Barbell 3 barbell lifts only
- Thread starter bozo
- Start date
Ege
Level 6 Valued Member
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with this. I know that I could get stronger much faster with barbell. I have no doubt. I don’t have practical access to barbell as of now. I value and respect barbell work.
We all come with our strengths and weaknesses. And we view the world subjectively. For me, I want to be strong and I want to be mobile enough to do the programs I want to do to be strong.
I might be a bit negative to everything hyperthrophy in a wrong way. (Probably I would crunch in front of Fabio
)the hansenator
Level 6 Valued Member
MikeL
Level 6 Valued Member
so when one says squat/bench/dead does it mean squat/horizontal press/hinge or backsquat/bench press/deadlift ?
Well I will fix those issues, but what I am trying to say, when you are focused on looks and muscles you loose the real picture.
Be strong. That is what it matters, at the end if you are not satisfied with the genetics and hence looks you have as a result of strength work, you can do hypertrophy. Not a very big deal or mystery. (I am not strong so this is not bragging
I’ve cut your original down for brevity.
Point 1: when people say squat, bench, dead, that is exactly what they mean. Not a pattern/regression/alt. It might mean pattern to you but it means squat.
Ok… so next bit: you’ve self referred as being a bit negative, but I don’t think you can say, reasonably, that if people want to look good and/or grow muscle, they are losing sight of the real picture. You need hypertrophy to get strong, this is why we periodise training. A twig cannot hold up an oak tree; a tree trunk can. And a HUGE amount of people train/practice/workout at least partly because they want to look GOOD, strong, powerful, muscular. This is not bad at all, and I have to call out the inference that it is. People want to feel good about themselves and that is a good thing, they should do. Far be it from us as a strength training community to belittle that goal; it feels extremely self-damaging to do so!
Ege
Level 6 Valued Member
Very valid points. I guess I am being overhyped about my new learnings, which is understandable on most cases, I think I will be more balanced as time goes on. Hope not being disrespectful to anyone in the mean time.
MikeL
Level 6 Valued Member
No harm no foul.
I will add, please don’t believe your muscular growth is down to “genetics”. Of course it is, but not all that much. Plenty of skinny people get big and plenty of big people get lean. It’s a real shame, and one I’ve believed, when people think they can’t achieve their goal because of their genetics.
Now… if people go on a strength program and still have a horrible looking face, well yeah that’s genetic!
I will add, please don’t believe your muscular growth is down to “genetics”. Of course it is, but not all that much. Plenty of skinny people get big and plenty of big people get lean. It’s a real shame, and one I’ve believed, when people think they can’t achieve their goal because of their genetics.
Now… if people go on a strength program and still have a horrible looking face, well yeah that’s genetic!
We have a saying, "Different strokes for different folks." Not all of us are fans of adding muscle to our bodies. Mind you, I have respect and admiration for those body builders who are as strong as they look - I mean, how can you not respect and admire what @Fabio Zonin has accomplished, and if you knew him personally, you'd certainly add affection to that list because he's a great guy - but it's a personal choice. One can add muscle for the sake of adding muscle, or in the interest of getting stronger, or both - all good. Around here, we can help those trying to get stronger and bigger but I think it's fair to say that we aren't focused on getting bigger if your main goal is just appearance.
-S-
Hung
Level 8 Valued Member
There are two ways of thinking that I saw multi times on our forums, which are:
- if someone does bodybuilding, they must do only small isolated pump kind of exercise and be an entirely useless piece of s*** (okay the word is maybe not exactly like that)
- If you want to gain muscle you must do a ton of big lift 3/clean and press with sets of 5 else you be a weak useless piece of s*** bodybuilder with bubble muscles.
That way of thinking is super strange to me. Bodybuilding and other sport/activities has different level of practice, just like not every organize use kettbells have the same level of knowledge and skin in the game like SF. But now someone from outside of the bodybuilding world, without studies their practice carefully judging about their practice...
This is very different from the mindset "I’m not saying you are wrong. I just know I’m right".
- if someone does bodybuilding, they must do only small isolated pump kind of exercise and be an entirely useless piece of s*** (okay the word is maybe not exactly like that)
- If you want to gain muscle you must do a ton of big lift 3/clean and press with sets of 5 else you be a weak useless piece of s*** bodybuilder with bubble muscles.
That way of thinking is super strange to me. Bodybuilding and other sport/activities has different level of practice, just like not every organize use kettbells have the same level of knowledge and skin in the game like SF. But now someone from outside of the bodybuilding world, without studies their practice carefully judging about their practice...
This is very different from the mindset "I’m not saying you are wrong. I just know I’m right".
@Hung, we must not be reading the same forum. We don't address hypertrophy for hypertrophy's sake - we have no advice to offer there. We don't comment on what bodybuilders who aren't interested in strength do but we also don't address a lot of other things, so this isn't a condemnation, just an announcement of what we do and don't have to offer. If this is you, best of luck and we recommend you look elsewhere for training advice.
No one has said that in those words, but we are called StrongFirst because we believe that this is the most important physical attribute a healthy person can work on to improve themselves, and that objective, strength, is most easily and effectively accomplished using compound movements that work a lot of the body at once and as a unit. If you don't choose that approach, that's fine, but again, your approach isn't something we focus on here and you'd do better to look for advice elsewhere.
That's OK.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, but there are many at StrongFirst who are well-acquainted with a wide variety of bodybuilding practices, e.g., @fabio Z was a bodybuilder before he found Pavel and StrongFirst. If "without studies their practice carefully" is what you're mean by that, then I don't think you're correct in your assumption.
