Originally Posted by
Andy Baker (KSC)
Tom,
Bodybuilding is a separate endeavor from strength training. Is there massive overlap??? - of course. Starting Strength / The Aasgaard Company educates people on the best methods for strength training. One of the core principles is that strength is the foundation of everything else that we might do. So we educate people on how to get strong. For much of our market, strength will be the primary and only focus of their training / athletic endeavors. Most of the people we train are focused on getting strong for the purposes of maintaining their usefulness in daily life, improving their health and general fitness, and mitigating the effects of the aging process. And for most of them, the simple process of progressively overloading the main lifts over time and consuming sufficient protein and calories will give them all of the hypertrophy that they need or want.
For others, they are going to want to take a general base of strength and apply that to a more complex athletic endeavor that requires a more diverse set of training methodologies. It is not the mission of the organization (nor the obligation) to thoroughly educate the market place on how to train for every conceivable athletic endeavor that would benefit massively from a well developed base of general strength.
Many SSCs are or were formally associated with Crossfit. Most of us, and many Crossfitters, would tell you that an excellent starting place for a beginning Crossfitter is with a Novice Linear Progression to get the Squat, Deadlift, Bench, Press, and Power Clean as strong as possible, as quickly as possible. At some point, if a guy wants to get on ESPN and compete in The Crossfit Games he's gonna have to figure out a way to train Crossift specficially. There may be some individual SSCs out there who have some expertise in this, some interest in this, and can take the models and principles we teach in the books and apply it to a program designed to get a guy better at Crossfit. But that's on that SSC. It's not incumbent on the organization to now teach Crossfit training in the books.
The same can be said with say....Strongman. Immense overlap between the basic barbell lifts and Strongman competition. We even kinda mention Strongman programming in PPST3, but it's not the core of what we do, at all, so we aren't going to become the "go-to" organization for Strongman competitors.
Track & Field competitors should also squat, deadlift, power clean, bench, and press......but should we also be coaching Track & Field? No. But it would be great if sprinters started squatting to parallel, and using their hips in the squat.
Bodybuilding is no different than these other examples. Bodybuilders squat. Crossfitters squat. Strongmen squat. Sprinters squat. Triathletes squat. The books are more concerned with educating people on the things these sports have in common as a foundation, but less concerned on the nuances of specific training for each application.
Hope that helps.
Andy, thanks for responding.
This response and most of the others falls in the "sure hypertrophy training works, go to a bodybuilding forum for it." Which is a reasonable position, but it is not Rip's position. I'll quote his article at length:
Likewise, “muscularity” – the appearance of the individual muscle bellies – is obviously enhanced by making them bigger, but their final appearance is almost entirely controlled by your genetic endowment – just like sub-10% bodyfat. High-level bodybuilders are born, not trained, and the best way to waste a bunch of time getting neither stronger nor more muscular is to train for “hypertrophy,” the new 21st-century word used to market template training services that use light weights to the huge number of guys who don't understand this.
The appearance of your calves, quads, delts, bis, tris, and abs is always improved by getting your press to 200, your bench to 300, your squat to 400, and your deadlift to 500, as fast as possible. And that's all we're concerned with. This simple but difficult process is accomplished by using sets of 5 reps, adding weight every workout to the basic exercises as long as you can, and not wasting time with assistance work. You'll eventually look even better at 275/375/550/625, and we know how to do that too. We don't know how to build “capstone deltoids” or “diamond-shaped calves” – neither does anyone else. And we don't care, since all we care about is strength.
So resist the temptation to criticize the Starting Strength program for its imagined failings based on your own personal insecurities. If you want to be healthier, get stronger. If you don't like your body composition, get stronger. If you don't like your aesthetics, get stronger. If you're mentally healthy, you'll see the point very quickly. If you're not, getting stronger will help that too.
So appearance of muscularity is controlled by genetics, not created by training, hypertrophy training doesn't make you bigger, no one (not even bodybuilders) knows how to train to build bigger muscles, getting stronger is the only way to improve aesthetics.
To compare that to one of your examples, that would be like saying "crossfitters are born, not trained. The best way to waste time is to train for crossfit. Crossfit performance is always improved by getting your big lifts up. We don't know how to train specifically for crossfit, and neither does anyone else. If you want to do better at crossfit, get stronger."
It is not incumbent on the organization to now teach Crossfit training, or bodybuilding. But at a minimum shouldn't the organization avoid saying things that about Crossfit training/bodybuilding that are obviously untrue?
Originally Posted by
EdTice
Why doesn't Burger King also have an oil change service? [...]
If a 40 year old guy who barely squats two plates is successful in adding leg presses to his program, he will be able to make himself look like a 40 year old guy who can squat four plates. Can you guess what else would make that person look like they can squat four plates?
Programming
There is a tautology in here. I am a 50-year-old guy who squats a bit over three plates. By definition I look like a 50-year-old guy who squats over three plates. But I haven't added much size to my legs. If I get my squat up to 4 plates, I would then look like a guy who squats 4 plates. I have no reason to think that doing so would add the kind of muscularity to my legs that bodybuilders get (by doing things like long, intense workouts using the leg press). So if I want that--remember this discussion is about the realities of training, not my motivations--I'd have to train a different way.
"SS doesn't do oil changes"--fine. "No one needs oil changes, all anyone needs is a hamburger"--not fine.