Starting Strength Gyms Library

  • From 42% to 96% Bone Density With Strength Training

    From 42% to 96% Bone Density With Strength Training

    Kearston’s bone density tested at 42% compared to women her age, and with osteoporosis running in her family, she knew she had to do something. Everyone suggested drinking more milk, but strength training actually made the difference. Her bone density climbed to 96%.

    As a CPAP sales rep constantly driving and carrying equipment, she used to deal with tightness and fatigue. Now she moves through her workday easily, and the muscle mass she initially worried about actually gave her the curves she wanted.

  • The Press – A long term programming progression

    Nick Delgadillo, SSC

    In Episode 3 of the Stronger is Better Podcast, I detailed the how and why of programming the press for long term progression. People commonly make mistakes in the press from a programming standpoint because they don’t consider that the press requires heavy practice and doesn’t generally behave like the other basic barbell lifts. This is due to the technique component of pressing heavy and the fact that it brings lower systemic stress from a strength training perspective.

    Starting Strength overhead press.

    Basically, problems with increasing weight on the press come down to two factors – not enough stress from the lift, and the need to practice the lift. Remember that any effective practice needs to be specific to the skill you’re trying to improve. In the case of the press, practice needs to be specific to heavy presses, so sets of 5 (or even sets of 3) may not be heavy enough to improve pressing skill.

    What follows is a good companion and summary of the concepts and process I discuss in the episode. The episode goes into deep detail, but this is a good primer and review.

    Press Programming Key Principles

    Press Programming Principles

    Core concepts for effective overhead press development

    The Problem

    Press fails due to insufficient stress, not excessive stress. You need more practice with heavy weight overhead, not more recovery.

    The Solution

    Press heavy and press often. The overhead press behaves more like an Olympic lift than a powerlifting movement.

    Skill Component

    Failed presses are often technique failures, not strength failures. Practice specific to heavy singles is essential.

    Recovery Reality

    The press is not systemically stressful enough to require long recovery periods between sessions.

    Non-Negotiable Rules

    • Never reduce reps or sets
    • Always limit rest to 2 minutes max
    • Don’t practice failing reps
    • Progress goes heavy, not light
    • Get stronger, don’t just get tired
    • Practice is specific to heavy singles

    This is the progression I outline in the episode of how to advance your press programming. I’ve used this exact protocol with clients for a while now.

    Press Programming Protocol Reference

    Press Programming Protocol Reference

    Step When to Use Protocol Key Points
    1 Linear progression failing
    Missing reps in 3×5
    Complete All Reps
    • Get all 15 reps total
    • Use additional sets if needed
    • Short rest between makeup sets
    Continue until first set drops to 2-3 reps
    Don’t spend 45+ minutes pressing
    2 First set only 2-3 reps
    Time for complexity
    Add Second Press Day
    • Volume: 3×5 or 5×5
    • Intensity: 5-7 singles
    • 2 minutes rest max
    • Increase both days initially
    5×5 if press very weak relative to squat
    This setup can last 6-12 months
    3 Can’t increase both days anymore Implement Ranges
    • 10-15 lb range each day
    • Move range up when hitting top end
    • Switch volume to strict press
    • Independent progression
    Singles and volume progress separately
    Limit rest to force adaptation
    4 Ranges stalling
    Need more practice
    Add Pin Press
    • Eyebrow/forehead height
    • Rotating 5-3-1 OR
    • Heavy single for reps OR
    • Light single for 3×3
    Don’t fail pin presses
    Shrug bar off pins, don’t push

    The flowchart below covers the “triggers” that will help you determine when to move to the next step.

    Press Programming Decision Tree
    Press progression stalling on linear program?
    YES
    1Complete All Reps
    Get all 15 reps, even if it takes more sets
    First set drops to 2-3 reps?
    Time to add second press day?
    YES
    2Add Second Press Day
    Volume Day: 3×5 or 5×5
    Intensity Day: 5-7 singles
    Can’t increase both days?
    Switch to ranges?
    YES
    3Implement Ranges
    10-15 lb ranges for each day
    Switch volume to strict press
    Need more challenge?
    4Add Pin Press
    Third day or add to heavy day
    Rotating 5-3-1 protocol

    The solution to a press that’s slowing down is to press heavy and to press often. Incorporating heavy singles and specifically practicing pressing a heavy weight over your head as often as is feasible is the key to pressing over 100 lbs if you’re a woman, over 200 lbs if you’re a man, and over 300 lbs if you’re a Strong Man. Don’t let it frustrate you and don’t avoid pressing. The benefits are tremendous from a shoulder health and aesthetics standpoint.

