Itt post your before and after pics on SS and what you look like now

You're a complete idiot. Enjoy living in denial of simple biomechanics and physiology.

That is not Mark Rippetoe.

wut, getting stronger is the only way bigger as a natural, that part of ss makes sense. The problem with ss is not that it prioritizes strength building, its that it prioritizes building strength on a lower rep range that, at least for the upper body lifts, is not enough tut to optimally build muscle. The other problem is the exersise selection is to limited to yield optimal aesthetics everywhere on your body. Like I don't care how much you bench and row, if you are natural you won't get big arms unless you have a strong weighted chin-up/weighted dip, AND regularly do curls and triceps long head exercises.

I'm sorry.
But simply doing a strength based lifting routine like what is pushed around here, with that paltry selection of exercises, will lead to a brick wall that you will never overcome and inevitable injury.

That's a fucking fact.

I don't give a fuck how many fucking new lifters who're getting newb muscle you trot out. They'd have gotten that fucking muscle doing damn near anything. Okay.

We're talking about the most optimal mass building range that can be continuously used safely and with as little risk of injury as possible till they've reached their current natural potential.

Basic strength building programs are not going to do that. Powerlifitng progams and modern bodybuilding programs are the exact opposite of that as well.

The former is about putting up higher numbers no matter the cost and the latter is almost subtly hinting that you should get on gear

SS is a 3 month program.

A lot of big muscular and aesthetic guys (decent face genetics) at my gym do brosplits not including the roiders. a lot of fat bearmode dudes and weird skinny dudes (wasnt blessed with face genetics) do fullbody routines or hog te

autism

1. That's not Rippletits
2. No one does the program correctly, they just copy something they saw online without reading the material, then bitch about shitty results and call it shit.

That's because dumb fucks online completely ignore how the routine is properly done. They think it's just 5x5 of squats, bench, ohp, and 1x5 deads and completely ignore the fact that it has cleans and adds accessories exercises. If people actually read the material and did the program correctly they would get better results. Even then it's not a program for looks. It's for building strength so you can move on to a program for looks.

It's consistency that matters. If you're consistent you can make gains on basically anything, doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. A bro split is fucking retarded, but if you do it consistently you'll still get result albeit much slower than a good routine.

Mandatory.

Just looking at him it's obvious he didn't have his shit together and fucked around the whole time. He wouldn't have made gains on anything.

Looking good user, lots of noticeable improvements. Thanks for replying

i have 4 months and looks better than him

>using pictures to determine if a program is successful when it is 100% based on increasing numbers and has no hypertrophy aspect

This was after doing SS style workouts for 7 months and gaining 20 lbs. I was truly a skellington.

would be useless I started SS at 250 pounds and im about 226 so most of my gains are still buried under fat.

SS is a "however long it continues to work" program, not an arbitrary period of time.

And of the people who do it correctly, he can only boast that one fat as fuck kid who's growth while doing SS was more to him hitting a late growth spurt then the program itself.
\
>JUST FOLLOW THE PROGRAM!!
>IF YOU ADD ANYTHING ELSE YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING THE PROGRAM
>UNLESS THE PROGRAM FAILS TO LIVE UP TO ANY OF THE LIES USED TO GET YOU TO DO THE PROGRAM
>THEN YOU AS A NEW LIFTER WHO WAS LIED TOO SHOULD KNOW ENOUGH TO ADD MORE ACCESSORIES!!!

Yeah no.
Fuck you and that bullshit.

And?

It's entirely fucking useless then isn't it.

That's stellar progress m8

It's not "useless", it's for getting used to the barbell lifts and increasing your squat, bench, and deadlift as much as possible in the first few months of training. If you just want to look good, do something else.

>squat, bench, and deadlift as much as possible in the first few months of training.
For what?
You would lack the sheer work capacity needed to make any use of it and set yourself up for a lifetime of ignorance, snobbery when it comes training methods and inevitable injuries.

Zach's squat went to 345x5, bench to 240x5, and deadlift to 325x5, and OHP to 145x5 in 6 months. This wasn't a "late growth spurt." This is doing heavy compound lifts 3x per week and eating a lot of food. Zach put on a shit load of lean body mass in that time. Yeah, his body fat went up a lot. But so did his lean mass and total body strength, which is the whole point. You can always cut later if you want to be leaner.

lmao

wtf, does anyone have any actual pics of Rippetoe in his prime?