Again, I think you've misunderstood. We obviously choose what we do here because we think it's more valuable than the alternatives - there is no shame in that and no judgement of what others choose to do for themselves, but we have explained - many times - why we do what we do, and if you feel we're judging bodybuilders, well, I'm sorry you feel that way, but that fact that we don't offer those kinds of training programs is a statement of what we value. If your values are different, again I must say you'll do better to look elsewhere for advice.
-S-
Hung
Level 8 Valued Member
You and most of SF coach on the forum stay at you own lane and seems like really focus on refine your own training craft. That is great, I have nothing to complain about it. My previous comment is for some other members.
Boris Bachmann
Level 8 Valued Member
I think your point is valid. There absolutely is an anti-hypertrophy vibe here at times - heck, I might have been guilty of it here and there.
And, quite frankly, Steve, I don't know anyone other than actively competitive BBers that are after "hypertrophy for hypertrophy's sake".
I hear people talking about “slim down and add some muscle” pretty regularly without mention of strength.
-S-
Boris Bachmann
Level 8 Valued Member
That's basically what 99% of the public say when they want to "tone". I don't put that in the same category as "hypertrophy" at all, but okay.
MikeL
Level 6 Valued Member
Many people don’t know really what they want when they go to a gym. And I guarantee many people come to SF because kettlebells are so publicly cited as “cutting fat and building muscle” - plenty of SFs programs and others here (Geoff’s spring to mind) offer this. The fact we can zealously champion “but we want to press the big cannonball!” is great, and it’s a fantastic educational piece, but we must be cognisant of all of the lure, not just “our favourite” bit.
I came here for kettlebells to slim down and get through a pandemic lockdown, I stayed for one arm push ups and I’m now learning from the barbell principles shared here and focusing on putting numbers on the bar, not sub-maximal reps. I have been a member 3 years yesterday; it takes time to go on a journey.
I came here for kettlebells to slim down and get through a pandemic lockdown, I stayed for one arm push ups and I’m now learning from the barbell principles shared here and focusing on putting numbers on the bar, not sub-maximal reps. I have been a member 3 years yesterday; it takes time to go on a journey.
solarbear
Level 6 Valued Member
Yeah, Zercher, DL and BP would make up a pretty decent program on their own.
I would look at the training soldiers do and the exercises they do. Chin ups, Deadlifts and Push Ups seem to be the core of many of the Tactical routines. Rucking and long hikes are common factors as well.
- You could create a simple Day A and Day B kind of thing. Zercher and Chin Ups on Day A. BP and DL on Day B. And kind of work out every other day, back to back on occasions.
- You could do two of the three exercises. Eg M-Z&BP W-BP&DL F-Z&DL.
- You could do one of these exercises a day and work out every day.
- You could do them in a PTTP fashion.
- You could do them as some sort of complex to get the endurance you would want as well.
I would look at the training soldiers do and the exercises they do. Chin ups, Deadlifts and Push Ups seem to be the core of many of the Tactical routines. Rucking and long hikes are common factors as well.
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Chris Mills
Level 6 Valued Member
This reminds me of a half-marathon trail run (with 2500ft of front loaded climbing) I signed up for on a whim thinking I was “fit” from a lot of rowing and weights. I think, overall, I was very fit, (and I have a fair amount of trail running experience, but had not run in months) but once you get past a certain level, you have to put specific work in to get the ancillary ….parts…..working with some level of stamina and efficiency, or you risk a total crash.
I slowly walked the second half that day getting passed by people that looked like they could have been my parents (both in age and shape).
It was at least a week before I was recovered enough to hit my normal numbers again in my rowing workouts.
Never again.
TimothyGander
Level 5 Valued Member
How do you define "hypertrophy for hypertrophy's sake"? Because for me it seems that most of the fitness industry is built around pandering to that exact desire. Are large, likely roided out fitness influencers pandering only to competitive BBers and other athletes who actually need large muscles? Is every other 30 day program that promises muscle gains also aimed at just this limited group? Come to think, is there even a single well known fitness brand/company/system/expert marketing to men that doesn't advertise itself with promises of hypertrophy? And they are right to do so, as every general fitness forum is dominated by talk about appearance. People who want to look good outnumber people who want to be strong at least by an order of magnitude.
Even Pavel, for all his focus on strength, still apparently just has to accommodate that to stay profitable. For example, in Q&D (a specialized program aimed at experienced trainees, who may be expected to be more focused on performance) book he claims that 100 reps per workout are a reasonable compromise between mitochondrial adaptations and hypertrophy - not too much for the former, enough for the latter. Evidently people who don't care about looks and want to maximize mitochondrial adaptations (with less volume at that) are so small of a group that they don't warrant a single paragraph.
Hrungnir
Level 7 Valued Member
This is sort of where I am with my life tbh. My strength needs for my daily life are basically non existent, I just want to look as massive as I can in a dress shirt. Getting strong is just a cool side effect.
There is this weird anti-bodybuilding stigma that just exists in a lot of the fitness communities I’ve been part of (BJJ, CrossFit, Kettlebells, Wrestling, etc) that I’ve never understood. I think it’s just natural pushback from the globo gym main that these niche communities resent for whatever reason. Just pure speculation tho.
I would bet that all of the people in here running Geoff’s programs which are 100% hypertrophy focused also still have some disdain for bodybuilders lol.
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BJJ Shawn
Level 6 Valued Member
It’s not that any of these are anti-BB, but most of them have weight classes so if you add mass you can’t be as competitive as you’ll move up weight classes.
There’s a saying that Caio Terra says, “technique conquers all.” Basically, spending time to get bigger is not time better spent than working on your skills for your sport. As many have noted, as you age you will lose speed and power, and if your game relies on that over technique you’ll be screwed.
Pavel has noted this dozens of times. It’s not that he’s anti-bb, it’s just not advantageous for a lot of the people his programs are designed for.