The Strongest Shall ALWAYS Survive!

 Today marks the 9-year anniversary of Bill Starr's death, so I thought today would be fitting to post this article.  Word of warning: It's the longest article I've posted on this blog, and probably the longest article I've ever written - at over 4k words - but I decided to not break it up into several posts, but to just post it "as is".  I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it brings more awareness to just how damn great of a writer, strength athlete, and coach Starr was.

The Perennial Training Wisdom of Bill Starr’s Classic Strength Program

     I took my dog Kenji for a walk this morning.  I live in the “Deep South” of Alabama, and one of the best things about ‘Bama—at least in the central and northern portions of the state—is the beauty of the local trails and parks, perfect for keeping me, and my 110-pound Labrador Retriever, in decent shape.  But don’t worry, I’m not here to wax euphoric over a man and his best friend—as much as I could easily do that for the entirety of this article.  No, my morning routine got me thinking about something else, something that would be much closer to the minds and hearts of readers than me and my canine companion.  You see, when I finished my hour-long walk, I went back to my house and to my garage gym, and lifted for an hour.  It’s something that I learned from the late, decidedly friggin’ great Bill Starr who recommended that “older athletes”—I’ve now been lifting for 3 and ½ decades, so I’m afraid that I fit the bill—should always walk for an hour and then train for an hour (or vice-versa) six-days-per-week, using predominantly full-body workouts for high reps.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried some different training programs, and will probably always experiment with some varying methodologies until I leave for that great big gym in the sky (my heaven looks pretty much exactly like the Gold’s Gym of Venice Beach in the ‘70s), but lately I always find myself returning to Starr’s advice.  And that’s exactly what I want to discuss with you in this article: the wisdom of Bill Starr’s training methodology that is still just as good as anything out there to this very day.

     A lot of lifters—and hopefully readers—know something about Starr, and are at least somewhat familiar with his 1979 classic “The Strongest Shall Survive,” but there was way more to Starr and his ground-breaking book and programs than most people realize; I know that “groundbreaking” can seem a bit cliche these days, but it’s 100% accurate in Starr’s case.  And with the 9th-year anniversary of his death upon us—he died at the age of 77 on April 7th, 2015—I thought it as good-of-a-time as ever to remind readers of Starr’s many insights, or perhaps learn about them for the first time.

     A few weeks after his death, I wrote this about him, and, to be honest, I think it’s even more true now than when I wrote it then.  This is what I wrote:

     For those of you who don't know—and most of you who have read my training articles do know—my primary inspiration in training and writing has always been Bill Starr.  Perhaps nowadays people—powerlifters, strength athletes, readers of the major bodybuilding magazines—think that Starr is too "old-school."  Well, old-school, in my book, is just fine.  Bill Starr was, and always will be, the best-of-the-best.

     When I grow tired of writing training articles, I return to Bill Starr.  (Who wrote damn good, by the way.)

     When I grow tired of my current training program, I return to Bill Starr.

     When I grow weary of all the modern gadgets—stuff like training balls, chains, bands, and one-legged whatever—I return to Bill Starr.

     When I grow weary of all the modern "trainers" and all of their methods, I return to Bill Starr.

     And when I just need a reminder of why I love to write and love to lift in the first place, I return to Bill Starr.

     With that little tidbit out of the way, let’s look at some of the tenets, tips, and insights that made Starr one-of-a-kind.  This list isn’t exhaustive by any means, as it just discusses his “The Strongest Shall Survive” methodology in greater depth.  In fact, this is probably just the advice that most impacted my use of his programs.  But if it impacted me, then I figure it can do the same for you.

The Benefits of “Structured” Full-Body Workouts

     The funny thing is that I never read Starr that much until I was already writing for some of the major bodybuilding magazines in the ‘90s.  From ‘93 until the end of the century, I wrote regular articles for the now-defunct IronMan and MuscleMag International, and every time that I had an article out in one of those magazines, I would receive a copy in the mail.  I would glance at my article just to see what the magazine did with it from a design perspective, but I always devoured the rest of the magazine to keep up with the (then) current methods of training and eating.  It seemed as if Starr had an article in almost every issue, and as I began to read his articles, I realized that he knew way more than I had ever given him credit for, and certainly way more than me.  And it wasn’t long before I was using his workouts and getting the best results of my life!

     The first reason that I probably overlooked Starr before that was that his workout programs were no-frills, full-body routines.  I certainly used full-body workouts when I first started training—as did almost all lifters who began training in the ‘80s—but in the early to mid ‘90s most lifters switched over to less-voluminous, less-frequent, more “intense” split workouts.  (You can probably blame Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates for most of that.)  So before I started reading Starr more intently, I thought of full-body workouts as too “basic” and, to be honest, boring.  Starr made me change that perspective completely.

     With what I would call his “programmed” full-body routines—they weren’t “set in stone” each training week, but used a combination of micro and macro periodization schemes—he made me realize the importance of having a set template with plenty of variety built into it.

