Interesting. I'd disagree with a couple, Supertraining by Verkhoshanksky and Siff and The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance by Arthur Drechsler being not particularly useful. But this is a nice start.
Hi Rip,
In the spirit of all the value you provide to this community, I am hopeful that this post will make your life a little easier and add additional value to our board.
I was encouraged by your "Academic Preparation" article to prepare a self-study curriculum for this year, the aim of which is to a) develop my ability to think more scientifically for the purpose of b) becoming an effective coach & generally useful human being. I am planning to follow the outline you proposed in your article, and will be supplementing with additional books to address areas of personal ignorance/interest (e.g. evolutionary theory and astronomy).
While searching for additional reading material, I realized how often you receive requests for book recommendations. As such, I thought I would compile into one place all of the recommendations that I could find on the boards. I primarily limited the recommendations to ones directly given by you or an SSC, and have roughly organized them by topic. The book recommendations should not be construed as hard and fast recommendations for all time, but represent a starting place for those interested to expand their knowledge/worldview.
If you find this useful, I would be happy to monitor this thread for all additional suggestions and would add them into the original post. My hope is that this thread will represent a consolidated place for book suggestions, continued learning, discussion, etc. The Starting Strength organization has had a tremendous impact in my life over the last two years, and I'd like to do what I can to facilitate an ongoing spirit of scientific inquiry and rational discourse.
Thanks,
Matt
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Rip's Recommended List:
Conceptual Physical Science, 4th Edition by Hewitt, Suchoki, and Hewitt
Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology by Elaine Marieb
Exercise Physiology by Brooks and Fahey
The Atlas of Human Anatomy by Frank Netter
Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, 3rd Edition by TMPHBITEU (aka Mark Rippetoe)
Practical Programming for Strength Training, 3rd Edition by Rippetoe and Baker
***Note: The context of this list is the academic preparation necessary to become an effective coach, particularly a professional barbell strength coach. The original article can be found at Academic Preparation | Mark Rippetoe
In addition to the core reading, below are suggestions for further study in various fields (listed alphabetically):
Anatomy/Physiology
Skeletal Muscle Structure, Function, and Plasticity by Richard Lieber
The Anatomy Coloring Book by Kapit and Elson
Orthopedic Physical Assessment by David Magee
The Physiology of the Joints: The Trunk and the Vertebral Column by I. A. Kapandji
Astronomy
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
Business
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Epidemiology
Epidemiology: An Introduction by Kenneth Rothman
Modern Epidemiology by Rothman, Greenland and Lash
Evolution
Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
Nutrition
The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf
The Paleo Answer by Loren Cordain
Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism by Gropper and Smith
Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
Physics
Lectures on Physics by Richard Feynman
Training
The Strongest Shall Survive by Bill Starr
Defying Gravity by Bill Starr
Science and Practice of Strength Training by Zatsiorsky and Kraemer
Supertraining by Verkhoshanksky and Siff
The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance by Arthur Drechsler
Miscellaneous
Engineer to Win by Carroll Smith
Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey
Interesting. I'd disagree with a couple, Supertraining by Verkhoshanksky and Siff and The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance by Arthur Drechsler being not particularly useful. But this is a nice start.
I would add
Introduction to Material Science by Callister
Mechanics of Materials,
and Introduction to Engineering Thermodynamics
An advanced understanding of solid mechanics isn't necessary per se, but it will certainly instill a method of learning that exercise physiology seems to lack. Also, when you understand solid mechanics and dynamics, it's like when Neo sees the Matrix code for the first time.
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I think you'd need to include The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn. Since in my opinion it is directly applicable to what Starting Strength is doing.
I'll think of some others later.
I always advocate for reading the Western Canon. Turn the TV off forever and tackle the books that built the west. I'm trying to help folks do that with the service I built at Intellectual Linear Progression - Intellectual Linear Progression We go throught the western canon in order so we can see the great conversation that takes place between these authors. Each month we meet in an online Socratic Seminar and hash out these ideas with a trained interlocutor. Our Chief Interlocutor right now is Karl Schudt, SSC. He's too damn smart.
We start with Homer, then read Sophocles, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Herodotus, then Plato. We just build from there.
I'm too old to go to Saint John's College, so I made my own.
Mechanics of Materials by Riley, Sturges, Morris
Introduction to Engineering Thermodynamics by Moran and Shapiro
Starting Strength Indianapolis is up and running. Sign up for a free 30-minute coaching session.
I answer all my emails: ALewis@StartingStrengthGyms.com
Because of the abundance of content online, the most important skill is to distinguish what works and what does not.
AFAIK, the scientific method is by all means a central piece of that skill.
This skill cannot be learned in most schools/college today.
Like we begin lifting with the empty barbell, I think we should begin with the simplest cases first.
So: let's stand on the shoulders of giants!
Let's walk in the path of Newton and rediscover the law of gravity: what is it?
How to come to the same conclusions as Newton's?
This small trip, that one could try to solve like Sherlock Holmes is amazingly useful.
On the way, we could:
- Practice the scientific loop: experiment -> data -> model -> prediction
- Discuss with Ronald Fisher and learn about The Design of Experiments
- Understand that building a model is no more and no less than minimising over and under fitting predictions w.r.t. experimental data.
- See that thinking (building models) is overrated: one data point can brake everything.
- Models start to be good when one cannot use the Ockam Razor any more w/o hurting its usefulness.
Now that we have a model (how to discover the law of gravity) we can try the same methodology on Starting Strength: we can compare.
Try it for yourself: the ability to compare is the single most important concept of any kind of thinking.
Once the mind is use to this thinking tool: "experiment -> data -> model -> prediction" then almost everything else become easier and ALL the books mentioned in the thread become accessible.
Caveat: this thinking tool breaks as soon as we cannot have shared data i.e. data that you obtained by the mean of a microscope for example and that you can show to someone else.
I.e. It does not work for a huge amount of things that interest us: pain, joy, etc... all psychological phenomena.
It just means that something else need to be discovered... but it is an entirely other discussion.
For these, I would delegate to Seneca: Moral letters to Lucilius