starting strength observations

[misspelledgeoff]

what would you consider a mediocre versus strong bench press and press at the end of SS? not asking to cite logs, just your general feel having been on this board for awhile.

you have a point in the squat bias of SS. simply by mandating that squats come first in the workout, you give it priority in the competition for scarce resources (namely energy).

[tescott]

A few thoughts:

1) SS has a trainee squatting 3x a week, pressing 3x a week, pulling from the floor 3x a fortnight, and pull ups 3x a fortnight. Add to this that squats and pulls utilise the whole body, while presses and pull ups mostly only use the upper body, thus SS trains the upper body to some extent with every exercise. I fail to see how this is a lower body bias.

2) What do you mean by 'will end up with a bigger bench'? Anyone who does the program increases the weight on their lifts from a particular starting point. If you begin with a bigger bench, then after a set period of time, you will end with a bigger bench. However, if you take the linear progression to completion, your bench would be the same regardless of whether you had a big bench to begin with or not.

3) Do you know of a faster way to increase bench and press than SS? If so, maybe you could tell us what it is and incorporate it into your own version of SS. If not, then what other choice do you have?

4) If I understand your argument correctly, you are saying that a better way is to do 'bodybuilding style routines' 'for years', and then do SS (a total of years + maybe 2 months of SS). This is in contrast to initally doing SS, which would last for a few months more, and end up with the same strength result (a total of 3-9 months). I know what I'd choose.

[Raskolnikov]

Let me get this straight...

Lifter A has a background in lifting prior to SS.

Lifter B has none prior to SS.

Lifter A has a relatively bigger bench than lifter B.

So, SS must not be well suited to building a big bench press.

That's your argument?

This is just a thought, but isn't it more likely lifter A has simply spent more time benching than lifter B, and so has a bigger bench press?

As has been mentioned, if you want to judge the efficacy of SS at building the bench press, then you should probably be comparing two people with the same amount of gym time. Take two novices, lifter A spends two months on SS, while lifter B spends two months on "x." That would be a valid comparison...

[msingh]

A guy is a novice until he can't do linear progress on squat any longer at which stage he becomes an intermediate. It doesn't matter about upper body lifts, you keep benching and pressing throughout as per program, it's squats which determine your level of training.

My argument is that in that window of being a starting strength novice, the guy who enters with a bigger bench often emerges with a much bigger bench than a guy who begins with a completely untrained bench. What does this tell you? That starting strength is a program biased for and designed to quickly and efficiently extract linear progression gains on the squat for a trainee. It does this job very well indeed. No question about it.

I'm not saying I know of a better program which will achieve a)maximal LP squat gains) b)maximal DL gains, c)maximal press and d)maximal bench gains on the same program. I dont think such a program exists. You make a tradeoff, and starting strength picks lowerbody strength. Now that doesn't mean that you couldn't work on your upperbody strength by doing a workout biased for pressing and benching for a few months then doing starting strength and truly realising ALL novice LP gains possible across the board for all lifts. Which is what happens in reality.

And no i'm not arguing doing a bodybuilding program for several years first! But that some people have done that so it shows it's definitely possible to enter SS with modest bench/press work and leave with a maximal squat and bench at the end of it.

[knox]

The beauty of SS is that it facilitates strength balance. Someone who has trained the bench press prior to starting SS will not be able to improve linearly on this exercise as quickly or for as long as someone who has not trained the exercise before, and over the course of the program their bench press balances out with the rest of their lifts.

Saying that SS has a strength bias towards the lower body is twisting reality a bit. Truth is, your body's strength has a bias towards the lower body. Your legs are designed to generate more strength and power than your upper body, and proper strength training has to reflect this. As stated in SSBBT, a person with balanced strength will be able to perform the barbell exercises in the following order, from strongest lift to weakest: deadlift > squat > power clean > bench > press. If a program causes a lifter's strength to be distributed differently than this, the program is biased. Otherwise, it simply reflects normal physiological function (i.e. SS).

Also: the majority of SS trainees who finish the novice program do not have weak bench presses. Just because a few of the logs on this site have people with relatively weaker bench presses does not mean that SS doesn't focus on the bench enough. Make sure you read exactly why these people have weaker bench presses, and also pay attention to the fact that this is not the case for the vast majority of trainees who finish the novice progression.

[Raskolnikov]

My argument is that in that window of being a starting strength novice, the guy who enters with a bigger bench often emerges with a much bigger bench than a guy who begins with a completely untrained bench. What does this tell you? That starting strength is a program biased for and designed to quickly and efficiently extract linear progression gains on the squat for a trainee. It does this job very well indeed. No question about it.

