.700 fashionable uh bodybuilding started rewarding big pecs

00:17:31.620 uh best chest became a trophy that you won at the mr america that sort of thing yeah and uh

00:17:41.480 i don't know body i've never been a big fan of bodybuilding i just think it's kind of odd but

00:17:47.220 it's uh uh but yeah probably the emphasis on bench press comes from bodybuilding yeah

00:17:54.000 it explains a lot of like where we got to today and sort of fitness and why a lot of guys go to the

00:17:59.440 gym because they want to look like that but maybe not particularly be strong that's not like the primary goal 0.99

00:18:06.220 right all right right and if you know the funny thing is if you just worry about strength all the

00:18:15.480 other things take care of themselves yeah

00:18:17.280 yeah that's right you know i mean physique follows strength that's right and you won't have it'll look

00:18:25.360 like a normal physique like you won't look sort of like a weird i don't know so it's not out of

00:18:29.420 proportion right some bodybuilders tend to emphasize their some entry-level bodybuilders

00:18:35.580 tend to emphasize the things they can see in the mirror yeah with their shirt off

00:18:41.940 and as a result they don't squat they don't deadlift their back is kind of flat and shallow and

00:18:50.820 sickly looking their legs are you know runner's legs you know people people are odd yes breath that's

00:19:03.140 all i can tell you yeah some people are very some very very odd i i i i i i can hear you on that

00:19:09.420 yeah um so let's talk about so one thing about barbell training the thing you focus on in starting

00:19:14.300 strength is just the form um how important is form in barbell training and like is barbell training

00:19:21.220 something you can just you know someone can get your book go off on their own and start it or should

00:19:25.820 they you know get a qualified coach to check out what they're doing um what's your take on that

00:19:32.120 well the book is designed to teach you how to do the lifts uh people of average intelligence

00:19:41.020 have always been able to take instructions in that book and apply them effectively to their own training

00:19:46.820 the uh each edition got better at helping us do that and uh there are a lot of people on my website

00:19:57.580 that have always trained by themselves uh for one reason or another have never had any coaching

00:20:03.640 and do just fine uh the optimum situation would be to have a a competent coach evaluate your uh your

00:20:14.140 technique uh but then we get into questions that are extremely sticky sometimes like what is a competent

00:20:21.480 coach yeah uh most competent uh most coaches are incompetent uh the current fad and in uh the actually

00:20:32.480 the fitness industry uh is to minimize the importance of uh deadlifts and squats done

00:20:42.540 correctly into full depth and maximize the importance of unstable surfaces all this functional training

00:20:49.200 shit it's just a wonderful excuse to handle light weights uh you can't get strong handling light

00:20:55.580 weights strength is merely the production of force against external resistance if heavy weight's not 0.96

00:21:00.060 involved then you're not getting strong that's all there is to it yeah there's just not another

00:21:04.020 analysis there's only one type of strength and that's the kind that your muscles produce when they

00:21:08.500 contract by moving your bones which is a system of levers that moves the load the weight's not heavy

00:21:14.680 the load is light force production the vans are low and you don't get strong and really 0.95

00:21:18.960 oh shit really that's all there is to it this is not complicated stuff i'm not that bright 0.82

00:21:24.740 okay i'm just not that bright this is not complicated and it doesn't need to be complicated 0.98

00:21:31.220 squats allow you to lift heavy weights deadlifts allow you to lift heavy weights they allow you to

00:21:37.520 get stronger for years that's why we use them they work the best but learning how to do these exercises

00:21:44.880 is sometimes contentious for people that are training by themselves we recommend that you try to find one of

00:21:53.120 our starting strength coaches who have been evaluated specifically for their ability to show you

00:21:59.220 how to do these exercises correctly but tens of thousands of people hundreds of thousands of people

00:22:06.660 have learned how to do these movements by themselves in their garage using the book again these just aren't

00:22:13.240 that complicated in an ideal world everybody'd have a coach hell i'd have a coach in an ideal world