  • Strength Training, Pregnancy, & Pelvic Health with Becky Maidansky | Stronger Is Better Podcast #7

    Strength Training, Pregnancy, & Pelvic Health with Becky Maidansky | Stronger Is Better Podcast #7

    In this episode of the Stronger is Better Podcast, Nick Delgadillo sits down with Dr. Becky Maidansky, pelvic floor specialist and founder of Lady Bird Physical Therapy in Austin, TX. They explore the realities of training through pregnancy, postpartum recovery, pelvic floor dysfunction, and why strength is one of the most under appreciated tools in women’s health. This conversation bridges the gap between medical rehab and high-performance coaching—essential listening for strength coaches, pregnant athletes, and anyone working with women in the gym.

    Ladybird Physical Therapy: https://www.ladybirdpt.com/

    00:00 – Intro & how Becky got involved with Starting Strength Austin
    01:15 – Lifting workshop recap & Becky’s team background
    03:27 – What is pelvic health PT?
    05:04 – Why Becky started Lady Bird PT
    07:12 – Pregnancy isn’t a problem to manage—training is essential
    10:00 – Medical conservatism, strength, and female physiology
    13:23 – Training during pregnancy: Becky’s and Nick’s coaching experience
    16:36 – What guidelines should lifters follow?
    20:20 – What symptoms matter and how to respond
    22:55 – Exercise modifications & movement adjustments
    24:58 – The role of energy availability during pregnancy
    26:07 – Postpartum recovery: timelines and expectations
    29:54 – Real-world coaching after pregnancy
    32:03 – Strength persists post-pregnancy
    34:12 – Weighing health vs. aesthetic goals postpartum
    35:16 – Strength training protects pelvic health
    37:24 – Stress incontinence: how coaches should think about it
    41:08 – Common causes & symptoms
    44:25 – What coaches can ask—and what’s in their scope
    46:35 – How and when to modify training for stress incontinence
    51:18 – Proper Valsalva vs. bearing down
    54:03 – Practical breathing cues to reduce pelvic stress
    55:35 – Do Kegels work? It depends
    59:18 – Are there standard pelvic floor strengthening protocols?
    1:00:52 – When to refer out to pelvic PT
    1:03:42 – Understanding prolapse & how to respond
    1:07:28 – What is a pessary and who might benefit from one?
    1:08:29 – How to contact Dr. Becky Maidansky

    ⸻

    đź”— Brought to you by Starting Strength Gyms
    🎧 New episodes every other week on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
    đź“© Send feedback or questions to: podcast@ssgyms.com

  • Freedom and Purpose through Entrepreneurship with Ray Gillenwater | Stronger Is Better Podcast #6

    Freedom and Purpose through Entrepreneurship with Ray Gillenwater | Stronger Is Better Podcast #6

    In this episode of the Stronger Is Better Podcast, Nick Delgadillo sits down with Starting Strength Gyms founder Ray Gillenwater for a wide-ranging conversation about entrepreneurship, vision, and the founding story of Starting Strength Gyms. Ray shares how his experiences in tech, corporate leadership, and global markets led him to Starting Strength—and why strength training is at the core of building better people, teams, and businesses.

    They explore the parallels between barbell training and business operations, discuss lessons from launching a franchise, and highlight the power of doing hard things. From his time at BlackBerry to the launch of Starting Strength Gyms, Ray’s story offers valuable insight for entrepreneurs, coaches, and anyone seeking freedom through ownership.

