Why You Shouldnt do Starting Strength as a Beginner. Download my bodyweight program for skinny fat guys 6. PDF, free editionWhen I started training in February 2. I was getting most of my information from the bodybuilding. The popular advice for a beginner was to do the program Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Therefore, I did a bodybuilding version of Starting Strength called Kethnaabs Modified Starting Strength Routine. Kethnaabs variation replaces power cleans with barbell rows because the technique of power cleans can be difficult to get right without a coach. Below, I will show you the full routine and share my body composition progress after adding 5. Kethnaabs Modified Starting Strength Routine. Workout ASquat 3 x 5. Bench Press 3 x 5. Deadlift 1 x 5. Workout BSquat 3 x 5. Military Press 3 x 5. Barbell Row 3 x 5 the original Starting Strength program would replace barbell row with power clean 5 x 3You alternate between Workout A and Workout B on 3 non consecutive days of the week and do the exercises in the order theyre listed above. The big benefit of starting strength lies in its simplicity you only do 5 basic exercises during the program and focus on progressing on those. This laser like focus has 2 big benefits You gain a good amount of strength on the few exercises you do. I added 5. 00 pounds 2. KG to my deadlift, squat and bench press total. How To Use F8 for Safe Mode to Fix Problems with Programs and Drivers in Windows. Starting Strength is a very popular training routine for beginners. In this article I will explain why you shouldnt do Starting Strength as a Beginner. You master the technique on some of the most important compound exercises and this technique translates into many other exercises you will do throughout your training career. The other big benefit of Starting Strength is the book itself. Mark Rippetoes Starting Strength is the best book out when it comes to teaching proper technique on the barbell squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press. And this is important because 9. How Do I Stop Programs Starting In Windows 7' title='How Do I Stop Programs Starting In Windows 7' />By studying the book and making regular videos of yourself you will be able to achieve good form without any coach helping you. Therefore Starting Strength does what it promises It helps you become stronger on the big compound exercises. However, these strength gains dont necessarily translate to bodybuilding gains and now Ill explain why. Adding 5. 00 pounds to my compound lifts didnt change my body composition for the better. In just 1 year of doing starting strength I made the following gains on my key lifts By adding a lot of strength, my confidence skyrocketed and I had a goal that motivated me to go to the gym every time add more weight to the bar. The big issue with starting strength was that my strength gains didnt translate into positive body composition changes. Overall, I added 3. I thought I was getting muscular. Antares Autotune 7 Crack Mac. But I was wrong. After following the program for a year, I travelled to Miami with my high school class, and when we went to the beach, I would do a set of 5 pull ups something I could never do before. Shortly after doing the pull ups, a guy would call me Snorlax the fat pokemon and I didnt understand why. I thought that I was getting muscular because my lifts went up, but that was clearly not the case. Heres a photo of how I looked after 1 year of doing starting strength When I saw this progress picture, I realized that I had become fat for the first time in my life. Why I Gained A Lot of Fat on Starting Strength. On Starting Strength, you are squatting at near maximum weights 3 times a week for 3 sets each time. In addition to that you do other heavy compound lifts and you have to add weight to the bar every time you train. This becomes a problem when you are a guy with average recovery capabilities. With the frequent heavy lifting you put a lot of stress on the Central Nervous System CNS and the CNS can take much longer to recover than your muscles. After a heavy deadlift or squat session, the CNS can take 5 7 days to recover fully and this is essentially what happened to me. I felt drained when going into each training session and I couldnt add any weight to the bar. My lifts were stalling all the time so I initially thought it might be because I used poor technique on the lifts. I re read the Starting Strength book multiple times and worked extensively on my form but after months of trial and error, I still found myself plateauing. In fact, using good form just made me stay at the same weight for a longer time. I found that I could only add weight to the bar when I cheated a lot on my form but then I would get pains in my joints. So I started looking into protein intake. Maybe my protein intake was too low to recover I increased my protein intake from roughly 1. I still felt drained going into my training sessions and couldnt progress on the lifts. Then finally, I tried to increase my carbs and fats. At first, I didnt see any difference but then I tried to eat a lot Between 4. Calories per day. Once I hit that amount of food intake, I was finally able to make consistent progress on my lifts. When I increased food intake I started gaining weight every week and my deadlift shot up from something like 2. So increasing food intake was amazing for fast strength gains. It really worked. But it didnt work for improving my aesthetics. Most of the weight I gained was body fat and the moderate amount of muscle mass I gained was in all the wrong places. I had gained a moderate amount of muscle mass in my traps, core, glutes, legs and lower chest. I had made close to no gains in the muscles that actually matter The shoulders, upper chest, biceps, triceps, forearms, calves and lats. Heres how my 2 year progress looked with Starting Strength and later the intermediate program Madcow 55 In the photo above, you will see that I wasted my first 2 years of training. I was at the same bodyweight and didnt look any different. I thought that perhaps I was doing something wrong, but then I discovered that most other skinny fat guys got similar results to me. Heres an email I got from a blog reader I wasted nearly two years so far with Starting StrengthStronglifts type routines, and all I got was fat with very little to show for it. I went from about 1. I looked better BEFORE I started it. I also made very little strengths gains to go along with it, which makes it even work. At least you made some strength gains. I kept convincing myself that if I just eat a little more, I will make progress. I would get fat and cut then start it all over again. I am only a week in to another one of these viscous cycles. I had myself convinced that I just need to eat more than I ever did before, then it will finally happen. Only a week and half in, and my lifts are stalling again, I gained 5 pounds probably fat, and I already injured my knee from squats. Ive had enough I am going to use all the info from your site. Thanks again for sharing your experiences. This is just one example of another guy who came to the same conclusion as me. Since starting this blog in 2. I have gotten hundreds of messages and emails from guys who have wasted years lifting heavy weights. Starting Strength Is Not A Program For Physique Development. I dont have anything against strength training programs, but the issue with Starting Strength is that its promoted as a great starting routine for guys who train for physique development. A lot of beginners start doing Starting Strength because they get sold on the idea that drug free lifters cant recover from high volume training and that bodyweight exercises are useless. I know because I was sold on these ideas as well. Thats why I did Starting Strength in the first place. After my first 2 years of training, I noticed that most of the guys who have the type of body I want do high volume training and most of them implement bodyweight training as well. This inspired me to switch to high volume training where I used chin ups, diamond push ups and bodyweight squats as my staple exercises. I would do multiple high rep sets of each exercise everyday. At first, I didnt make a lot of gains with this type of training because I was on a fat loss diet.