Do you squat every day?

[brad310]

I recently came to find mark rippetoe on youtube, then his website...and subsequently got his starting strength book and dvd, which i love them both. Even though im not going to do his program exactly because im still trying to lose some weight, what i learned from him in terms of the why's and how's will stay with me in whatever else i do in the gym.

that said, one thing that caught me off guard was that in his SS program, he has squats every day for 5 consecutive days, then 2 rest days. I know he's the expert so i wont question the validity of the plan, but i didnt seem to read in there why the squat was every day. Every plan ive seen before splits the body parts so that you dont work the same muscle groups consecutively. Do the legs respond better to more frequent training or less recovery time?

 

[Malfeas]

I believe you misunderstood the instructions in Starting Strength. You do not lift weights 5 times per week. You lift weights 3 times per week, on nonconsecutive days, and after the third day you take two days off, But you do squats every session, ie 3 times per week. So you workout schedule will look like Monday-Wednesday-Friday, or Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, or......well you get it now right?

You have two workout routines, simply called A & B, which you alternate each session. So week one is A-B-A, and week two is B-A-B.

'A' routine is : Squat-Bench-Powerclean
'B' routine is : Squat-Press-Deadlift

There are accessory excercises, such as pullups/chinups and dips, back extensions, etc but these usually are not recommended until after you have been on the routine for a month.

SS is a full body barbell compound movement routine, all exercises utilize large amounts of muscle groups in order to get maximum effect in the shortest amount of time in the gym. Also because of the thought that you rarely in life use only one muscle group to do any task, but instead use multiple muscle groups to lift/move things, so you should train that way. The difference between split routines and full body routines like SS, is that in splits you work one muscle group to failure once or twice a week, you do not work a muscle group to failure in SS although on occassion you will fail a set of an excercise, it is not the same thing as working a muscle group to failure. Full body routines usually emphasize increases in strength over size/aesthetics, split routines are usually designed to emphasize size/aesthetics over strength.

Here is a link to a list of articles over on the Starting Strength website: http://startingstrength.com/index.php/site/resources

You may be specifically interested in these Articles:
1. http://startingstrength.com/articles/clarification_rippetoe.pdf

2. http://startingstrength.com/articles/novice_effect_rippetoe.pdf

 

[brikis98]

+1 for Malfeas' response. Lift 3 times per week, non-consecutive days, squat each time.

 

[brad310]

ya i must have not read it right...i must have read "squat every workout" to "squat every day"...just because im in the gym everyday.

That damn full ROM squat is a killer for me, having not ever been coached the correct way. Its silly that i can pack on 285 and do a half squat, which ill never do again, but im working to do correct form with much less. Even being concious of what im tring to do i was getting to 3/4 squat feels deep enough, but ive video'd myself and know it wasnt...that bounce out of the hole that he talks about is pretty neat tho.