Starting Strength Summary – Mark Rippetoe

Blog > Book Summaries > Health & Vitality

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

Starting Strength (2005)

Basic Barbell Training

by Mark Rippetoe

Paperback | Ebook | Audiobook

Looking for a full, FREE Starting Strength summary?

You're in the right place!

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

Starting Strength Summary

This publisher’s blurb comes from the Aasgaard Company’s 2013 3rd edition of Starting Strength

“Starting Strength has been called the best and most useful of fitness books.

The second edition, Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, sold over 80,000 copies in a competitive global market for fitness education.

Along with Practical Programming for Strength Training 2nd Edition, they form a simple, logical, and practical approach to strength training.

Now, after six more years of testing and adjustment with thousands of athletes in seminars all over the country, the updated third edition expands and improves on the previous teaching methods and biomechanical analysis.

No other book on barbell training ever written provides the detailed instruction on every aspect of the basic barbell exercises found in SS:BBT3.

And while the methods for implementing barbell training detailed in the book are primarily aimed at young athletes, they have been successfully applied to everyone: young and old, male and female, fit and flabby, sick and healthy, weak and already strong.

Many people all over the world have used the simple biological principle of stress/recovery/adaptation on which this method is based to improve their performance, their appearance, and their long-term health.

With over 150,000 copies in print in three editions, Starting Strength is the most important method available to learn the most effective way to train with barbells — the most important way to improve your strength, your health, and your life.

• Why barbells are the most effective tools for strength training.
• The mechanical basis of barbell training, concisely and logically explained.
• All new photographs and improved illustrations of all the lifts, and the biomechanics behind them.
• Complete, easy-to-follow instructions for performing the basic barbell exercises: the squat, press, deadlift, bench press, power clean, and the power snatch.
• Revised instruction methods for all six lifts, proven effective in four years of seminar, military, and group instruction.
• How the human body adapts to stress through recovery, and why this is the foundation of the development of strength and lifetime health.
• How to program the basic exercises into the most effective program for long-term progress.
• Completely indexed.
• The most productive method in existence for anyone beginning a strength training program.

Starting Strength Contents

Starting Strength contains 8 main chapters…

Chapter 1 – Strength: Why and How

• Why Barbells?

Chapter 2 – The Squat

• Loaded Human Movement
• Squat Depth — Safety and Importance
• Learning to Squat
• Leverage and Moment — The Basis of Barbell Training
• Common Problems Everyone Should Know How to Solve
• The Master Cue
• Breathing
• Spotting the Squat
• Personal Equipment
• Coaching Cues

Chapter 3 – The Press

• Learning to Press
• Faults and Corrections

Chapter 4 — The Deadlift

• Learning to Deadlift
• Back Position
• Pulling Mechanics
• The Little Details

Chapter 5 — The Bench Press

• Learning to Bench Press
• Common Problems Everyone Should Know How to Solve
• Breathing
• Racking Errors
• Spotters

Chapter 6 – The Power Clean

• The Neuromuscular System
• Power, Force Production, and Velocity
• Learning the Power Clean
• Correcting Problems
• The Power Snatch

Chapter 7 – Useful Assistance Exercises

• Partial Movements
• Squat Variations
• Bench Press Variations
• Deadlift Variations
• Press Variations
• Ancillary Exercises
• Barbell Training: There’s Just No Substitute

Chapter 8 – Programming

• Learning the Lifts
• Nutrition and Bodyweight
• Equipment
• Soreness and Injuries
• Barbell Training for Kids

Best Starting Strength Quotes

These Starting Strength quotes come from The Art of Living's ever-growing central library of thoughts, anecdotes, notes, and inspirational quotes.

"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

Read More: 5 Books Like Starting Strength

Enjoyed this Starting Strength summary? You might enjoy the rest of the books on these lists of the Best Health Books and Best Self Help Books of all time.

And in the meantime...

Here are 5 top books like Starting Strength...


1. Being Mortal - Atul Gawande (FREE Summary)
Medicine and What Matters in the End
Being Mortal is an uncomfortable yet enlightening exploration of how treating terminal disease (especially linked to ageing) as a purely extend-life-at-all-costs medical problem is destroying the final moments of our lives - by surgeon and best selling author, Atul Gawande.
Published 2014 // 282 pages // Rated 4.4 over 155,700 reviews on Goodreads

2. Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker (FREE Summary)
Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
Why We Sleep is a fascinating and accessible guide to what sleep is, why sleep matters and how to optimise your sleep habits to live longer, feel happier and set your life up for success - by sleep scientist and best-selling author, Matthew Walker.
Published 2017 // 368 pages // Rated 4.4 over 125,800 reviews on Goodreads

3. How Not to Die - Michael Greger (FREE Summary)
Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease
How Not to Die is a deeply researched and compelling primer on the promise and importance of whole food plant-based nutrition in preventing and reversing disease - by medical doctor and nutrition expert, Michael Greger.
Published 2015 // 576 pages // Rated 4.4 over 31,000 reviews on Goodreads

4. Born to Run - Christopher McDougall (FREE Summary)
A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
Born to Run takes takes running back to its roots in this critically acclaimed analysis of evolution, injury and recovery that is filled with compelling insights, great story telling and practical tips - by best-selling author and journalist, Christopher McDougall.
Published 2009 // 287 pages // Rated 4.3 over 186,300 reviews on Goodreads

5. The Body - Bill Bryson (FREE Summary)
A Guide for Occupants
The Body is a fantastically-written and awe-inspiring 23-chapter tour through the 30 trillion cells that (literally) make you who you are - by best-selling author, Bill Bryson.
Published 2019 // 450 pages // Rated 4.3 over 58,200 reviews on Goodreads

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…

1. 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 →
2. 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 →
3. 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 →
4. 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 →