Litting Heavy is One of Many Options

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Starting Strength, All Pros and Stronglifts 5x5 are all great programs and there are countless testimonies of people who have gained strength from those programs. But let's be clear, gaining strength is the priority of those programs, not weight loss. Weight loss is possible on a calorie deficit, but you would undermine the very goal of this program, which is to gain strength. While some posters on MFP like to promote those programs for weight loss over other programs, bodybuilding.com and other bodybuilder sites don't generally promote these routines where weight loss is the PRIMARY goal, because your body doesn't have enough fuel to keep up the gains. Plus these routines are strenuous and may cause the cardio to suffer. No problem if you don't care for cardio, a big problem if you are prepping for a 10K in a few months.

you can make significant strength increases while eating at a deficit, and the majority of people on here who are doing those programmes are eating at a deficit, and seeing a lot of success in how their bodies look. Yes, you don't get as much in terms of strength and mass gains eating at a deficit than you would eating at a surplus, but there are lots of women here who have really improved their body composition doing this. You do have to be realistic and understand that if your goal is maximum strength gains you eat at a surplus and you'll gain some fat along with the muscle.... and also that if aesthetics is your goal you eat at a deficit and you won't see as much strength gains as you would eating at a surplus (although you can choose to do a cut after a phase of eating at a surplus, so it's not like fat gains from bulking are going to prevent you from ever having 6 pack abs, if that's your goal)..... but you can still make remarkable progress in strength while eating at a deficit, especially as a beginner, because most of the strength you gain comes from neurological adaptation

As for bodybuilding v powerlifting... I've done both and seen far more success both in terms of strength and aesthetics from doing powerlifting. the problem with body building programmes is they tell people without much experience to do a bunch of isolation exercises and split routines, which really is not the best way to progress either in terms of aesthetics or strength. That's exactly what I was doing before starting stronglifts and I was making very little progress.......... then in just a few weeks of stronglifts I've made far more progress, both in terms of strength and how I look. Once someone's at an intermediate to advanced level, then maybe bodybuilding programmes do work better than powerlifting ones if the focus is on aesthetics, but for beginners and people who've not done serious strength training for more than a few months, stronglifts etc really does work a lot better. And I'm talking from personal experience.

regards running - there are a few women on my friends list (and men for that matter) who regularly run long distances while doing these kinds of programmes. I've not seen any complaints from them about these kinds of programmes interfereing with their progress at running. A lot of the issue re cardio interfereing with strength training is that either people are not eating enough to support the amount of cardio they're doing, or if the goal is purely about gaining strength, too much cardio can interfere with that goal. However if the goal is aesthetics and general health and fitness there's no reason why doing a programme like stronglifts would prevent someone also doing lots of cardio, if that's what they want.

I agree, and I think what some members neglect to mention when offering the advice to lift heavy, is the safety aspect that comes with it. Yes you can get great results with heavy lifting if your form is good, but newbies won't know anything about good form, which could lead to serious injuries, and just reading a book, online guide/ YouTube is not sufficient in my view. In that aspect newbies should get a trainer and work their way up to lifting heavy if they so desire.

I guess the main message I want to get over, is start slow, low weights, get good form and make sure you are looking after yourself. You don't want to snap your **** up!

the programmes mention emphasise the importance of starting light, working on form, and then building the weights up slowly. That's what they teach. They start with the empty bar (and you can start with less than that if the empty bar feels heavy) and you increase the weight slowly after you learn good form.

I realise this, but as a newbie it would be hard to know yourself what is good form, hence the need for a trainer or spotter.

I agree, and I think what some members neglect to mention when offering the advice to lift heavy, is the safety aspect that comes with it. Yes you can get great results with heavy lifting if your form is good, but newbies won't know anything about good form, which could lead to serious injuries, and just reading a book, online guide/ YouTube is not sufficient in my view. In that aspect newbies should get a trainer and work their way up to lifting heavy if they so desire.

