Mark Rippetoe on bodyweight training

On Reddit, he did an AMA. You can see it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comment ... th/c35fjtm

Someone asked him the following question:

What are your thoughts on body weight programs like 'convict conditioning'?

He replied:

These programs are not training, they are exercise. Random activity produces results only for about 6 weeks. You may have noticed this. Correctly designed barbell training programs take advantage of the fact that barbells can be incrementally loaded and gradually made heavier, thus forcing the body to gradually become stronger at a rate that can be supported by each individual. If you only use your own bodyweight for the resistance, it severely limits your ability to tailor the resistance to meet your current level of adaptation, and to gradually increase that adaptation so as to improve ypour strength in a predictable, directable way.

Later down the page he asks the following question:

Who is stronger? The guy who squats 505, or the guy who uses his bodyweight for all his exercises? This is not a complicated issue.

He keeps up this theme throughout. Can anyone say "herp derp?" Hey Mark, who's stronger? A guy who can do a Victorian or a guy who uses barbells for all his exercises?

Finally, Coach Sommer's name get's thrown into the foray:

Disagree all you want to. How does coach Sommer's method make me strong enough to deadlift 600 pounds?

Good question, Mark. I have one for you. How do your methods make me strong enough to do an iron cross or a maltese?

Just to be clear though, his response is actually about P90X / Insanity.

Which response?

When he said "These programs are not training, they are exercise"

FWIW I'm a moderator on r/Fitness

I don't see where you're getting that.

The parents to his quote ask about his opinion on Convict Conditioning and Never Gymless. He replied to the post about Never Gymless.

I don't believe he understood the threading model of reddit when replying to that, as he did ask the moderator a question regarding it

what is going on with the reply system there?? :?: :?:

ts00nami said:

what is going on with the reply system there?? :?: :?:

It's a standard "threading model". Meaning your reply goes under who you specifically reply to. It's made to maintain context.

See how you and I have started this conversation that doesn't relate to the main thread? It'd be off in it's own little thread

hah, good ole Mark. What else would you expect?

Can I gain strength via bodyweight work? Yes. I could also gain strength throwing children over walls, that does not make it the most effective (although I would argue it is the most entertaining) method.

The best post on that thread.

To be fair, "the system" is actually quite similar. The GB system is simple: You pick an exercise appropriate to your level, build your strength through the SSC, and then decrease the leverage to make the exercise more appropriately difficult and repeat. That's essentially the same thing as incremental barbell loading, modified as necessary to take into account the impracticality of microloading the human body in low leverage positions.

We do weighted SLS here, and while a weighted single leg Bulgarian split squat would probably carry over to a back squat more directly the fact is that you will build up to heavy squats if you practice weighted SLS regularly and incrementally increase the load over time. There may be some issues with spinal loading, but if one is working the full gamut of GB exercise one will develop the ability to step under a fairly heavy bar right away. Of course no one thing prepares you as well for a back squat as actually back squatting but that's another hurr durr kind of statement, you know?

Throwing children while squatting on a stability ball is the next step!

ugh his dogmatic view of the definition of strong really bothers me...

i guess he will produce people that think they are strong because they can deadliest or squat a lot, while gymnastic coaches produce athletes that think they are strong because they can do iron crosses.

But dammit i hate it when beef head *********** guys like that shoot down a group of people who are near the top of the strength:body weight ratio game simply because they don't know anything about the methods

sorry, i had to vent. comments like his just piss me off...

I agree with Rip..... Most people in that forum in Reddit argue with him because they dont understand what he is saying....Rippetoe says it is very difficult and slow to progress purely through bodyweight exercises....We all know about the SSC cycle for stuff like planches, its a very slow progression, taking many many months to reach the planche from the tuck planche. But if you do a barbell program, you can relatively quickly increase your poundage to several times your bodyweight in the bench press. Aside from the difficulty to guage progress from a session to session, unlike in a beginner-intermediate barbell program, stuff like planches are far more complex movements than traditional barbell exercises(except most of the movements in olympic lifting), and are therefore very slow in progression.

We gymnasts (non-competitve guys like me) train using Coach Sommer's methods bcoz we want to be able to one day do ring planches and iron crosses not bcoz we wanna get big numbers in the Big Three. Rippetoe, oly lifters and power lifters train to lift the heaviest weight possible on a barbell, so are Coach Sommers methods alone gonna make them squat 600lbs? No.They will be really good additions but are not gonna work like Rippetoe's methods. And barbell work will be excellent additions to GB members, but are not gonna help us without the bread and butter, that is BtGB.

To have a big Squat, you have to squat from day one and keep on adding weight whenever possible. For a beginner to have a very strong planche, he must progress slowly for maybe a few years from the tuck to the planche and then he can add ankle weights to make his planche even stronger.

And Rip was right where he said "These programs are not training, they are exercise. Random activity produces results only for about 6 weeks. You may have noticed this. Correctly designed barbell training programs take advantage of the fact that barbells can be incrementally loaded and gradually made heavier, thus forcing the body to gradually become stronger at a rate that can be supported by each individual. If you only use your own bodyweight for the resistance, it severely limits your ability to tailor the resistance to meet your current level of adaptation, and to gradually increase that adaptation so as to improve your strength in a predictable, directable way."

