The Truth

[stef]

by Jim Steel

I am a college strength coach, and I am struggling. I am struggling with the state of strength training today. Whether it is training athletes or training the general population, there are a few basic tenets – commandments if you will – that have been thrown out the door and been replaced by soft workouts. I have gone back and forth with myself about either honestly expressing my opinions about the whole damn thing or holding it all in and risking a stroke. I believe that I have held this in long enough. So here goes: the truth as I see it.



Full Article (http://startingstrength.com/articles/truth_steel.pdf)


Resources Page (http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/resources)

[Bloodninja666]

Jim is certainly preaching to the converted on this website. I hope his Op finds a wider audience.

I never realized my alma mater had such a badass as strength coach.. a 2000+ total, it sounds like they are in very good hands. I have to believe after reading the article that Jim is a major reason behind last year's football title.

[simonsky]

hell yeah, the Bataan Death March occured in my country!

[Squatson]

I like this guy.

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/jimsteel.htm

[Jay Cohen]

Thanks for posting.

[RobertFontaine]

Living in a globo-gym I'm happy that the majority spend their time flexing their elbows and watching tv on a cardio machine but it's surprises me that athletics has fallen prey to this silliness.

Results tend to speak for themselves. It makes one ask the question, Are athletes performing well in their sports despite poor strength training? OR Even more sacriligeous Is strength training relevant to sports performance?

I personally like being strong but I've always been a crappy athlete with little or no talent. My observation is that talented athletes are often talented despite their training practices.

Still I like to squat and it doesn't take much talent so I'm pretty safe in a power rack.

[gamedog]

Another great article. I hope it finds its way onto the desks of a lot of folks who'd benefit from reading it.

[Jason B]

Amazing article, very well said. A lot can be said for hammering the basics and getting strong. Unfortunately that means that you have to work hard, which means people don't want to do it (as mentioned in the article, we are becoming a very weak society - physically and mentally), and it's tough to make a profit on barbells and plates. Like Jim said, "cardio" machines are big business and generate a lot of revenue, whereas big tires to flip and hills to sprint are free, no "guru's" can get rich off the basics. It's like the supplement industry, fortunes can't be made off milk and coffee, so protein powders and "pre-workout" formulas are created to jack up the price.

Unfortunately many in our business are hung up on the profit motive, and it's tough to sell "squat, drink milk, and work hard." I think this passage says it all:

"I mean, herein lies the answer to what this multibillion dollar strength
“industry” claims to be searching for in a nutshell: get strong with a barbell and hard work."

The problem is they don't want to find that answer, because you can't get rich off it.

[JTS]

That was a great read - thanks.

[hithebeach]

oh man, amazing article.
i hope that jim actually reads this and will post on this site because it will be amazing to have a college strength coach from a big-time university give advice/help here.

jim, do you really think that coaches shouldn't give as much water in practice(i'm a football player my self, at high school)? or are you just saying that to show how wimpy today's programs are?



me and john sheaffer came to this conclusion(for football development in the late off season):

lifts(starting strength) + hills and car pushes for conditioning + speed work + a bit of agility drills = kickass football player.

maybe even in that order.
before our spring game i didn't do any football stuff (drills and what not) on my own, and i didn't condition. yet i had 3 sacks against the best offensive line in our league. just goes to show that strength has the upper hand on EVERYTHING.

great article, we want more of these, WE NEED MORE OF THESE!

[president kang]

I think he's missing the big picture. People just don't like to work hard, even athletes (and I'm saying this as a former coach). They'll work hard if you tell them too, because they want to play, but in reality, only the highest level athletes (or anything else for that matter) are driven to push themselves to the next level. I'd say this is really only about 1-5%, and the rest are just genetically gifted. So yes, I'd assume that the people on this site like to work hard, or they wouldn't be here, but the rest of the general population, including athletes, would rather put in the minimum amount of work possible needed to get the result they think they want.