I guess the main message I want to get over, is start slow, low weights, get good form and make sure you are looking after yourself. You don't want to snap your **** up!

the programmes mention emphasise the importance of starting light, working on form, and then building the weights up slowly. That's what they teach. They start with the empty bar (and you can start with less than that if the empty bar feels heavy) and you increase the weight slowly after you learn good form.

I realise this, but as a newbie it would be hard to know yourself what is good form, hence the need for a trainer or spotter.

agreed, but the programmes do advise that (i.e. spotters, experienced people to advise on form), and there are also lots of videos on you tube... Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe is a really good beginner's programme, because of the detail Rippetoe goes into regarding correct form.

A few great posts so far. Goal oriented training > one solution for all

I'll only add that the fun factor creates consistency: fun+consistency and goals > goal oriented training > any single program.

But I rarely see people saying that weight training is the only solution - it's usually a short cut to say it's the most efficient and general solution for body recomposition. But if you don't like it, how are you going to be consistent?

Do what you like that fits your goals, make it progressive. Rinse. Repeat.

I agree, and I think what some members neglect to mention when offering the advice to lift heavy, is the safety aspect that comes with it. Yes you can get great results with heavy lifting if your form is good, but newbies won't know anything about good form, which could lead to serious injuries, and just reading a book, online guide/ YouTube is not sufficient in my view. In that aspect newbies should get a trainer and work their way up to lifting heavy if they so desire.

I guess the main message I want to get over, is start slow, low weights, get good form and make sure you are looking after yourself. You don't want to snap your **** up!

the programmes mention emphasise the importance of starting light, working on form, and then building the weights up slowly. That's what they teach. They start with the empty bar (and you can start with less than that if the empty bar feels heavy) and you increase the weight slowly after you learn good form.

I realise this, but as a newbie it would be hard to know yourself what is good form, hence the need for a trainer or spotter.

agreed, but the programmes do advise that (i.e. spotters, experienced people to advise on form), and there are also lots of videos on you tube... Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe is a really good beginner's programme, because of the detail Rippetoe goes into regarding correct form.

I do starting strength

A good foundation is the key here. First correcting your posture, many people have desk or repetitive jobs, so any muscle imbalance must be corrected, and the body aligned with stretching and or yoga, if you do any exercise with poor posture it will at some point cause you injury! 2nd body weight, balance and coordination exercises, for example; Calisthenics, press ups, pull ups, planks to front/side, burpees, hanging leg raise, lunges forwards back and sideways, box jumps etc this is because we need to be fully functional and the neurological pathways need to be trained, I believe the development of core strength is paramount, after this you are ready to lift weight, the logic being this 'if you cannot stand correctly or effectively use your body under its own weight, then it is unwise to add extra heavy weight on top of a poor foundation'

As for lifting heavy, this is more about your desired end goal, as an example; I do martial arts so I have trained to have a well balanced body with a strong core and supple strength speed and endurance, so I do a lot of calisthenics and I lift 'mostly' low/medium high volume and do lots of body weight balance and stretching, because I need core and relaxed strength with speed and to have a full range of motion, basically I need to be agile.

I think what most people allude to when they propose lifting heavy is the importance of building muscle, so its from a metabolic view or mindset, and thats also a very important point,

I agree to a point, but when someone posts that they've been doing 6 days a week of cardio for a year and not seeing the results they want, guess what the recommendation is going to be. It's not one size fits all but it's something that works, which is why it's mentioned so much here.

Seems like this was posted to start trouble.

Seems like this was posted to start trouble.

I agree.

I am going to add though, that regardless of the OP, heavy lifting is a great avenue for weight loss. There are lots of examples on this forum of people having great success. I have seen great examples on other websites like bodybuilding dot com and stronglifts dot com. The bottom line, it is about what is going to work for the individual but if something isn't working, such as cardio only, then you need to look at other options and the big one is heavy lifting.