by Josh Hanagarne
If you’ve ever lifted a weight, you’ve probably read or encountered Mark Rippetoe’s superb book, Starting Strength. For many people with dedication and patience, Starting Strength could very well be the only strength training book they’d ever need.
Now, we’ve been talking a lot about the changing nature of exercise programming with all the biofeedback, but for me, one fact remains:
I’m a reader and a student and a collector of anything to do with the iron game. I’m not going to stop reading and I’m not going to stop reading about training, even though I may never implement the methods I read about. I do it because it’s fun. I do it because it makes me happy. I do it because I’d rather read a study about isometric contractions than even glimpse the cover of Twilight.
Adam can bellow and scowl about “field testing everything on myself” and Frankie can show up and give me throat chops and crescent kicks to the face until the end of time, but I’m not giving up my books.
Never!
Now then: Rippetoe’s got another book and I love it.
Strong Enough? Thoughts From 30 Years Of Barbell Training
I don’t what training background someone comes from. I want to read anything written by people who love to train. That’s Rippetoe. Whatever you may know or believe about his methods, history, personality, or whatever, nobody’s going to argue that the guy loves this stuff.
Strong Enough? is a book of essays about lifting. Some are about technical, nuts and bolts type stuff like the essay “The Slow Lifts.” Some are about the Whys of lifting. Some are just plain fun.
I’m not going to give an exhaustive review, because chances are, you already know whether you’re interested. If you want to read something that will fire you up and make you laugh and maybe learn a couple of things in the process, you can do a lot worse than Strong Enough?
Clicking on any of those cleverly placed links will take you to Amazon. If you buy it, I get a small commission. I don’t care about that. 1) It’s a tiny commission. 2) I just want you to read the book.
Go find it at your library if you have to, but give it a try and let’s talk about it when you’re done.
Josh
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{ 12 comments }
J man, in your opinion, is this better or worse then MG Purposeful Primative?
Adam, about the best thing i can say about PP is that I think it’s really entertaining. I love the stories in that book, but much of the training advice did not feel like it applied to me although I found the mental and visualization segments fascinating. PP is about “teeth-grinding” effort and serious flexing and posturing, which is something that I’m moving farther away from in my thinking.
for me it’s always stories. Marty is a great storyteller. So is Mark. I honestly could care less what they’re talking about, I just like the way they talk.
The lifting info is useless to me (like i care what Dorian Yates did for his back?) but i do like the cardio info from PP. I was not familiar with the heavy hands stuff, and using a polar hr monitor i can say for certain it is much more effective compared to running and jogging.
Dear Adam and Josh,
Your collaboration brings something real special, both men of action: “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day”
Would love your opinion on the next training book I should read. I’ve been going through Enter The Kettlebell and my programming has been mostly TGU, Swings, Snatches, and Presses. In terms of training knowledge, not necessarily prose or motivational stories, what would be the next book you would read?
Thanks!
Yusuf
Yusuf
Your beard is awesome. As someone who is required to shave, i am big fan of them.
I recommend larger exercise indexs- because what you test is limited by what drills you know of. Instead of starting you on another book, alloe me to suggest a way to get the most of your ETK book. Start each workout with a question- should i press, should i swing, should i do get ups ect. Test each movement on its own merit and see which ones are giving you a positive response for that day. Try this for a month,and let me know how it works. You may find one day is great for pressing and face the wall squats, another day swings and get ups are good, maybe the third day is pull ups and KB deadifts. I cannot say for sure what it would come out to. First question everything, and use what is working best.
Yusuf, have you read Starting Strength?
I really enjoy Mark Rippetoe’s work (I got two of his books and a DVD) … I love how he breaks down movements and offers simple cues. And he’s funny! And he looks like a Hobbit
Now that’s a rave review I’m sure Rippetoe would love.
Re: Adam – Thanks! Glad you like the beard. I will start doing the “feel” approach and keep following your work, really impressed with the results you and your clients post.
Josh – I haven’t read any of Riptoes work so I’ll start with Starting Strength.
Yusuf, I want you to keep on coming back so i can follow YOUR work. My work is boring to me, its your progress that is exciting
Adam, I identify with that and appreciate you reaching out. I serve Dads who are tech professionals. We’re attracted to high leverage minimalist training because of the low time but some of us are catching the strength bug. We just had our first member get to our Level 6 (Persian Leopard) which is not a high level in the strength world but it is an extremely high level by tech professional standards, especially in these crazy times of stress and long hours.
Yesterday, this was my work out. 4 Turkish Getups with the 28 KG, 4 sets of pressing the 20 kg, 6 times each arm. In between I did 15 swings with the 28 KG. Then I continued to complete 170 swings with the 28 KG plus 30 one arm swings with the 20 KG mixed in. I also did some high tension goblet squats with the 28 KG.
I tried the toe touch reach and all of these exercises seemed to net a positive reach.
What I meant to say is that I identify with you getting pumped from your students because I have celebrated this man’s success much more than he has
.