 You know, it's funny. I don't think I've ever seen someone with abs actually recommend starting strength Let alone someone with a decent physique They tend to be skinny fat Powerlifters or built like a t-rex, you know, they're like skinny upper body with giant legs and one reason I despise starting strength so much is because I was brainwashed by these same morons When I started lifting weights as a teenager there was this website I think it was want to be big calm where you had two basic rules Starting strength and eat more if the routine isn't working. It's not the routine You're just not eating enough first. Let's explain what starting strength is from their website The starting strength system makes use of the body's most basic movement patterns Barbell exercises that involve all the body's muscle mass Utilized over the longest effect of range of motion and loaded progressively to force the adaptations necessary for increased strength Unlike other popular exercise protocols starting strength is a training system a long-term process designed for getting stronger over time Not a random collection of exercises that just make you hot sweaty sore confused and tired today, so that's their explanation of the routine and if you're not exercising to be hot sweaty and sore What's the point of going into a gym in reality? Starting strength is an incredibly low volume three-day lifting routine It starts with three sets of five reps each of squat bench press and deadlifts Literally nine sets in the entire routine Whereas most bodybuilding routines might do nine sets just for biceps a smaller muscle group let alone the entire body Not only is the volume incredibly low the rest time is long three to five minutes between sets Makes it difficult to actually take the muscle to failure and have a high intensity I think this guy mark riptoe that made this routine is really connected and has some type of multi-level marketing scheme going because there's no other explanation for the routine's popularity Like hey hey it might work for some people, but at face value The package that's being offered doesn't seem that appealing from the information in the routine how the guy looks You know what success stories are there you got a bunch of skinny fat power lifters like come on And there's actually another routine called strong lifts, which is fairly similar So most of my suggestions do apply to both of these routines Even though strong lifts is slightly higher volume It's basically identical and I really don't get it if it's supposed to be a simple three-day per week routine You could be much more efficient in the gym if you're resting that much between sets You know someone doing starting strength might complete nine sets in one hour Whereas with my very high volume lifting routine I might do over 50 sets in the same period of time You know, I'm doing four to five times the volume of starting strength Is that four to five times as effective? No, but it's close now does the routine work Of course it does but anyone that goes in a gym as a beginner will gain muscle and strength You know same thing with someone jerking off every day with their right arm their forearms gonna get muscular For me, I did starting strength, but plateaued very quickly my bench pressed stalled around 185 pounds squat around 225 and deadlift around 275 I was gaining strength But not real size and I probably weighed about 125 pounds at the time when I was 13 14 And when I increase the volume slightly from starting strength to a five by five routine I was able to break past that plateau and add about 30 to 40 pounds to each lift But then I stalled again and even for a natural lifter You know, you should be able to bench press more than you know 225 pounds at your peak and at that point regardless of how much volume I added With that training style repetition tempo focus on compound movements I wasn't getting stronger and I certainly wasn't getting bigger as I weighed around 135 pounds towards the end of my five by five nonsense. You have to understand It's a powerlifting routine not a size routine and a person's strength is Greatly dependent on their body frame size They're natural testosterone levels as soon as I joined a real gym instead of using that barbell in my garage to do the big three I adapted a classic bro split bodybuilding routine chest triceps Monday back biceps Tuesday Legs Wednesday shoulders Thursday arms Friday five days a week and I completely blew up in size at my peak I weighed around 185 pounds and that was without working too hard on my legs Now to me that wasn't even the most optimal routine I followed took me about five years of lifting weights on that bro split bodybuilding routine to gain 50 pounds and I think I would have achieved it much faster on a properly done a full-body routine from my personal understanding of starting strength If your goal is to do anything in the gym even get stronger You can spend your time more efficiently starting strength has flaws on every single aspect of the routine the overall volume The rest time the exercise choices training frequency You need to incorporate more sets and in order to increase the volume you can't be resting three to five minutes Exercises have to be switched up to properly isolate the muscles Plus you have to be in the gym as often as you can to build muscle as efficiently as possible not just two or three out of the seven days of the week and I don't even think those exercises are a great base for strength How can you justify doing barbell movements when most people have asymmetrical strength on their right and left sides? I would argue most beginner lifters should be using separate arm movements Majorly for the first few months of their training routine to correct those left and right side imbalances from previous Every day life and even for myself. That's still something I incorporate in my routine After lifting weights for over 10 years Regardless of your starting point if you haven't worked out before and you start googling stuff like beginner exercise routine It's all super confusing and most people would benefit greatly from having a personal trainer initially You know, there's some good ones. There's some bad ones, but most of them are okay You know, obviously make sure that you pick someone that makes sense If you want to be a body balloon you want to be muscular. Don't choose a skinny fat personal trainer. You know if you're Girl, that's a little overweight little chubby and you want to look like a smoke show Hey pick the personal trainer that looks like a smoke show. It kind of makes the most sense from what I've seen There is no popular routine whose overarching goal is correct Stimulate as much muscle as frequently as possible to reach your goal, whether it's body building power lifting calisthenics Whatever sport football doesn't matter the person needs to understand that if they aren't seeing Jurassic results in three to four months the routine is not effective and you guys saw my dramatic transformation over the initial six Months of my bodybuilding trial even with muscle memory It's hard to deny the effectiveness of a high volume routine when done consistently My piece of advice, if someone recommends starting strength, they have no clue what they're talking about They haven't experimented enough with weight training to give you advice It might be simple get some people in the gym get you some 14-inch biceps But there's just so much wrong, you know everything we've mentioned the low volume Difficult compound movements you're better off doing push-ups pull-ups and squats every day in your garage in most cases So thank you guys for joining me. Let me know how you like this and what type of fitness content you would like to see in the future You guys know how to support me I'll go to frank-defano.com to check out everything like Frankie syringe meat Frankie's naturals You can reach out to me for consultations. My book is on there everything you need to see So thanks again for joining me today guys, and I'll see you for tomorrow's video