IIRC he ended up pretty strong

Being a pedant is a "till you get punched in the mouth" personality trait

Shit nigger, I look better than him, and I'm gay.

That guy dicked around for a year, gained way more weight than he needed to and ended up with marginal numbers that most men would get after 3-4 months. It's not the program's fault he's a dumbass.

is SS a meme or not? i want to lift, eat and become muscular - I don't want to become a fat beast who can lift heavier things than most people

stronglifts, SS, madcow - everywhere I hear stories of people who have done them and ended up with exploded arse and legs with no upper body development, or have just ended up as fat fucks

isn't there a simple program I can follow that won't fuck up my shit

SS won't fuck up your shit. It's a starting program meant to get you to a respectable level of strength and lean body mass. You can then use that as a jumping off point into whatever other goals you have. Most people on this board spend years lifting and end up looking like slightly muscular skeletons cause they think doing 20+ reps at 135 is going to make them look like a bodybuilder. It's a much better use of time to spend a year or so building your strength with lower reps and then moving on to high-rep work at higher weights.

...

If someone is ending up like fat fucks, then they are obviously not eating right at all. Doing anything related to a good intense weightlifting program and eating right shouldnt have anyone looking like a fat fuck.

>exploded arse and legs with no upper body development

This is so true. From doing stronglifts and similar programs I learned that generally the upper body needs considerable more volume than the lower body. Heavy 5x5 squats and 4x5 deadlifts will give you fucking horse legs, but generally the upper body needs more volume if you want it to grow.

Don't get me wrong I did get a bigger back. chest, and shoulders from stronglifts but the development of these areas was nothing compared to when I stared doing workouts with 3x12, 3x15, 4x10, or 5x10 on my upper body lifts.

People get way too caught up with so many different philosophies and just complicate the shit out of the whole thing. SS, bro splits, supersetting, drop sets, whatever. My approach is to just keep shit simple and to do those things ONCE IN A WHILE for a good shock to the system.

If compound setting, SS, or whatever you wanna call it works for you, then by all means, do it. Everyone is different and will respond differently to all typs of programs and routines. For example, i am a 1 day on and 1 day off guy. Some like to do 2 days on and 1 day off. Some like to do a day/night split. Whatever works for that person is what it comes down to. I've been at this for nearly 20yrs now and my routine is completely customized to the point where no one else would do what i do, because that is what happens once you have been doing it like that --you come up with your own custom and complex program after a lot of tinkering.

However, I agree with Lee Priest when it comes to compounding certain things. He calls a lot of that, such as good ole "Cross Fit" to be totally dysfunctional because he believes it best to keep yourself focused (as well as that muscle itself ) on whatever muscle group you are working that day. Doing triceps with bench in the same day, yes, to me that is dysfunctional. Why? The triceps are right up there as a secondary muscle when benching or OHP'ing. Doing a shit load of skull crushers or weighted dips is gonna burn them out and your bench will then suffer, at least for that time and day. Is it ok to do once in a while though for a good intense shock to the body/muscles? Yeah, sure, of course. It's just not something i would do on a regular bases. Maybe like every 3 months or something.

I believe if you just train hard with good intensity do shit right, you're going to make gains no matter what. It's like Arnold (and yes, love Arnold, who doesn't, we all know he was/is a legend) where he spoke about "muscle memory" and how he would have to do something different on a particular muscle next time he trained it, or else it would "remember" and he would supposedly plateau. Well, that is total Bro Science 101 right there. Muscles don't have "a brain" in them. They simply react to stimuli. If someone starts out just doing nothing but bench presses, let's say, (without staying at the same weight of course) and progressively makes the effort to improve on them every so often, well, they WILL make gains, all there is to it. If they do leg press, and nothing else for legs, their legs will grow. Sure, they won't look as shapely and will lack certain contours and shape due to hitting one region of it, but that region will grow nonetheless. Doesn't always matter which order you do whatever movements either. You can choose to do underhand close grip pull ups first, then do wide grip lat pull downs next. Or you can do the pull downs first and the pull ups next. Or you can alternate between them til your set count for each adds up to the total sets. The main 2 reaons ya do different shit isn't because of muscle memory bro science bs, it is because 1, it keeps things fun and interesting, and 2, ya want to hit muscles from every angle possible to attain the best contours, symmetry and aesthetics.

