BEST Mark Rippetoe Books & Quotes of All Time (February 2023)

by Arthur Worsley
M.A. Psychology, Oxford. McKinsey Alum. Founder & Editor at TAoL.

Looking for the best Mark Rippetoe books and quotes of all time?

You're in the right place!

Here's what you'll find on this page...

Contents

1. Who Is Mark Rippetoe?

2. The Best Mark Rippetoe Books of All Time

3. More Books Like Mark Rippetoe's Books

4. Best Mark Rippetoe Quotes

5. Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?

Who Is Mark Rippetoe?

Mark Rippetoe (born February 12, 1956) is an American strength training coach and author. He has published a number of books and peer-reviewed articles and is best known for his book Starting Strength.

Learn more about Mark Rippetoe

The Best Mark Rippetoe Books of All Time

Why these best Mark Rippetoe books and not others? To stay objective, I rank all my book recommendations by a combination of what’s most loved (Goodreads rating), what’s most popular (Goodreads review count) and what’s proven timlessly relevant (first publication date).

This isn’t a whimsical list. It’s a data-driven, crowdsourced collection of the best Mark Rippetoe books ever published as decided by book lovers like you.

And if you think something's missing? I LOVE book recommendations so if there are any other books by Mark Rippetoe that you think deserve mentioning, email me and I’ll be sure to include them in the next round of updates.

Until then, here are the best Mark Rippetoe books of all time...

Best Mark Rippetoe Books: Starting Strength

1. Starting Strength - Mark Rippetoe (FREE Summary)

Basic Barbell Training

Published 2005 // 320 pages // Rated 4.5 over 9,000 reviews on Goodreads

Best Mark Rippetoe Books: Practical Programming for Strength Training

2. Practical Programming for Strength Training - Mark Rippetoe

Published 2006 // 282 pages // Rated 4.3 over 2,500 reviews on Goodreads

Best Mark Rippetoe Books: Strong Enough?

3. Strong Enough? - Mark Rippetoe

Thoughts from Thirty Years of Barbell Training

Published 2007 // 204 pages // Rated 4.1 over 600 reviews on Goodreads

See all Mark Rippetoe's books on Amazon
Visit Mark Rippetoe's Goodreads profile

More Books Like Mark Rippetoe's Books

Enjoyed these Mark Rippetoe books? You might also like...

Best Health Books: 35 TOP Books on Nutrition, Fitness, Sleep

Best Pregnancy Books: The 30 BEST Maternity Books of All Time

See all TAoL's book recommendations →

Best Mark Rippetoe Quotes

Here are some of the best Mark Rippetoe of all time...

"A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"The deadlift also serves as a way to train the mind to do things that are hard."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard physical effort."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"You do not need to do many different exercises to get strong - you need to get strong on a very few important exercises, movements that train the whole body as a system, not as a collection of separate body parts. The problem with the programs advocated by all the national exercise organizations is that they fail to recognize this basic principle: the body best adapts as a whole organism to stress applied to the whole organism. The more stress that can be applied to as much of the body at one time as possible, the more effective and productive the adaptation will be."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"'Squatting' in a Smith machine is an oxymoron. A Smith machine is not a squat rack, no matter what... the front desk tells you. A squat cannot be performed on a Smith machine any more than it can be performed in a small closet with a hamster. Sorry. There is a gigantic difference between a machine that makes the bar path vertical for you and a squat that is executed correctly enough to have a vertical bar path. The job of keeping the bar path vertical should be done by the muscles, skeleton, and nervous system, not by grease fittings, rails, and floor bolts."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"There is no easy way to do a deadlift—not involving actually picking up the bar—which explains their lack of popularity in gyms around the world."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"If you insist on using a thumbless grip on the bench, you need to do it at home so that when the ambulance comes (if anyone is there to call 911), it doesn’t disrupt anyone else’s training."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

"The reality of millions of years of adaptation to a ruggedly physical existence will not just go away because desks were invented."

- Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength

Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?

Whenever you’re ready, here are four ways I can help you be more productive, find more balance and live life more on purpose…

Curious? Discover how productive you really are… Take this free, 2-minute assessment to unlock your PQ and discover the top 25 habits you need to get big things done. Take the 2-minute quiz →
Overwhelmed? Get a free chapter of my book… Let me show you how to beat procrastination, permanently, with this free sneak peek inside TAoL’s ultimate productivity primer. Download your free chapter →
Stuck? Grab a 90-Day TRACKTION Planner… Get the tool thousands trust to help them take control of their time, master their habits and hit goals in every part of their lives. Order your 90-day planner →
Burned out? Join the TRACKTION Community… Take the 6-week masterclass, get weekly group coaching, find accountability partners and connect with like-minded self-starters. Get started FREE →