7/10 – Solid starting program, could be better.
Introduction
Starting Strength’s novice linear progression program, developed by Mark Rippetoe, gained huge amounts of fame back in 2010-2017. It was almost universally recommended on all forums that involved some degree of weight training. We owe Starting Strength a thanks. Programming and strength training in the early 2000s was ineffective and at times… rather unusual. People were following the same workouts or routines without ever increasing the weight and without ever touching movements like squats or deadlifts. Starting Strength’s fame contributed massively to changing this, advocating simplicity by focusing on a few key lifts and just adding weight each workout. This overemphasis on simplicity is, perhaps, a drawback of Starting Strength, but it was desperately needed 10-15 years ago when so many programs were ridiculously complex, illogical and at times weird.
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The Program
You train three times per week, alternating workout A and B. For example:
Monday – Workout A
Wednesday – Workout B
Friday – Workout A
Monday – Workout B
Wednesday – Workout A
Friday – Workout B
You add 5lb to the bar each workout you do. There is a “Phase 1”, “Phase 2” and “Phase 3”, with minor differences between them (check out StartingStrength.com for the phases). The above is the phase 2.
The Good
The program is simple. When I see some novice programs, I often wonder how someone who has never set foot in a gym is meant to even understand the program. The simplicity of Starting Strength means a new lifter can easily pick it up and get started in the gym.
It has a strong focus on the key lifts: Squat, Bench, Press and Deadlift. Most exercises are simple machine-based exercises, easy to master isolation or bodyweight exercises, or variations of these four lifts. If a lifter masters these four lifts in their novice phase, then they can very easily learn new movements. It sets them up well for future programs.
The program emphasises progression. This is the entire reason the Starting Strength program was so effective back in 2010. The entire premise of it is that you perform big compound movements, moving a the most weight through the most effective range of motion, and add weight to the bar each session. The biggest improvements for novice lifters is skill and neurological adaptations. Squatting 3x per week improves your skill and neurological adaptations pretty efficiently, meaning novice lifters can easily progress workout-workout when they first start out.
A controversial take, but I like the inclusion of the powerclean. But not for the reasons Starting Strength advocate it for. Starting Strength recommends it as a movement to help drive the deadlift up, as due to its fast movement it allows the lifter to exert more force, and therefore is an excellent lift to increase pulling strength. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to support this view. So why do I like it? It teaches novice lifters to exert force in an explosive manner, a skill which is easily missed out on in most programs. It also teaches the novice lifter how to actually perform an easy variation of an Olympic lift. This sets him or her up for future programs. Who is to say the novice lifter does not want to do Olympic lifting? Or Crossfit? Or perhaps simply include Olympic lifts for pure enjoyment? The inclusion of the powerclean therefore enables a novice lifter to move on to a wider variety of programs and sports without such a steep learning curve. However, the powerclean can, and usually is, substituted out for the Barbell Row. People dislike the inclusion of the Powerclean and simply don’t do it – this is the reason I don’t include it in my own recommended Novice Strength Program.
The Bad
The upper-body volume is lacking. The well-known meme for starting strength is that it activates ‘t-rex’ mode. There are 9 sets for the squat per week. Yet only 4.5 sets (9 sets across a fortnight) for the bench press. Lifters stall quite early on with the bench press and overhead press, and this is almost certainly due to a lack of volume. There is enough volume for a rank novice to progress, and even after the initial few weeks some minimal but consistent gains can still be obtained. However, it is not nearly enough volume to obtain optimal muscle and strength gains. Ten sets per week is considered the ideal minimum for novices, but even then for upper-body volume this can increase to 15+ sets. The easy way to fix this is to do some light accessory benching on overhead press days.
Deadlift volume is lacking. Starting Strength has the notion that deadlifts are very taxing and stressful on the body. Whilst I think the notion that they are more stress-inducing than other lifts and are harder to recover from is largely overblown, I am not dogmatic in my thinking and would not be surprised if I turn out to be wrong. However, Phase 2 (above), has you lifting 1.5 sets per week. Phase 3 has you lifting once per week. This is incredibly low volume. Frankly it is ridiculously low volume. Deadlifts may well be more stress-inducing than the other lifts, but you can very easily recover from more than one set per week. You can also adapt to higher volumes of the deadlift just like you can any other lift. The poor deadlift volume also means that when you need to increase the volume to actually make progress as an intermediate lifter then you are in for a shock. The easy fix is simply adding a few back-off sets to the deadlift.
Just like with the upper-body and deadlift volume, there can be a lack of upper-back work if Powercleans are not substituted for barbell rows. In Phase 3 you will add Chin-ups, but until then, you will only get back work through 1.5 sets of deadlifts per week (or 3 sets per week during Phase 1). The simple solution is to add a few sets of chin-ups on the pressing days during Phase 2, or to substitute Powercleans for Rows.
The rep-ranges are very limited. Look, I love sets of 5. I did Starting Strength when I first hit the gym, and sets of 5 were my favourite thing in the world after a period of Starting Strength. Until I tried to do a set of 8 RDLs and it felt like it nearly killed me. There is a lot of literature recommending more varied training for novice lifters, and likewise, there is a lot of literature advocating the use of sets of 8+ reps for muscular hypertrophy.
The progression scheme can be incredibly dogmatic. You must add 5lb each workout. If you don’t then the assumption is you are doing something wrong. If you are doing everything right, you are usually expected to deload, and then build back up again over the next few weeks, expecting your body to magically be able to continue building strength. The reality is, once you stall you have probably reached the end of the rapid strength gains coming from the initial skill and neurological adaptations. The adaptations from there will start slowing down, and the benefits of deloading and building back up is questionable when compared to moving on to more advanced programming.
Is it worth trying?
There are more bad points I’ve made with the good. However, despite this, the program can yield some very good results for new lifters, and would not be a bad starting point at all. I started on Starting Strength, and it definitely set me up. Are there better novice programs (shameless plug to my novice strength program)? Of course, but a year down the line you won’t regret doing Starting Strength. The difference between Starting Strength and other novice programs which may yield better results is not too significant at all. It is a fine program, and definitely worth a shot.
With all this said, I need to caution you: Starting Strength is a novice program. It should usually be run for 8-12 weeks (sometimes up to 16 or so weeks on rarer occasions). No program will get you ripped, strong and jacked after just a few months. Likewise, if you are still doing starting strength after 9 months, you are probably doing something wrong, as it is just not feasible for this long given you are meant to add 5lb every workout.
Finally, if you do follow Starting Strength, I’d suggest adding 3 sets of 8-10 reps of additional bench work to the benching days, this could be dips, dumbbell bench, close-grip bench, pause bench, or just standard benching. I’d also suggest adding 2 back-off sets to the deadlift days once you reach Phase 2, and 3 sets of chin-ups to failure to the pressing days. I would personally just recommending avoiding Phase 3, and if you stall move on to more advanced programs rather than trying to grind out each rep in near-death experiences each workout.