00:22:18.940 but uh i trained by myself in here late at night because there's anybody around so you know you've

00:22:24.960 just got to remember the few simple principles that we hammer on in the book and most people get by

00:22:31.600 just fine all right well speaking of form right uh the crossfit games are going on right now oh oh let

00:22:38.420 me let me briefly touch on your question about technique okay sure uh because you'd asked that previously

00:22:42.960 now technique is terribly important it is important that you get the last inch of the proper depth in

00:22:49.680 the squat yeah it's important that you don't go six inches below parallel but it's important that you

00:22:54.840 break parallel it's important that you keep your knees out it's important that your back stay in

00:23:00.480 extension while the weight's being lifted it's especially important for novices who are learning this

00:23:06.800 to have technique emphasized above all else technique uh for instance the first time that i i trained

00:23:16.880 somebody in here i will show them correct technique when their technique is correct we start going up

00:23:22.080 in weight and when i sense that with my spider sense that the next set the next increase will make

00:23:31.220 their form come apart we stop at that weight do two more sets of five and quit so that we preserve

00:23:38.420 perfect technique it is important for novices to develop perfect technique for two reasons perfect

00:23:46.180 technique means that all of the components of the kinetic chain are doing their anatomically

00:23:54.220 predetermined share of the work in the correct way

00:23:59.780 the second reason is incorrect technique becomes a safety problem but we're not so much worried about

00:24:08.640 safety as we are efficiency remember we're lifting light weights at first and light weights don't get

00:24:14.340 aren't dangerous heavy weight gets dangerous therefore as we go through the process of increasing strength

00:24:21.520 strength form must stay perfect so that all of the components of the kinetic chain of each

00:24:28.420 exercise get brought along with the whole system as it strengthens by the through the process of

00:24:36.540 going up five pounds per workout now once a guy gets strong you've been training three years and he

00:24:42.860 wants to go to a dead a power lifting meet he wants to try that 600 deadlift does his form on the third

00:24:50.420 attempt when he pulls the 600 have to be perfect no because all we're concerned about at that point is that he

00:24:59.840 get the deadlift and get the thing passed by the judges if his back rounds a little bit that'll be fine

00:25:06.860 for him because he's strong now he can tolerate a little deviation from correct technique especially if

00:25:15.060 it's for the win or for the pr but during the process of the development of a certain level of base

00:25:23.480 strength perfect technique has got to be the process by which we achieve that strength because of the

00:25:30.240 fact that perfect technique ensures that all of the components of the system are doing their job

00:25:36.100 this is why we don't need corrective exercises to fix the squat we need correct squat to fix the

00:25:44.900 squat because correct squatting form utilizes all of the components in their anatomically

00:25:52.380 predetermined proportion within the lift and this is why we hammer on correct technique hammer on it

00:26:01.460 hammer on it bad technique gets you hurt bad technique also produces holes in the strength within the

00:26:09.360 kinetic chain of the movement pattern yeah and i'm sure you got to start out the you know getting that

00:26:14.260 good technique at the beginning or else you'll just develop these bad habits that are harder to

00:26:19.160 correct because i'm sure i probably have some i've been lifting since high school and i'd like to think

00:26:24.360 i'm doing okay but i'm sure there's room for improvement oh we all like to think we're doing okay

00:26:29.320 brett makes us feel good that's right i like to think i'm doing okay but there's things there's things i do

00:26:35.640 wrong everyone needs a refresher on their form from time to time everybody and uh you know there's no

00:26:43.860 substitute for the eye of an experienced coach it's just that they're hard to find sometimes yeah

00:26:49.800 okay well um speaking of form um the crossfit games are going on right now you probably know that

00:26:57.600 um what's your take i'm aware of it yeah what's your take on crossfit because on the one hand you

00:27:04.120 know it's made barbell training popular in some sense but uh yeah i did yeah uh when i first got

00:27:11.820 involved with crossfit back in 2006 i had had great uh hopes for the potential of of its ability to