    00:00 – Intro: Ray returns to the podcast
    00:44 – Ray’s background in tech and telecom
    02:20 – First encounter with Starting Strength
    04:50 – Discovering the program, contacting Rip
    07:00 – Attending his first seminar and injuries
    08:20 – Starting Strength retail vision emerges
    10:24 – Franchising vs affiliation
    12:42 – How the response to COVID tested the franchise
    14:59 – Corporate vs mission-driven business
    16:35 – BlackBerry in Southeast Asia
    19:30 – Sales tactics and incentive alignment
    23:19 – Launching BlackBerry Money, ahead of its time
    27:30 – What went wrong at BlackBerry
    30:00 – The draw of Starting Strength
    31:35 – Bullshit in the corporate world
    33:00 – Rip’s influence and brutal honesty
    34:15 – Returning to the franchise—lessons learned
    36:04 – Coaching gym owners like lifters
    38:49 – Business fundamentals mirror training
    40:26 – Product, people, and solving real problems
    44:42 – Technical expertise vs human connection
    48:30 – How to help the runner, the skeptic, anyone
    52:46 – Weekly habits and business levers
    54:20 – Vision, strategy, and scalable simplicity
    56:34 – Why the culture makes it all work
    57:37 – Hard physical effort = quality people
    1:01:25 – Franchising done the right way
    1:03:31 – Humility, hardship, and growth
    1:06:35 – Closing reflections on freedom and purpose

    ⸻

    đź”— Brought to you by www.startingstrengthgyms.com
    🎧 New episodes every other week on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
    đź“© Send feedback or questions to: podcast@ssgyms.com

  • Hypertrophy and Fat Loss

    Aaron Frederick, SSC

    Fat loss, muscle gain, and building the right house.

    There is a plethora of inaccurate online information, mostly about losing fat or gaining muscle. These two processes are far simpler than the Internet would have you believe. Mind you, simple does not mean easy. Most of the advice you will find on the subject provides overly complex, hyper-specific solutions to sell you on their process. They usually cite things such as six weeks of progress or, in a few cases, 12 weeks of progress from previous clients. It’s essential to understand first that anything that can be done in 6 or 12 weeks can be undone in the same amount of time by simply stopping whatever you were doing for those 6 or 12 weeks. This process is not quick. A person does not get fat in 6 or 12 weeks, and they do not get fit in 6 or 12 weeks either.

    So, what is the reality of fat loss and muscle gain? Let’s start with the process of muscle gain. On average, it is considered generally healthy to gain 1 LB of mass per week, total mass, not just muscle mass. The idea that you can gain only muscle mass is as incorrect as that of the idea that you can lose only fat mass. Understanding your body’s composition is key. Lean mass is the priority for body composition, and our goal is to skew changes in favor of lean body mass, but it is impossible to make gains and losses in one category entirely.

    This reality is woefully understated in most Internet conversations.

    So, how do we skew weight gain to be muscle mass predominantly?

    Hypertrophy is misunderstood and misrepresented.

    The process of gaining muscle mass, or hypertrophy, is commonly divided into two categories. The first is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, and the second is myofibril hypertrophy. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is an increase in the fluid-filled spaces surrounding the muscle. This is the pump so often discussed. The body’s ability to retain muscle fluid in the spaces around the muscle causes the muscle to appear more swollen and voluminous. Hypertrophy training that targets this is often higher repetition and lighter weight. Notice that nothing about sarcoplasmic hypertrophy includes the growth of new muscle fibers. Pumped muscles are big, puffy muscles that lose their volume within 2 to 3 hours.

    Myofibril hypertrophy is muscle growth that occurs when the size or number of muscle fibers is increased. This is the growth of new muscle or the increase in the size of existing muscle. We must remember that myofibril hypertrophy is the goal in almost every scenario in which we are discussing increases in muscle mass strength or performance. And furthermore, it seems unlikely that either category of hypertrophy can be trained independently.

    Either way, hypertrophy is primarily driven by increased mechanical tension. This term refers to the force exerted on your muscles during a workout. It’s essential to understand that the word ‘increased’ is the focus of this statement. If you want to grow bigger muscles and currently squat 100 lbs, you cannot do this any other way than by increasing the weight, volume, or frequency with which you squat. Since time is limited and you cannot take your five sets of three up to 20 sets of three without spending hours in the gym, increasing volume in a single session is not reasonable.

    Your body requires recovery to adapt to the stress you apply in the gym. The positive changes you want from strength training are realized in the time between sessions when you are recovering from training. It’s the choices before and after the training session that determine the outcome of the training.