He meant programs like P90X and Never Gymless and Convict Conditioning which are nothing more than a collection of exercises when compared with a complete program by an elite coach such as BtGB. And even Coach Sommer uses weighted versions of many exercises to help progress to the next exercise.

Yeah and Coach Sommer's student JJ Gregory deadlifted 400lbs at 132lbs bcoz of the carryover from gymnastics training. If he had also trained specifically for the deadlift, he would have pulled probably 600lbs.(That is a very high poundage, but shorter guys do have better leverages....look at Franco Columbu).

And by the way, b4 you guys think i am telling Rippetoe is better than Coach Sommer, u guys are completely wrong. All i meant was that many people misunderstood Rippetoe and our dear Coach and Rip have very similar views on training like all elite minds.

I don't agree with you regarding what Rip is saying - his statement "Who is stronger? The guy who squats 505, or the guy who uses his bodyweight for all his exercises? This is not a complicated issue." is unequivocal. He is saying you will get stronger using barbells and weights than you will doing bodyweight exercises - much stronger. It is implicit (I think) in his statements that BW work is not up to much. He is also saying that the programs in Convict Conditioning and Never Gymless are "random" and will not yield results (not after about 6 weeks anyway).

His rhetorical question about "who is stronger.." is meaningless, as a previous commentator has pointed out. You might as well ask "who is stronger? The guy who squats 505, or the guy who does an iron cross? Or a dragon flag? Or a [insert unfeasibly difficult bodyweight exercise of choice]?"

I can't speak for Convict Conditioning, but I have a copy of Never Gymless and I have to wonder if Rip has read it. It is far from random and provides a most amazing program for strength and conditioning using BW exercise only. (With one or two accessories if you want to consider them).

It is a pity that Rip feels it necessary to denigrate BW work this way - I would have thought someone in his position would have been better acquainted with the facts - if only by occasionally seeing what BW trained athletes such as gymnasts are capable of.

John Dalton said:

He meant programs like P90X and Never Gymless and Convict Conditioning which are nothing more than a collection of exercises when compared with a complete program by an elite coach such as BtGB. And even Coach Sommer uses weighted versions of many exercises to help progress to the next exercise

To be fair, here, NG uses weighted versions of things too, and Ross recommends weight vests numerous times in his books. I think NG even contains sandbag work (though don't quote me on that, I also own Infinite Intensity - one of them has sandbag work)

Guys, I don't think you can't compare a heavy back squat with an iron cross of a planche... they don't even share the same movement pattern! How can either take more strength in the other? If you compared a 500 lb back squat with a 250 lb split squat, it would make sense because the movement pattern is mostly the same. Both involve lower body pressing.

You may be able to become stronger quicker with weights in certain movements because they do not require such careful prehab and preparation, but that certainly doesn't mean that weights are superior to bodyweight. It takes forever to condition yourself to doing an iron cross, but the strength you have once you achieved it is tremendous.

Why does this always end up with some "expert" on weight lifting dissing bodyweight? I hope people will eventually realize that these methodologies are simply a means to and end, not the end themselves. As usual, some form of combination will yield the best results.

@phrak, I think that by this "weights vs. bodyweight" thing is only contrasting the standard weight lifts (back squat and front squat, military press, bench press, deadlift, etc) versus actually adding weight. I don't adding a weight vest doesn't change the bodyweight methodology.

Rip often has an audience of young, skinny bastards who want to fill out rather than want to stay in that 140-170 pound range. More than likely the majority of his audience that train at this gym want to do the traditional ball sports, wrestle, judo, etc.

How often do we hear of Rip talking about conditioning? Almost nil. I'm not sure he ever has on record and he is generally focusing on the building of strength through the simple lifts and olympic lifting.

Blairbob said:

Rip often has an audience of young, skinny bastards who want to fill out rather than want to stay in that 140-170 pound range. More than likely the majority of his audience that train at this gym want to do the traditional ball sports, wrestle, judo, etc.

That's true

Yes Rip is quite rude :wink:

I own a copy of Starting Strength and he does praise the dip, back extension, GHR and the chin-up/pull-up. He likes the dip better than the push-up as it can be loaded easier. He even said that the dip is to the bench press what the chin-up is to the pulldown, and to work up to full-range dips to gain max benefits. So he can't be all bad eh?

yeah he is not so "elite" as I think about it now.

I'm sure he's good at what he does for his clients, but he sometimes gives off a "troll" aura ...

Rip is from Texas. Rip tends to be very firm with a No-BS approach you'll find. And Rip has had his gym longer than most of us have been alive, much less working out.

Sometimes I have thought that Rip has been ass but he isn't, really.

I'm sure you're right, BlairBob. He knows his stuff. It's just unfortunate that he doesn't know Coach's moderately well, too. No disrespect intended towards him, though. 8)

phrak said:

ts00nami said:

what is going on with the reply system there?? :?: :?:

It's a standard "threading model". Meaning your reply goes under who you specifically reply to. It's made to maintain context.

See how you and I have started this conversation that doesn't relate to the main thread? It'd be off in it's own little thread

Threading would be awesome on this forum.