00:27:19.400 spread barbell training to a whole lot of people who've never been exposed to it and in fact it has

00:27:23.940 uh on the whole crossfit is a net positive but crossfit has a lot of problems uh crossfit training

00:27:31.820 if you pay attention to the main site programming is not really it's not really training it's just

00:27:36.940 random exercise training is the process by which uh a person systematically improves their physical

00:27:44.280 capacity to do a specific physical task training is specific and programming can't be random

00:27:51.620 crossfit uh crossfit t90x muscle confusion type stuff doesn't produce strength as a as a long-term

00:28:00.220 uh adaptation because strength requires the proper application of strength type programming things that

00:28:09.820 make you stronger five pounds at a time uh crossfit may have you deadlift once every six weeks

00:28:16.800 by itself as a strength exercise once every six weeks is not a frequent enough exposure to get

00:28:22.440 you strong yeah uh i think we're all aware of the random nature of crossfit uh the random nature is

00:28:29.300 what keeps people interested in it because it's not boring but at the same time it's the thing that

00:28:35.900 makes it not training uh i just recorded a a thing with espn on thursday that aired this past sunday

00:28:46.680 morning this is the you and i are speaking on the 28th of july this thing aired on july 27th so if

00:28:53.880 you're listening to an archive of this conversation you'll need to look it up on espn according to that

00:29:00.140 date july 27th and we talked about uh the pros and cons of crossfit maybe people enjoy watching that

00:29:08.800 the uh my objections to it or or are talked about in that interview and uh i think that crossfit is a

00:29:19.540 still has the potential to revolutionize the the uh fitness industry because it's the uh it's the

00:29:26.920 most broad exposure lots and lots of people have besides p98 to the concept that hard produces results

00:29:35.700 yeah i mean previously we'd been taught that the best thing about a fitness program that you could

00:29:42.080 you could do for instance at home was that the device folded up and stored under your bed

00:29:48.060 it only took five minutes it was easy it didn't even make you sweat and it folds up stores under your

00:29:53.640 bed and then p90x comes along back in the early 2000s and starts telling everybody hey this thing

00:29:59.640 makes you sweaty and guess what that's why it works and i think that p90x in effect laid the foundation

00:30:07.140 for crossfit because so many people had seen that infomercial yeah and had already had the obvious

00:30:15.540 presented to them yes it's obvious that hard work works better than software and and p90x kind of

00:30:24.140 broke the ground on that and crossfit capitalized on it crossfit is in a sin in essence p90x with

00:30:29.880 barbells it's random it's done for the effect that it produces on your body today

00:30:36.340 there's no long-term planning in terms of the of the uh structure of the of the workouts themselves

00:30:45.840 uh a gradual accumulation of fitness occurs but it's not according to the to a specific plan and it's

00:30:53.780 not specific to a different a specific type of physical adaptation in other words a marathon

00:31:00.440 demands a different set of physical adaptations than a 600 deadlift so these things must be

00:31:09.020 carefully planned i'm sorry about that that's not my fault that's just biology and uh you know the

00:31:17.520 the random nature of crossfit prevents it from being uh considered strength training uh but it's been

00:31:26.160 very very good for a whole lot of people uh the the primary drawback to crossfit in my mind is the fact

00:31:36.800 that there are so many coaches trying to run the program you know we we deal with crossfit people all

00:31:45.980 over the country lots and lots of these affiliates are very good gyms very very talented experienced

00:31:52.400 coaches where you can obtain quality advice but lots of them aren't and to a person off the street

00:32:00.500 walking into a crossfit affiliate it is impossible for them to tell the difference of course that's

00:32:06.820 also true of any physical coach any trainer i don't you know somebody off the street doesn't know the

00:32:12.940 difference between me and the 19 year old kid at the powerhouse gym up the street that has a shirt

00:32:19.440 that says trainer on it yeah that's just that's one of the drawbacks of being in this industry