    Since we only have three to four viable training days in a week, you cannot increase the frequency with which you squat to any significant degree due to the need for recovery between training days. This leads to only one reasonable method of applying a muscle growing stress that will force your body to adapt, and that is increases in intensity. For this reason, we drive adaptation by increasing the load on the bar.

    Of course, there is a little bit of nuance here in that some volume or frequency increases can be done in some lifters before the load is increased as a method of reducing the frequency at which the load is increased to accommodate stress. Those are a lot of words to say a very simple thing. No one expects you to add 5 lbs every session forever.  This is why we have changes in programming. As a novice, you only need 24-48 hours between training sessions to recover. As your training level advances, more time is required to recover from the training, so we adjust the program to keep some of the stress but not overtrain and regress. This is done by manipulating the program to accommodate recovery needs.

    Building the house.

    So now we have established the train of logic that leads us to how we increase muscle mass. Heavier weights must be lifted to some extent, and frequency and volume can be adjusted to accommodate these increases in heavier weights. The question becomes, how do we continue to increase these weights and build muscle mass? The answer is calories.

    Calories are the fuel that powers your workouts and supports muscle growth. If you’re not consuming enough, your body won’t have the energy it needs to build muscle effectively.

    You are building a house. Your training is the metaphorical architect and training determines what your house looks like. Without the architect, you have a lot with a haphazard pile of bricks dumped with no direction or plan. When you walk into the gym for the first time and do your Novice Linear Progression, you are laying the foundation for building your house. The Novice Linear Progression is a training method that focuses on increasing the weight you lift in a linear fashion, usually every session or every week, to build a solid foundation of strength and muscle.

    Your intermediate training constitutes the framing, the electrical, the plumbing, the drywall, and the bricks stacked along the outside by which your house will weather every storm that comes its way. Calories are the workers with which the house is built. If you do not have enough workers to build the house, the storms you endure will tear it down faster than you can build.

    A great example of this is someone who is training to run an ultra marathon during strength training. Excessive conditioning work is catabolic- it breaks things down. It costs you calories and thereby costs you recovery assets. If you have barely enough workers, the process will be laborious and take longer. Conversely, if there are too many workers, many will be found sitting idly on the curb, taking up space and completely useless. These excess workers are your body fat.

    The challenge is knowing how many workers you need to build this house. Since it is always better to have a few more than a few fewer, we often tell you that it’s OK to gain a little fat while building muscle. After all, when the project is finished or near completion, you can start firing the useless workers.

    My metaphor is bloated, but the point, I believe is clear. If you want to fuel your training and build muscle, you must eat enough food to support your growth. Whether you’ve realized it or not, you wish for thicker, denser, firmer muscles that produce force efficiently. To make this happen, you need high-intensity training and a small excess of calories that support the increases in intensity that are a part of your planned progression towards a stronger version of yourself. Planned progression refers to a structured training plan that gradually increases the intensity of your workouts over time, leading to continuous muscle growth.

    So now that we’re in unanimous agreement on the process of gaining muscle and we don’t have to beat this horse any further beyond the grave. We can discuss the process of losing fat. Luckily, this process is far less controversial.

    Losing the extra body fat-

    There is only one way to lose fat that is proven to work every time it is applied, regardless of who it is applied to and the circumstances in which it is used. That method consumes fewer calories than your body burns through its metabolic process. Unfortunately, this results in muscle loss as well. So, the more important conversation is how you maintain your hard-earned muscle and strength while losing the useless adipose tissue acquired during the hypertrophy process. This requires a high-protein diet and consuming fewer calories than your body needs to maintain its current total mass. Continuing to lift at a high intensity while eating less food than your body needs is difficult, and the weight on the bar will inevitably go down unless you are starting from the point of extreme obesity.

    Training has to be modified from session to session to keep the intensity high and avoid injury. Reps per set might need to be reduced as your ability to produce force will diminish quickly because your calories are lower. You literally do not have the ability to sustain the training you did to get stronger. For inexperienced or poorly educated coaches, this results in plans of lighter weights for higher reps, which is literally the opposite of what you need. Remember, we already established that heavy weights build and maintain hypertrophy, and higher reps for lighter weights are just “the pump”. It’s going to be hard to lift heavy when you feel like you do not have the energy to do it, but that’s the point. Easy is sitting on the couch watching The Price is Right. Easy doesn’t work. You need to maintain the muscle you have built so that it can drive your metabolism when you’re not in the gym and burn the calories stored as adipose tissue. You need to fire those useless workers, but not the ones that are actually doing their job effectively.