[USMC.Scot]

I want to print this out and nail it to the wall at my gym.
Two small points.
These days in the military, hydration is one of the top priorities during every training event. We chug water like its our job. 50 to 100 years ago, just like the old style of football practices, we didn't. Water was for pussies. See the scene in Band of Brothers where Capt Sobel makes the soldier redo a hike because he drank from his canteen. Then we figured out, with the help of the Israelis, that hydration during training kept people from getting injured unnecessarily. We could deprive people of water to train mental toughness, but that would get people hurt and keep people out of the fight. In Iraq and Afghaniland its pretty much a given that out in the field your going to be constantly dehydrated. You just have to deal with it. Trying to train that would cost more that it would be worth.
Barbells are great, but not the only way to get strong. I mean, guys have been getting strong all through history, whether they were working on the farm shoveling shit and hay, or laying rail road ties across the Rocky mountains, or working all day in the steel mill. All without ever touching a barbell. The problem is these days, manual labor is an optional, not required part of our existence. Human beings that we are, we will always take the easy way. It's possible now to go through life weak, lazy, stupid, and cowardly, and you're probably not going to die because of it. You'll just be a pussy. An adult, biologically, but never moving beyond childhood mentally. Never accustomed to the reality that occasional suffering and pain is what makes us fully human, and that a man, to call himself a real man, must be ready to stand on his own two feet in any situation and provide for himself and his family. Even if he never has to hump a pack and a weapon in a combat zone, or grow his own food, or build his own house, a man is confident that he can, if need be, because he has done the hard things when it was easier to do nothing. And barbells are a tool towards that end.
Well that's it. Great piece, I'm not saying I disagree, just had some thoughts. I doubt it will sway anyone who's not already on board, I mean, it's hard to argue with Bosu balls. They're just so shiny.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Very good. Thanks for posting.

[jagvocate]

I really appreciate the opportunity to read and re-read this article, and I say a genuine "Thank you" for it.

Man, as a species, advances for many reasons, but a primary reason is economizing. "Getting more by doing less," "working smarter not harder," etc. We economize all the time, when we purchase, when we sell, when we offer to help someone, when we decide not to do something.

I'd bet that most weightlifters allocate a lot of brain cells to determining the best technique possible to increase a certain lift just as bodybuilders think about how to increase their muscle size per unit of effort they expend.

The reason we like Starting Strength is because it works, and is therefore an economizing routine ... Coach Rip has thought through the process incessantly so that we don't have to ... we just get to follow a program that works and we benefit.

However, Coach Steel's article makes me think about a problem endemic to our society ... too much economizing, too much optimization, too much specialization, and not enough RESILIENCY. For the sake of progress we choose actions that are supposedly advanced (BOSU balls, kettle bells, Adjustable Rate Mortgages (hah)) when, in fact, the tried-and-true course of action works. Squat, Press, Don't Buy Something You Can't Afford, etc.

The problem with over-specialization, whether with training or as a survival strategy, is that the world has a tendency to cycle, or exhibit a "Reversion to the Mean." One may be able to do four "muscle-ups", but what happens when a friend is gut-shot or snake-bit and you have to carry him 1/2 way down a mountain and provide protection while you wait for a medevac? You might me able to run a 10k in 29 minutes, but what if you have to kick down a door or pick up a tractor to save someone's life?

Being strong is the answer to solving 80% of life's challenges. It helps one to run faster, it helps one to lift more, and it helps one to lift more weight over a given period of time, since the period of exertion is a (relatively) lower percentage of maximal effort than someone who is not as strong.

I'm a fan of this concept, and I do my best to get stronger every day and week, and I enjoy learning from those of you here who are doing the same.

[stef]

Agreed. My personal addition to #1 is that for the non-sport athlete, the best conditioning is Actual Physical Work. Manual labor. It gets you tough and it gets things done and it definitely prepares you for the coming apocalypse.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

Plus the wall you build will help hold off the zombies/mutants/cannibals/government agents.

[Monster]

Completely awesome.

Thanks, coach.

[ColoWayno]

Plus the wall you build will help hold off the zombies/mutants/cannibals/government agents.

I like where this conversation is going.

[Patrick L.]