Absolutely do not listen to this person.

You are a novice. You need consistency, progression, and practice in the compound lifts -- i.e. basic human movements.

Oh, I guess I fell for some copypasta. People will actually try to tell you things like this.

Uh ...yeah. And who says I am not getting this progression, hmm? Been at it nearly 20 years, buddy, and have progressed all too much over that time (and still do).

skellys actually put on some good muscle mass if they do it correctly

THICC

Yeah, that's funny, because many of the top pros for the last 3 decades have said much of what I did. Yeah, those guys surely have no idea wtf they are talking about, right? Lulz. Like i said, you wanna do what you do, then do it, and if it works, good for you then. Like the other user said, he felt it didn't work for him compared to more concentrated lifting on a dedicated area.

And yes, Muscle Memory is bro science bs, always has been and anyone experienced and knowledgable in all of this will be the first to tell you that. Anyone can do nothing but barbell curls for a month straight and not one different movement whatsover and still make gains. Boring as fuck? Yep. Not aesthetically pleasing? Yep. But it is still going to get growth.

Thing is, all of these SS movements and compound muscle movements on heavy lifts (the core power movements) are things I and many others consistently do anyway, ffs, it's just not ALL we do for any given time. I will do one or maybe 2 other shaping movements with the major power movement\compound movement on that particular day for one muscle group only. According to you, one can't get 'progression' from that. Right....suuuure. Tell every IFBB and Mr O who has done that for years, ya asshat.

Yes faggot.
It was, that's where most of his mass and growth actually came from.

It's not some magical SS and seefood/gomad diet only thing. He litterally just kickstarted some late adolescent growth.

That's hilarious.
Which is what respectable lifters and people who've actually produced HALF DECENT lifters and athletes say when they listen to rip.

>Muscle Memory is bro science bs

Are you fucking retarded?

I was buggin out for a second there. Also wish I had antropometry like that. I love the concept of deadlifts but my back is parallel to the ground. That guy is basically perpendicular, he looks like me using a hex bar

Someone who just started to train will not benefit from doing what you or top bodybuilders do, or working out whichever muscle they feel like that day.

He's probably finding a different device to type on for a response.

I saw him post this earlier today and was gonna screencap it. Beat me to it.

ch3ck3d br3h

>heh, SS is shit, you'll look like an ostrich
>Just do whatever you want man! It's fine if you're a beginner with no experience whatsoever, just do you
>READ THE STICKY
>(thread after thread about how the recommended beginner program, SS, is shit and doesn't work)

if you guys just don't want me to lift, say so

jesus fucking christ i just want to get into lifting and there's all you nerds screaming about technique and philosophy and body proportions like GOD DAMN I JUST WANT TO GET GAINS HOW THE FUCK DO I DO THAT

Still looks like shit, though, and now peddles some shitty bodyweight routine when he has basically gained zero muscle since he stopped doing weights and just lost some fat. Fuck him.

Starting Strength has been the go to for athletes since immemorial times. If you want, you can add some stupid accessory work, that's what I did when I used to wrestle in high school.

And how's that, exactly? Man oh man. Ok, so you're saying the only way one can make gains is to follow SS and only stick with the core compound basic movements to gain strength, and ONLY THEN, can they progress into whatever other regimen? The only way, right? Well, that's funny, because millions including myself never did this and used a simple basic well rounded approach of dedicated muscle group splits and it worked out just fine, no pun intended.

Apparently you are. I mean, yeah, Arnold said it, so it must be 100% true, right? Pfff...There are tons of articles on many of the top bb'ing sites out there about what a load of bullox 'muscle memory' is and how I explained it above. It used to be something that everyone bought into back in the day, but later down the road was proven to be nothing more than a myth. Shit, i have easily proven it myself on my own body with my own gains, fuckhead. Many have. For the 3rd time, if you do nothing but leg presses and NO OTHER leg movements at all, your leg muscles arent going to fucking thing "Mikey is doing nothing but leg presses, so we aint gonna grow". Do you honestly realize how stupid that is? They will grow...won't be shapely legs, shitty routine, but yea, they'll grow.

You're one of them assclowns that probably believes 50lbs of rocks weighs more than 50lbs of feathers. You need to work your eyes and brain a bit more, stay off the weights for a bit.