    Insert DOGE reference here.

    This is the point that we want to drive home. Your muscle mass is one of the main determiners of your metabolic needs. A higher muscle mass requires more calories. Therefore, you can lose weight quicker if you have more muscle than you could when you have less muscle. This is why you need to get strong first. Eating in a calorie deficit is much more challenging if you need very few calories. While it is tough to hear for some people, getting bigger is essential to getting leaner because you are most likely not over-fat as much as you are under-muscled. Losing weight is not the concern of a novice and likely not the concern of an early intermediate lifter. If you consumed an excess of calories during your novice phase (and you definitely should) and you took your squat from 100lbs to 300lbs, you simply reduce the caloric intake slightly at some point during your intermediate training. The increases in strength will slow. The programming will adjust to compensate. Now, you need to figure out what you need to eat to maintain your current strength and start slowly losing fat. This is usually a very small change in diet. Remember, small changes got you bigger and stronger. Small changes will get you leaner. You need to think in terms of months to a year, not weeks. Over time, with consistent calorie intake, your lean mass will continue to increase, and your fat mass, the useless workers hanging around on the curb, will realize they aren’t getting paid any longer. They will leave, and you will be left with a very efficient crew that continues to put in small amounts of maintenance work to keep your new house in order.

    What does it all mean?

    In the end, building the body you want is not about chasing hacks, shortcuts, or Instagram miracles. It’s about understanding the simple, unsexy truth: consistent heavy training, enough food to fuel that training, and the patience to let time do its work. You build the house brick by brick, training session by training session, meal by meal. You don’t tear it down halfway through because progress isn’t happening fast enough — because it never happens fast enough for the impatient.

    Strength first. Then the muscle. Then leanness. That’s the order.

    Not the other way around. Not all at once.

    Get strong, get big, and then get lean — by maintaining the strength you earned.

    Stop looking for a better way. This is the way. Now get to work.

  • From Hospital Shifts to Deadlifts

    From Hospital Shifts to Deadlifts

    As an internal medicine physician working 12-14 hour days, Dr. Vishal Patel had developed habits that led to a diabetes diagnosis-a condition that claimed his father in his 50s.

    Previous attempts at big box gyms yielded no results. After joining Starting Strength Dallas, Vishal lost 12 pounds and dropped his A1C from 6.5 to 5.5. His squat increased by 180 pounds in just months, and from being unable to deadlift at all, he’s now approaching 315 pounds while reversing a condition he once thought was genetic destiny.

  • Triple Bypass to Five Chinups

    Triple Bypass to Five Chinups

    Mike Baird approaches his 70s with more vigor than most, having built substantial strength despite a history of cardiac procedures including triple bypass surgery and an aortic valve replacement.

    His three-year commitment to barbell training at Starting Strength Dallas has transformed not just his recovery capacity but his entire physical presence. This visible transformation even prompted a customer to mistake him for the bouncer rather than the bartender, a compliment Mike cherishes.

  • Grit and Resilience with Mike Kelly and Alex Ptacek | Stronger Is Better Podcast #5

    Grit and Resilience with Mike Kelly and Alex Ptacek | Stronger Is Better Podcast #5

    In this episode of the Stronger Is Better Podcast, host Nick Delgadillo speaks with Alex Ptacek, Head Coach at Starting Strength Chicago, and his trainee Mike Kelly. Mike shares the gripping and ultimately inspiring story of suffering a catastrophic quad injury—followed by multiple surgeries, setbacks, and an unwavering commitment to recovery. Alex and Mike detail the coaching, rehab, and mindset needed to not only recover but hit PRs after the injury.

    This episode is a masterclass in first principles thinking, coaching accountability, and what’s possible when grit meets process. Whether you’re a coach, trainee, or recovering from injury yourself—this one is not to be missed.

