Hacking strength: Gaining muscle with least resistance

Buying a pressing machine is terrible advice. I'm sure it cost him hundreds or at most a few thousand. He could have gotten a set of heavier dumbbells for that money, or a barbell.

For the record, any lifter should know how to either dump the weight on a barbell or roll it down the chest. It isn't particularly dangerous to bench without a spotter if you're not going to failure

A word of caution... StrongLifts and Starting Strength promote advanced compound motions (ie., deadlift, bench press, squat, etc). So, it's great to kick start your muscle growth mechanism and gain strength. It's hard to argue against the deadlift, squat and bench press. But personally I've found that these exercises can be difficult and you need instruction. For the bench press you want to arch your back and bring your shoulder blades together to give support as you press so you don't injure your shoulder and/or rotator cuff. The squat and deadlift also aren't simple exercises. Lots of people get injured doing these advanced exercises.

I'd highly recommend watching a bunch of videos on correct form (ie., Starting Strength has a decent dvd and YouTube has some decent tutorials). But even better would be to get a very good personal trainer to teach you these lifts.

I'm just really hesitant suggesting a beginner to go out to the gym and try these moves on their own. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

My other criticism of StrongLifts and Starting Strength is because of the complexity of the movements, the higher in weight you go the more you really should have a spotter and that just makes working out that much more complicated (need to arrange a time to meet someone, etc). If you don't use a spotter and you've progressed to some really heavy weights then it can be dangerous. There's quite of few deaths from the bench press every year.

Personally, rather than pushing myself alone a barbell squat what I'll do is I'll pre-exhaust myself with a few sets of barbell squats (moderate weight) and then go to exhaustion on the leg extension, leg press and leg curl machines. This to me is a much safer route then trying to max out on a barbell squat.

For deadlift, I do a modified stiff-leg deadlift (I learned this by watching Dorian Yates) where I start from a standing position and don't go down all the way. I also use moderate weights for this.

For bench press, I had to learn correct form (after hurting my shoulder a bit thinking I knew how to bench). I go max weight on this but I use one of those assisted power racks for safety.

To me the lifts that Starting Strength and Stronglifts promote are too important to ignore but I just don't agree with their program for everyone. For beginners working out by themselves in the gym and wanting to do the deadlift, squat and bench press... I suggest:

1. Learn proper form on these advanced movements from an expert.

2. Go moderate weight on deadlift and barbell squats if you're working out by yourself.

3. Don't be stupid on the bench press by lifting your max without a spotter. I read that more deaths happen because of the bench press than any other exercise in the gym.

For beginners, I would probably not suggest not StartingStrength/StrongLifts. But rather, I'd suggest working out 2-3 times a week (average 20-30 minutes per workout) using High Intensity Training principles and techniques. The basic principles is doing one set to muscular failure per exercise.

If you're really just starting out, read Body By Science (Little and McGuff) and follow their Big Five exercise program. It's the top 5 exercises (machines) that you do once a week. Just one set each to failure and it only takes 20 minutes/week. The key is going to failure.

If you're wanting more, check out The New High Intensity Training (Darden). He summarizes the basics of H.I.T and gives some decent workouts. He suggests 3 times a week for beginners and the workouts take less than 30 minutes each. Again the key is going to failure with each exercise.

The blog post had some decent information but I think it was a bit scattered to me.

Here are the key principles to gaining muscle with the least resistance (in my opinion):

1. Lift heavy as possible - you'll have a difficult time stimulating lots of muscle growth with light weights which I've personally tried.

2. Use proper form - tons of people get injured on heavy resistance exercises because of improper form or lifting too much without a spotter.

3. Go to muscular failure - the final rep where you can't lift the weight no more is the most important. It contributes the most to kick starting your muscle growth mechanism.

4. Don't overtrain - you need to give your body ample rest and recovery for your muscles to grow the most. (Personally I'm training once every 3 days and currently this is working well for me).

5. Train the full body - building stronger/bigger legs will help build mass everywhere in your body. Don't think you're get strong just doing push-ups. You need to work all the major muscles in some way - quads, hamstring, glutes, calves, pecs, lats, delts, triceps, biceps, etc.

6. You only need to spend 25 minutes 2-3 times a week. Tip: look into High Intensity Training principles from Arthur Jones, Mentzer, Darden and others. They promoted short, intense workouts (usually one set to failure per exercise) that stimulated arguably more muscle growth than longer workouts.

I go to the little gym my apartment has, they have dumbbells. I will work out with dumbbells, even if people claim they are not as great. I can get a good work-out in with them.

I can still do compound movements with them, I can still train particular parts of my body, and I can train my body as a whole. I also add body weight training, I can't yet do squats with weight, push-ups, crunches, sit-ups, all those fun exercises. Dumbbells are just one of the many tools to help me get a good work-out in.

It's a 6.5lb per week gain, which is within the range of a linear progression program.