ExRx.net

Hi, I've been using the starting strength programme for about 5-6 months now. I've gone from just under 9stone to 9.5 stone. Just wondering whether it's time to incorporate some different exercises? I know 9.5 stone doesn't sound heavy but I'm only 5'8 and have quite a slight frame. I'm not looking to look like Arnie either.

The question should have a little more background information to better answer your question. Have you stalled any on the lifts, or are you concerned about gaining too much weight would be some of the questions that come to mind when reading your post.

You'll find a reply in this article by Rippetoe himself (PDF).

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I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness

Choice quote: "But right now, just worry about getting strong, and big will be a side-effect, as will improved body composition. And if you don’t stop misinterpreting this, I will have you all killed."

You'll probably like this one too.

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I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness

This is probably a million times funnier if, like me, you grew up in Texas and in your formative years your boss talked that way to you. "Downs! What the hay-ell (that's Texan for "hell") is that $h1t?"

When I read Starting Strength I hear Rippetoe speaking the words because that accent and the no-nonsense straight talking style is burned into my brain.

What are your goals?

No one can, nor should they be trying to give you advice without knowing what you're trying to accomplish.


EDIT: The whole "everyone, irrelevant of goals should be on the same newb program" is, in Texan, a pile of horse $h1t.

not that I was doing a Power CLean, but just lower the bar after Pressing, and probably lead to my elbow issues. That looks dangerous if you are a beginner. (the lowering part)

Everyone, regardless of ULTIMATE goals should focus on building all the strength they can in the early months of training, when the opportunity for strength gain is greater than it will ever be again, and so should be on roughly the same SORT of program. That strength can then be used to better effect toward the long-term goal.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

Yeah, I was a little tickled with that video myself when I saw it.

Why is it always "male" oriented. SL 5x5 is the same way?

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Diana
Goals
squat 150
bench 100
DL 175

Because most of the people training this way are male. Most women still follow the Tracy Anderson school of weight training. It's sort of a chicken and the egg thing.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

The Starting Strength book and DVD include a lot of females as well as males. There are 2-3 different women on the DVD doing exercises and taking coaching.

But Stu is right, mostly it's written by males for males, because they are speaking to their largest audience and/or writing for people like them. There are exceptions, and good ones - the Cosgroves have either written or contributed to two books aimed at women's training - New Rules of Lifting for Women and The Female Body Breaththrough.


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Oh yeah and lowering a power clean or press isn't as fun as just racking it or dropping it, but you can learn to do it. If you can't lower the weight safely then you need to evaluate how much weight is on that bar, often enough.

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--
Peter V. Dell'Orto
http://strength-basics.blogspot.com

Well I envy people with a properly set up home gym cos I cannot drop the bar on the deadlift as hard as I'd like to.



As for Rippetoe and SS, the book uses a female model too, and in the videos about half the trainees are women of various ages.

SL, Mehdi has actively taken steps to turn it into something that resembles a Fight Club more and more, but I wouldn't be too concerned with that. The program works and there's plenty of resources around the 'net that you don't need to deal with the social/community aspects of it if you don't want to.

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I don't know where the blind could lead the sightless
but I'd still like to witness

At least two people have said this, but I'm going to repeat it because it bears repeating.

Mehdi (Stronglifts) is probably the worst at writing as if women simply don't exist. You would never know from reading his stuff that strength training turns "men into more masculine men and women into more feminine women."

As others have pointed out, Rippetoe's book regularly demonstrates lifts with women models. Rippetoe points out not just where women lift less than men, but where women are in an advantageous position on some lifts.