I want to print this out and nail it to the wall at my gym.
Two small points.
These days in the military, hydration is one of the top priorities during every training event. We chug water like its our job. 50 to 100 years ago, just like the old style of football practices, we didn't. Water was for pussies. See the scene in Band of Brothers where Capt Sobel makes the soldier redo a hike because he drank from his canteen. Then we figured out, with the help of the Israelis, that hydration during training kept people from getting injured unnecessarily. We could deprive people of water to train mental toughness, but that would get people hurt and keep people out of the fight. In Iraq and Afghaniland its pretty much a given that out in the field your going to be constantly dehydrated. You just have to deal with it. Trying to train that would cost more that it would be worth.
Barbells are great, but not the only way to get strong. I mean, guys have been getting strong all through history, whether they were working on the farm shoveling shit and hay, or laying rail road ties across the Rocky mountains, or working all day in the steel mill. All without ever touching a barbell. The problem is these days, manual labor is an optional, not required part of our existence. Human beings that we are, we will always take the easy way. It's possible now to go through life weak, lazy, stupid, and cowardly, and you're probably not going to die because of it. You'll just be a pussy. An adult, biologically, but never moving beyond childhood mentally. Never accustomed to the reality that occasional suffering and pain is what makes us fully human, and that a man, to call himself a real man, must be ready to stand on his own two feet in any situation and provide for himself and his family. Even if he never has to hump a pack and a weapon in a combat zone, or grow his own food, or build his own house, a man is confident that he can, if need be, because he has done the hard things when it was easier to do nothing. And barbells are a tool towards that end.
Well that's it. Great piece, I'm not saying I disagree, just had some thoughts. I doubt it will sway anyone who's not already on board, I mean, it's hard to argue with Bosu balls. They're just so shiny.

Excellent post...

[wud03]

Still one of the best articles I have read, about any topic. I have had similar opinions, but didn't have the credentials or anything besides personal experience to back them up with. I will be sure to pass it down to anybody who is interested in strength training.

[james7454]

Thank you so much for the compliments. Hopefully I will have another article up soon, it's being edited. Again, thanks so much.

[grizzlybuck]

Reread this yesterday, and enjoyed it as much as the first time. My buddy and I were talking about this at the gym yesterday, I'm 44 and he's 56 and we're doing SS to get stronger. He told me, as we met up at the front of the gym, that he was telling some freinds about his routine and that he was squatting 3x a week. He was a bit concerned because they all couldn't believe it and were in the "good luck with that, you're going to hurt yourself" camp. We talked about how, for the most part people don't like to squat once a week, because it's hard, so sure 3x would really scare them.

Although it's pitiful that virtually no one uses the squat rack at my gym, and even less deadlift, I thank my lucky stars, because seldom do I have to wait for anything other than a bench to do BP's from.

Thanks for the great article, and I'm looking forward to the next one.

[james7454]

Thanks for the compliment about the article. Speaking of deadlifting at a gym, I am attempting to find one of my assistants a gym where she can deadlift in Northern Virginia. Of course this is almost impossible. The big obstacle is chalk. Someone may be allergic to it,came one reply on why she couldn't use it. I'm going to give her some liquid chalk and this should help matters. You should here me describe what a deadlift is all about. It is so hilarious.....she's going to put the bar on the floor....Can she put a bar on the floor in your gym??....ok, then she....no she won't drop it hard....can she use chalk??...no, for her grip...

[Joe Brand]

WOW! Awesome Sir.
I was just discussing why I squat 3 X/week vs. the conventional army mentality which is run 3-5 miles 3 X/week. First of all, thank God I have a "no running" profile, due to my knee getting "hurt" at SERE school. But I squat, deadlift, bench, press, and power clean and my knees are not hurting anymore. Anyway, I really appreciate you "tellin' it like it is." I train at a "performance enhancement center". You know the type, where "functional" fitness is emphasized. It's great because it's free for me to use, but the people in there kill me sometimes. They're doing med ball tosses and rowing and ply jumping while wearing those ridiculous "five finger" shoes and under armor shirts. AHHH!!! I come in there with chuck taylors, sweat shorts, socks pulled up to my knees and just a plain cotton t-shirt and I'm the weirdo. Maybe I am, but I don't really care. I am too focused to give a shit what they think. It's funny, I was training with a belt on the other day and got funny looks from the "I may have 6 pack, but I am malnourished" crowd. Oh well, it is what it is.
I appreciate the article Sir and look forward to reading more.
-Joe