What does it tell me? -- That the guy with the bigger bench has spent more time benching. It doesn't say a god damn thing about SS.

Forgive my misuse of the word "novice," but I meant it in reference to someone who hasn't trained before. My point: you are comparing two people with different levels of experience, so it should come as no surprise that one has a bigger bench than the other, especially considering the inordinate amount of time the average gym rat spends benching. One guy has simply spent more time benching than the other. So, again, you need to compare two people with the same amount of time under the bar. The only difference being one has been following SS while the other has been following the typical body part split practiced by the average gym rat.

Given the above scenario, who has a bigger bench press?

[Mr.City]

http://startingstrength.com/resource...ad.php?t=12359 (one example of previous bench prowess, he starts with 70kg and 2 weeks later benches like 85 kg).

now pick mr city or somoene squatting 300lb and pressing 40kg or something like that.

there are plenty of other examples around though, these are just two i plucked out at a glance.

I know my press is lacking, but it's not that bad. 40 kg =88 lbs.

Before you disagree and say no, consider this. Everyone increases their upperbody strength on SS (bench and press). Those who start with higher numbers prior to SS end up with even higher numbers. Doesn't this logically mean that SS leaves behind some potential progress on the bench that could be eeked out of the trainee while he is still a novice?

How do you come to that conclusion? The less conditioned you are, the faster your gains will be at first. If you're comparing those who have had experience lifting weights versus those who don't, it would be useful to compare factors like body weight.

If you argue that this is an acceptable tradoff (squat bias over upperbody strength), that's one thing, but the fact is such a tradeoff is always in effect. For instance, we squat first, then bench or press second. An upperbody biased novice program would probably NOT work the same way.

What trade-off? The muscle involved in the squat become stronger much more quickly than those used in the bench or press. An upper body program would not work in the same way because they wouldn't be any deadlifts or squats. Wait, are you saying that my squat strength wouldn't improve on an upper body program?

[msingh]

Ok i have a theory. It could be completely off but it's based on my own experience. It's exceedingly difficult to maintain linear progression on upperbody lifts. You can get a run of 2-3 weeks where you hit the weight every workout and then bar speed slows to a crawl, a stall lingers on the next workout. This is what happens to me anyway. It might not to you, or someone else. So the sort of real world training I do with my bench and press isnt technically linear progression anyway. It's more like linear-reset progression. And before you ask about microloading, yes.

In the real world while every SS workout will have you squatting, even one missed workout will set you back on your upper body lifts, whereas squat progression is relatively unaffacted. If you miss a bench workout on bench week (benching twice that week), you'll only have one workout that week, and you had one workout the previous week, one workout the following week. Not nearly enough work to cause progress. Even when you're dedicated and dont miss any workouts, you only have 6 bench workouts a month, compared to 12 for squats. Obviously you'll make quicker progress on squats than on bench from this fact alone.

Its easy to progress on squats in a week or two even if you miss a workout or two. It's really hard to make progress, real solid progress on upper body lifts if you miss any workouts. My experience YMMV.

[strongdaniel]

Ok i have a theory. It could be completely off but it's based on my own experience. It's exceedingly difficult to maintain linear progression on upperbody lifts. You can get a run of 2-3 weeks where you hit the weight every workout and then bar speed slows to a crawl, a stall lingers on the next workout. This is what happens to me anyway. It might not to you, or someone else. So the sort of real world training I do with my bench and press isnt technically linear progression anyway. It's more like linear-reset progression. And before you ask about microloading, yes.

In the real world while every SS workout will have you squatting, even one missed workout will set you back on your upper body lifts, whereas squat progression is relatively unaffacted. If you miss a bench workout on bench week (benching twice that week), you'll only have one workout that week, and you had one workout the previous week, one workout the following week. Not nearly enough work to cause progress. Even when you're dedicated and dont miss any workouts, you only have 6 bench workouts a month, compared to 12 for squats. Obviously you'll make quicker progress on squats than on bench from this fact alone.

Its easy to progress on squats in a week or two even if you miss a workout or two. It's really hard to make progress, real solid progress on upper body lifts if you miss any workouts. My experience YMMV.

In starting strength, you are doing a pressing excursive EVERY SINGLE WORK OUT. Let me repeat this. In starting strength: ONE PRESSES JUST AS OFTEN AS THEY SQUAT.

[Mr.City]

Of course you're not going to progress if you're missing workouts. Also, why are you stalling in 2-3 weeks?