00:32:23.820 it with the um with crossfit i mean what they a lot of that's focused on crossfit with barbell

00:32:30.040 trains this whole like lift for time thing yes is that like not good or is it good i mean

00:32:36.020 or should we go slow is better slow and heavy it's the source of a lot of injuries because

00:32:41.420 if you do a lift that should be executed with technical perfection under conditions of fatigue

00:32:48.400 first thing that's going to happen is technical perfection goes out the window and then you're just

00:32:53.640 pulling on the bar and uh sometimes that gets you hurt yeah you know sometimes the weight is light

00:33:02.840 enough and you're in good enough shape that you don't get hurt but there's always the potential

00:33:07.580 whereas properly executed strength training has such an astronomically low percentage of injury

00:33:19.280 potential that it's just really not even on the chart it's it's you don't get hurt doing correctly

00:33:25.600 executed squats deadlifts presence bench presence power cleaners you get hurt sometimes at a power

00:33:34.080 meet but that's competitive athletics not fitness training competitive athletics are dangerous once you

00:33:40.680 decide you want to be a competitor that you want to win at something safety is no longer a concern

00:33:47.840 winning is a concern that's why people in the nfl get hurt it's a competitive sport safety is not

00:33:55.480 the point safety is neat but it's not the point and when you make uh anything competitive

00:34:03.560 then you up the injury potential i think that's not a that's not a terribly complicated concept to wrap

00:34:10.780 your brain around uh one of the problems with crossfit is it's presented as competitive

00:34:17.220 and you have a lot of people that want to immediately join in the competition but they haven't prepared

00:34:24.240 and as a result it wouldn't be crazy to see an increased injury rate in that kind of situation

00:34:33.320 yeah okay well here's the question i have i know we have a lot of uh older listeners um who are

00:34:40.800 probably like what in their 40s and they're like i said it's not old middle age like 40s 50s 60s

00:34:45.200 um should your program change as you get older or can you keep trying to add more and more weight to

00:34:53.620 your deadlift even in your 50s or 60s well it depends on when you started lifting i'm 58 and i've been

00:35:00.400 lifting for 38 years and i'm not really uh silly enough to think that i can do the pr as i did when i was 35

00:35:10.700 right you know as you get old and beat up in uh you know get bucked off of horses or whatever else

00:35:19.440 you're doing you you know have motorcycle wrecks and things like that things get injured and those

00:35:24.760 injuries must be taken into account when you train now if i'm starting person off as a novice when

00:35:31.180 they're 60 i expect them to make progress for several years before it slows down now we wouldn't

00:35:39.840 approach the training of a 60 year old novice the same way we would approach the training of an 18

00:35:45.960 year old novice because the hormonal milieu is different and everything else is different too

00:35:51.580 but in terms of your ability to make progress far more important than person's age is how long has

00:36:01.660 the person been training how much adaptation has already taken place in the direction of that

00:36:07.440 person's potential adaptation if no steps along that road have been taken then there are a lot of

00:36:14.080 steps left to take it's obvious that a strong guy uh increases his strength at a higher cost

00:36:23.580 than a weak guy it's easier for a weak guy to get stronger than it is for a guy who's already very

00:36:28.580 strong duh right that's the principle of diminishing return showing up one more time uh if i've got a 60

00:36:36.920 year old novice uh we still do the same thing we'll show them the basic barbell exercises same ones the

00:36:43.460 only one we might omit probably would omit for a 60 year old guy would be the clean because old people's 1.00

00:36:49.400 tissues don't respond favorably to ballistic training to explosive stuff uh as younger guys

00:36:55.680 tissues do because old tissues don't aren't as dynamically responsive uh rapid dynamic loading is hard on

00:37:06.160 an old guy's tendons so we realize that and we won't have him clean but everything else he can do 0.97

00:37:11.380 squatting dead lifting pressing bench you know unless arthritis or injuries prevent that from

00:37:17.080 happening well we do basically the same program but what i would do for a 60 year old guy is