    00:00 – Intro and guest introductions
    01:15 – Alex’s background and entry into coaching
    04:55 – Mike’s long training history and CrossFit roots
    07:00 – Mike’s first serious injury and how it led to Starting Strength
    11:00 – The value of strength and discovering Rip
    17:30 – Injury mindset, aging, and training smarter
    27:00 – The squat injury and ambulance ride
    34:10 – First surgery and complications
    42:00 – Training with only one functioning quad
    49:00 – Re-injury and second surgery
    1:04:50 – Tourniquet bruise, setback, and third surgery
    1:14:00 – Training mentality and persistence
    1:21:00 – Running again—why movement matters
    1:26:00 – Final thoughts: gratitude, recovery, and moving forward

  • Goals and Balance – A Woman’s Perspective with Erin Spiva | Stronger Is Better Podcast #4

    Goals and Balance – A Woman’s Perspective with Erin Spiva | Stronger Is Better Podcast #4

    In Episode 4 of the Stronger Is Better Podcast, Nick Delgadillo sits down with long-time client and friend Erin Spiva to discuss six years of consistent barbell training, lessons learned, and how strength carries over into real life, including hobbies like pole fitness.

    Erin shares her journey from getting started to becoming a client who trains with purpose and balance. They dive into training as a woman, programming adjustments for neuromuscular efficiency, nutrition habits, the myth of “bulking up,” chin-ups, and what happens when you pair heavy lifting with pole sport. A practical episode that demonstrates how strength makes everything better.

    Timestamps:
    00:00 – Intro: Meet Erin Spiva
    01:20 – Why Erin’s perspective matters
    03:23 – How training women is (and isn’t) different
    05:41 – Neuromuscular efficiency: men vs. women
    08:28 – Programming fix: switching women to triples
    11:46 – Women grind better: fatigue vs. recruitment
    13:52 – Erin’s early lifting history
    16:09 – Initial numbers, form struggles, and flexibility
    17:46 – Weight trends over the years
    18:54 – “Looking better” vs. health: what people really want
    22:05 – Why women won’t “accidentally get bulky”
    24:43 – Aesthetics vs. capability
    26:52 – Cutting while training: Erin’s real numbers
    27:55 – Simplicity in programming & new variations
    30:36 – Dimmell deadlifts, press goals, and load manipulation
    32:53 – Erin’s training progression & consistency
    34:00 – Current mindset walking into the gym
    35:37 – Lifelong strength: different goals at every stage
    37:52 – The importance of balance & sustainable goals
    40:09 – How Erin builds habits & sustainable systems
    41:44 – Her weekly food prep: protein, grains, & travel chicken
    42:50 – Accepting who you are and building around that
    44:32 – Early goals: 315 deadlift & chin-ups
    47:21 – Tradeoffs: could be stronger, but at what cost?
    49:33 – How Erin got her first chin-up
    52:29 – The progression: from holds to full reps
    53:32 – Training balance and why pole fitness clicked
    56:07 – What pole class is like—and who should try it
    59:31 – How Erin found pole sport
    1:01:18 – How strength helps with skill acquisition
    1:03:30 – Why pole felt easier thanks to barbell strength
    1:04:40 – Don’t spin your wheels: lift real weights
    1:05:11 – Why Erin should start a practical nutrition blog
    1:06:13 – Her no-brainer food strategy
    1:07:46 – How much technical nutrition matters (or doesn’t)
    1:08:52 – Progress is simple: consistency over perfection
    1:10:00 – Helping parents get stronger without barbells
    1:13:42 – Final advice to women thinking about lifting

    Brought to you by www.StartingStrengthGyms.com
    New episodes every other week on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
    Send feedback or questions to: podcast@ssgyms.com

  • Stop the Bar Rolling in Your Press: The Pinch Grip Method

    Stop the Bar Rolling in Your Press: The Pinch Grip Method

    The press becomes unnecessarily difficult when the bar rolls back in your hands, creating mechanical disadvantage and discomfort at heavier weights. Coach Jordan Burnett from Starting Strength Dallas demonstrates the practical “pinch grip” technique that keeps the bar properly positioned over the wrists.

    Rather than constantly fighting to keep your wrists straight, this simple adjustment uses targeted finger pressure to secure the bar exactly where it should be. Even lifters who have struggled with proper bar position can immediately implement this technique to make their press more efficient and effective.