Strong Lifts 5 x 5 program for the beginner :)

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Any concern with starting this with dumbbells instead of barbell? I am a noob, have a good set of dumbbell weights but no barbell or bench. :embarassed:

Thanks!

I've been doing Strong Lifts since early June. I also bought both of Rippetoe's books (Starting Strength and Practical Programming). While I think both of these programs, or any barbell program for that matter is likely the most efficient way to gain maximal strength in a beginner, I do not think this program is for everyone.

To demonstrate my point, the Starting Strength book is over 200 pages, and 90% of this book is instruction on how to properly do 5 lifts. I think the squat instruction is 60 pages by itself.

It is very easy to get injured doing barbell lifts because there are so many things you need to be concerned with that could go wrong during the motion. I had to stop doing squats about a month and a half ago because of tendonitus in my knee. Also I had extreme shoulder pain due to lack of flexibility during the lift, and also hurt my upper back for about 2 days.

In deadlifts, I pulled my lower back slightly on two different occasions but I was only hurting for 2 days there as well.

They (or at least Rippetoe) recommends having coaches and spotters for the lifts, which is obviously very impractical for many of us, but novices tend to have horrendous form and it might be needed to take on such a program. I thought my form was decent from my self-analysis, but I think my injuries probably would say otherwise.

Also Mehdi is full of crap in a lot of ways since he is against anything that isn't barbell. Much of what he says will contradict what Lyle McDonald says about lifting. Lyle actually understands that novices can't all do barbell workouts and sometimes need machine workouts.

With all that being said I found the program to be quite motivating, especially with the simplicity and progressive overload so it takes a while to plateau. Just take form seriously.

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Excellent!! Thank you so much!!

OK...total noob here. I would like to start this program and have a question. How long do you rest between sets? Thanks! :-)

I've been doing this since July and the suggestion is to rest 90 seconds between sets and longer if the set is more diffiuclt even up to 5 minutes. There is an ipod/ipone app for stronglifts which has a timer that automaticially starts after you enter the set and even flashes after 90 seconds. Unfortunatley there's not one from stronglifts for android but there is "LiftBig" which is essentially the same thing and does have a timer however you have to start it, it doesn't start automatically. If the set is difficult the recommendation is to rest longer for more recovery.

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Hey -- something I can understand! Thanks!

Bump, that's great, thanks!