You do SS for a few months on a large calorie surplus. You then cut. You are stronger than 90% of people at the gym. You are now an intermediate and switch to an intermediate program of your choice, one with a bodybuilding focus and more upper body volume to even out your physique. Your training will continue to become more specific as you gain more knowledge and experience in lifting and yourself. You begin to "do you" more and more because you are now familiar with the variables involved in progressive resistance training and hypertrophy. You start giving shitty advice to novices because you forgot how clueless you were at the beginning, or never even realized it in the first place.

That's literally it.

>buy SS
>actually read it and gain thorough understanding
>apply it to your lifting
>have good form, make gains during LP
>eat sensible diet dictated by your current body size (if you're fat, don't do gomad)
>stick with it for 4 months
>????
>profit

Shit isn't that hard guys.

No, I'm saying it's just a shitty way to go about things that will have suboptimal results and drive people away fron making the progress they could have, and from lifting in general.

By the way you're mixing up the term muscle memory with muscle confusion.

Oh...fuck.
You don't fucking know what muscle memory is. You're just fucking stupid.

No, muscle memory means that your body will always remember how much mass and strength it had no matter how big of a break you take from working out or physical activity.

It's why men who were active as young men or years before and gained a serious amount of strength and mass can build it back quickly.

if two overweight people with the same sex age weight height and race worked out and had a strict diet then the one who was the most active before will see far greater and faster gains then the one who's never done anything before.

That's a fact.

There you have it! Conclusively proved for one and all, SS will invert gravity

You also have far less work capacity and have even lost a good chunk of your strength gains because of the cut

You will then have to play catch up to the rest of the basic barbell bro lifters and look like a bottom heavy twat while doing it.

But hey, you can squat more then them for 5 reps. They can just easily outsquat you with slightly lower weights and have fare more useful levels of strength when it comes to any form of athletic or physical endeavor.

strong nerd

what do you suggest for beginners then

That can be true and sometimes totally untrue. We all get our good and bad days in any sport or recreational activity. There will be times I will hit bench, curls, whatever and be 2 or 3 reps down from my heavier set. Didn't change thing --diet, supps, sleep, etc, all the same. Sometimes it just happens. No explanation for it. Total downer though. But i don't let that get in my head. Because then guess what happens the very next time (or the 3rd time after). Yep, that's right, actually broke the max by 1 or even 2 reps.

Memory, confusion, fine, whatever. Sue me, i used the wrong word play *eye roll*. Semantics, apples and friggin oragnes. My point is the muscles dont have actual "memory" or can be "confused" in any way. Do some have better muscle reception and genetics than others? Yes, of course. THAT'S WHAT IT IS. Actual science and physiology. Not memory or confusion nonsense.

But hey, gaining strength back after a cut is immaterial. But hey, gaining muscular endurance is the easiest thing you can do at the gym. But hey, you'll have developed the strongest muscles in your body while everyone else at the gym is quarter squatting 225. And -- hey -- you'll be lifting more than the barbell bros for sets of 8-12 after two weeks of adaptation because you'll have a decent strength base.

>have fare more useful levels of strength
So you mean, less?

Anything else, you huffy little bitch?

Yep. This is why I just prefer to keep it simple and just be as well rounded as possible, hitting every major muscle group consistently. Shit, i first started out at 14 working out with my dad at his gym and one of the trainers there put me on a simple circuit workout routine, all machines. Was known as "the line". Leg raises, curls, shoulder press, pull downs, leg extentions, tri push downs, bench, squat. Nothing fancy, extremely basic, but it worked and I got quite fit and buff from that for just being 14.

>Compound movements along with so called "accessories" done with higher rep ranges = more muscle mass.

It has been proven, scientifically, that, for n00bs, sets of five build size as well as higher rep ranges, and build strength significantly better.

>Dicking around in the gym to gain max strength but lack even the basic fucking work capacity of a toddler when it comes to moving that weight for long periods is needless masturbation

How do you intend to move those weights around for long periods if you can't move them around at all, re-re? Improving strength automatically improves work capacity, and it's the fastest and best way to increase work capacity in those otherwise untrained.

>But simply doing a strength based lifting routine like what is pushed around here, with that paltry selection of exercises, will lead to a brick wall that you will never overcome and inevitable injury.