00:37:22.560 is i would only have him train probably twice a week the thing that i have found to be true as we get

00:37:29.760 older is that the problem in older guys is recovery and that training volume is the problem not training

00:37:40.720 intensity old guys can still lift heavy guys have been training a long time just to lift heavy they

00:37:48.260 just can't do as many reps and sets because they can't recover from the volume what is your uh program

00:37:54.320 look like you said you're your 50 year 58 year old man is it still kind of the basic starting strength

00:38:00.240 oh yeah i do the basic lifts i i still pull i deadlift or or do low rack pulls uh every other week

00:38:09.860 and then i'll squat every other week so i'm only doing those once uh once every two weeks i press every

00:38:16.220 week uh and i'll do chins and do some conditioning every week my program is very simple but i travel a lot

00:38:24.260 and i'm not always in the place i need to be to get a workout in so it's it's kind of a mess but i

00:38:29.640 still maintain a oh i probably maintain a 500 deadlift i can probably still squat 365 if i had to i

00:38:36.980 press 185 i can do 16 dead hang chins wow you know i can hang on to that i'm fine i'm not competitive

00:38:46.980 anymore but i'm you know i'm just staving off death at this point yeah trying to maintain that muscle

00:38:52.020 mass right trying to maintain trying to maintain hanging on for dear life all right so you um you

00:38:59.100 know you advocate like the big lifts but uh and you mentioned chins are there any other supplemental

00:39:03.560 lifts that you know would be kosher in your program oh i don't think anything else much is necessary

00:39:10.480 i mean the the strongest guys uh throughout the history of the sport have have done fairly simple

00:39:20.200 programming uh i remember back in the in the 70s and 80s larry pacifico was a little bit different he

00:39:28.340 used to use a lot of bodybuilding assistance type exercises in his programming but but most very

00:39:36.800 strong guys will tell you that squats some type of deadlift maybe maybe some variations in the deadlift

00:39:44.080 uh bench presses some type of of overhead press uh and chins or lat pulls are basically the the tools we

00:39:57.380 have we don't vary uh the exercises we vary the volume and intensity the other program in other words

00:40:07.640 exercise variety is not the programming variable in strength training loading is is the variable in

00:40:16.700 strength training we always squat we just we use different sets and reds uh it's not necessary to

00:40:23.600 use leg presses because they don't do anything yeah except make your knees sore yeah i can i can attest to

00:40:30.160 that yeah it's just that the the the simplest things can be kept the better it's uh you know and this is

00:40:37.520 this is one of my pet peeves with uh uh modern approaches well i wouldn't say modern but current

00:40:45.420 approaches to to uh strength ebifting in 2014 this emphasis on exercise variety and 90 different ways to

00:40:53.160 do a one-legged squat on an unstable surface that's that's not how you get strong if strength is

00:40:59.580 if strength is the the adaptation you want heavy weight is going to have to be involved in that

00:41:06.280 equation and if the exercises you choose to do preclude the use of heavy weight then you can't get

00:41:13.060 strong and that's just all there is to it so uh you know as is usually the case the latest thing

00:41:21.640 is not necessarily the best the latest you know all the variety it sells books or magazines or

00:41:28.760 oh it's proprietary certainly it's interesting certainly it sells better than what i've got to

00:41:33.760 sell hard work's what i got to sell it's not much of a it's not in demand does it uh but it does work

00:41:41.660 our guest today was mark ripeto mark is the author of starting strength basic barbell training

00:41:47.400 and and also several other books but basic barbell training is the one you got to check out

00:41:52.200 uh you can find that on amazon.com you can also go to his website starting strength.com they have

00:41:58.960 forms they have articles by mark and you can also buy the books there and also tune in next week for

00:42:05.200 the second half of this interview where mark answers questions taken from art of manliness twitter

00:42:11.660 followers until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

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The Art of Manliness - August 01, 2014

#75 Barbell Training with Mark Rippetoe Part 1

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