Starting Strength

roving gangs of asymmetrically-armed or -legged people seeking revenge for their misfortune.
    The most intensely silly argument of all is that weight training stunts a kid’s growth. But hauling hay does not? Such nonsense is not really worthy of response. Not only does weight training at a young age not harm developing bones and joints, but it produces thicker, more durable articular cartilage surfaces that persist into adulthood, and likely contributes to long-term joint health. The mechanical and biological conditions produced by full-ROM barbell training affect the skeletal components of both adults and children in a positive way (Carter, Dennis R. and Gary S. Beaupré, Skeletal Function and Form , Cambridge University Press, 2001).
     
    Here’s the bottom line: weight training is precisely scalable to the age and ability of the individual lifter. Soccer is not. We have 11-pound bars – or even broomsticks – for kids to start lifting with, but a full-speed collision on the field with another 80-pound kid is an inherently unscalable event. This logic also applies to every group of people who might be viewed as a “special population” – the frail elderly, people with skeletal and muscular disease, the completely sedentary, the morbidly obese, distance runners, and the lazy. Note that women are not listed as a special population: they are half of the population. Anyone who claims that women are so different in their physiological response to exercise that the principles of basic barbell training do not apply to them is thinking either irrationally or commercially. In fact, the adaptation to weight training is precisely the adaptation that these special populations need, and aerobic-type long slow distance exercise is only a tiny bit more useful than playing chess.
    Blind obedience to the uninformed and obviously incorrect opinion of a professional who should know better represents lost opportunity and wasted time and money. For lots of marginally gifted kids, weight training is often the difference between a scholarship opportunity and a prohibitively expensive advanced education. Many people who could have benefited from improved strength, power, bone density, balance, coordination, flexibility, and confidence have instead done what they were told and have not benefited at all. Not all expensive advice is worth the money.

Credits
     
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    Photographs
     
    All photographs by Thomas Campitelli unless otherwise noted.
     
    Photographs by Torin Halsey: Figures 2-16, 2-17, 2-20, 2-21, 2-24, 2-34, 2-40, 2-57, 2-58, 2-60, 3-15, 4-6, 4-45, 4-48, 4-49, 4-50, 4-51, 5-4, 5-5, 5-6, 5-10, 5-21, 5-22, 5-27, 5-28, 5-29, 5-32, 6-17, 6-39,6-42, 6-44, 6-45, 6-46, 7-3, 7-13, 7-14, 7-21, 7-25, 7-36, 7-37, 7-38, 7-39, 7-40, 7-41, 7-42, 7-48,7-49, 7-50, 7-51, 7-53, 7-59, 8-6, 8-7. 8-8, 8-11, 8-12, 8-13, 8-14, 8-15.
     
    Photographs in Figures 7-43, 7-45, 7-57, 7-58, 7-61 and 7-62 by Lon Kilgore.
     
    Photographs in Figures 4-1, 4-39, and 5-1 courtesy of Mike Lambert and Powerlifting USA magazine.
     
    Photographs in Figures 2-56 and 7-31 by Stef Bradford.
     
    Photographs in Figures 3-1, 3-2 and 6-1 courtesy of Bill Starr.
     
    Photograph in Figure 7-23 by Bruce Klemens.
     
    Photograph Figure 4-47 by Treva Slagle.
     
    Photograph in Figure 6-37 by Tom Goegebuer.
     
    Models
     
    Ryan Huseman, Andrea Wells, Justin Brimhall, Carrie Klumpar, Stef Bradford, Josh Wells, DeLisa Moore, Damon Wells, Matt Wanat, Ronnie Hamilton, Roland Conde, Paul Ton, Joel Willis, Tara Krieger, Miguel Alemar, and The Orangutan.
     
    Illustrations
     
    All illustrations by Jason Kelly unless otherwise noted.
     
    Figures 6-5, 8-1, and 8-5 from Practical Programming for Strength Training 2nd edition , The Aasgaard Company,
     
    2009.
    Figure 2-19 by Stef Bradford and Lon Kilgore.
     
    Figure 6-3 by Stef Bradford.
     
    Illustrations and proof in Figure 4-45 by Matt Lorig.
     
    EMG and force diagrams for figure 8-3 courtesy of Jaqueline Limberg and Alexander Ng of MarquetteUniversity.
     
    Power rack plan in Figure 8-10 by Terry Young.

In the Gym: Quick Reference
     

Spotting

Squat
Bench Press

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