That's why you don't do it forever, you idiot. If you Do The Fucking Program (start quite light, eat and sleep enough, do the lifts correctly), you'll probably stall in a few months, then you reset back to about 75%, go again, and probably stall in a couple months. This all probably takes 4-6, MAYBE 7 months to do.

Then you transition to a weekly progression at least somewhat tailored to your goals, but still focusing largely on the compound barbell lifts, like someone who actually read any of Rip's books and not someone parroting uninformed shitposting from r/fitness.

>it adds accessories exercises.

No it doesn't. The only non-barbell exercise in The Program is chin ups, and Rip specifically says they're important enough to the program that they are a core lift, not an accessory.

The Book lays out how to do a bunch of useful assistance exercises, but that's because the SS book was the Book Of How Lift, and Practical Programming was the How To Make a Program. The assistance lifts in the SS book are for adding to intermediate routines.

what user just say about jumping on machines is a good noob approach and helps a person who just started out to get use to the excersizes and stuff.

keep the weight moderate and dont do anything superheavy to break the muscles in and thjen can go to more free weight and other excersizes.

>sets of five build size as well as higher rep ranges, and build strength significantly better.

You have to prove this shit.

Because litterally fucking EVERYONE says that a true full body workout routine with relatively high reps 6-12 is the best.

I've never heard anyone suggest a pure strength routine consisting of a few "big lifts" for unathletic noobs who've never even seen a fucking barbell before.
Not ever.

Everything you just said is fucking retarded
You just don't get the required fucking strength endurance to make use of the infamous "strength base" in two goddamned weeks you fucking buffoon.
That's not how it works, unless you're on fucking gear.

Mhmm. And if they are just starting out too, good luck zooming ahead of 'everyone else' as user was trying to claim, because the very first time they are gonna be beyond sore. I will never forget when I first benched and squated, it was a unique soreness that felt like i got ran over by a truck lol.

>You have to prove this shit.

Google is your friend.

what's your opinion of building your strength with high reps from the beginning and keep adding weight?

Ive done
3x12 squats & DL
3x18 OHP, bar rows, BP
for about 6 months and have made better progress than 6 months of 5x5 i did a few years back

Another user here. But dude, you really are not as smart as you think.

This thread depressed the fuck out of me. Other than quads obv.

I'm sure it has nothing today with eating properly or lifting consistently. Also I garuntee you're under 150 lbs

Also muscle memory from 5x5

That's not proof user.

Lol what? He wasted 2 years in the gym. Even on SS, if you actually put in two years of conscious effort to improve your lifts, overhead press alone would make his shoulders fucking massive.

No you wouldn't. If you could lift 300lb 15 times, then someone asking you to help move a couch would be peanuts. You're assuming real life situations will always demand your max abilities from you. The point is to get so strong nothing can phase you, faggot

What the fuck is this? My shoulders got bigger in one month of SS than his did in 2 years.

Did SS years back and got pretty far. 3pl dead in 2 months. Now after years of break, am at 2pl after a week. (Doing SS again) SS works

Prove it wrong user.

this guy did SS, I didn't save his post but I remember it well, he then switched to madcows
his family owned a gym, his dad died, he did his bro split and fucked around with his diet staying small, the first picture was him lifting for a couple years
then some gym goer asked when he was going to stop fucking around at the gym and he took it serious with diet and focused on getting stronger

he has a very genetics to fat storage how it's all evenly spread on his body

>they can outsquat you with lower weights
Did you skip brain day user?

do ss for 6 months or until your squat stalls around 315 then do a ppl if you want aesthetics or jonnie candito's 6 week intermediate program for a more well rounded strength routine

pretty sure he means you won't be able to beat them in endurance which should be obvious
they train at higher reps so it's obvious they'd be better at doing more reps than you, they don't train at low reps so obviously they'd be worse at that too

The Starting Strength author recommends you eat a large surplus of calories on the program to maximize the fuck out of the potential linear gains(added weight on the bar per week). He is not wrong in that regard, a large surplus will assure you'll get as strong as you possibly could in the shortest amount of time.

But even eating at a small surplus or maintenance levels will grant you fast and good gains. Once linear progression stops you've built a solid foundation of base strength and can move on to a different program with different purposes.

A healthy male can go from no cardiovascular training to an easy 10k in less than a month. Strength takes far more time to cultivate than endurance, so why even bother.