     Starr is most-known for popularizing the 5x5 method of training using a heavy/light/medium training load each week.  With his method, you work up over 5 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps until you hit your max for the day for 5 repetitions.  In addition, you train heavy on the first training day of the week (Monday, for instance), light on the 2nd training day of the week (Wednesday), and medium on the 3rd training day (Friday).  Let’s say that you are training your squat on his methodology, and you have a max set for 5 reps on the squat that is around 315 pounds.  In that case, your week of training the squat would look something such as this:

Monday - Heavy

135x5 reps, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x5

Wednesday - Light

135x5 reps, 185x5, 225x5x3 sets

Friday - Medium

135x5 reps, 185x5, 225x5, 240x5, 275x5

     You will notice that on the light day, you are using around 70-75% of your top set from the heavy day, and on the medium day you are using between 85-90% of that.  This is, if you will, however, just the starting point of Starr’s program.

The Importance of Calculating Workload

     At the core of his system, “heavy” is not calculated based on how heavy you actually lifted that day, but on the total workload done for the squat on that day.  In fact, workload, as you will see shortly, becomes the key point of his methods. In the above scenario, for instance, your workload for each squat session looks like this:

Monday: 5,675 pounds

Wednesday: 4,075 pounds

Friday: 5,300 pounds

     And here is one of the geniuses, in my opinion, of his system.  As you progress, you will often train “heavier” on the medium training day, working up to a heavy triple instead of a heavy set of 5.  If you were our hypothetical squatter above, let’s say after a couple of months of just squatting with the above program, you are now able to squat 350 pounds for 5 reps, but you’re feeling stuck.  At this point, it’s time to switch over to 3-rep training days on the Medium day.  Here is what a week of squats might now look like:

Monday - Heavy

135x5 reps, 205x5, 275x5, 315x5, 350x5

Wednesday - Light

135x5 reps, 185x5, 225x5, 250x5, 275x5

Friday - Medium

135x5 reps, 205x5, 275x5, 325x3, 355x3

     When you return to the squat rack on the following Monday, you will attempt the same workout as the Medium day, but you will attempt the 325 and 355 for 5 reps instead of 3.  Notice, too, that the overall workload begins to increase as you get stronger, including the light and medium days.  Here’s the workload for the above week of squatting (notice how it compares to the previous week of squatting):

Monday: 6,400 pounds

Wednesday: 5,350 pounds

Friday: 5,825 pounds

     By this point, notice too that the light day now has more workload than the medium day had on our first hypothetical week.  But also keep in mind that his system revolved around a complete, full-body workout, and squats were just the starting point of his program.  After you squatted, you would always pick a pulling movement, and then a “shoulder girdle” exercise such as bench presses or overhead presses.  So you have to calculate the workload for the entire session, not just each exercise.  The most important thing, in fact, is that the total workload for each workout falls into either the heavy, light, or medium category.  This also means that you have to keep track not just of the work on your “Big 3” but on all your assistance exercises.

The Need for Systematic Exercise Variety

     Starr’s programs often used completely different exercises for the same muscle groups on each training day.  In fact, another interesting way that he liked to determine heavy, light, or medium was by exercise selection.  One of the beauties of this is that it takes “calculating weights” out of your mind.  For instance, as you get more advanced, you won’t squat on each training day, but instead you’ll pick exercises that won’t allow you to do anything more than a “light” or “medium” workload.

     Once you reach the point where you think you need more variety in squats, I would start by substituting a different exercise on your “light” day.  I like the reverse lunge on this day.  I believe the reverse lunge is a great “squat builder” for a couple of reasons.  One, you can do it in the squat rack in the same place that you perform your squats—great for guys that train in a garage gym like me or have access to only limited equipment.  Two, it seems to have a better carryover to your squats—for whatever reason—than doing forward lunges.  This probably has something to do with the fact that the movement of stepping back, instead of forward, is more natural.  Perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that a reverse lunge more closely resembles a step-up, and step-ups are a great exercise for increasing your squat.  (It also more closely resembles a one-legged squat, since your "squatting" leg stays put in the reverse lunge.)

     The reverse lunge, however, is really just a natural exercise for your light day because of the weights used.  Reverse lunges just don't allow you to use very much weight.  If you squat 405  on your heavy day and 350 on your medium day, you will have a tough time achieving even 250 on reverse lunges.  This also helps to take a lot of the guesswork out of the light day.  With reverse lunges, you can train as "heavy" as you are capable of training, and it will still be "light".

     As you get more advanced, and as you discover that you really do need more variety than just lunges, you should substitute another exercise for squats on the medium day.  I think the best exercise to start with on a medium day is the front squat.  If you perform 5 sets of 5 for squats on Heavy Day, 5 sets of 5 for reverse lunges on Light Day, and 5 sets of 5 for front squats on Medium Day, the front squats will be a natural medium exercise without even worrying about calculating workload.  This doesn’t mean, of course, that you shouldn’t track your workload—you should.  You need to track total workload because you’re doing more than just squatting at each workout.

     For a pulling movement, do not start by deadlifting 3x-per-week.  This is one of the mistakes you sometimes see with lifters who use Starr’s methods.  Some exercises—such as squats—are made for high-frequency training, and some exercises—such as the deadlift—are most certainly not.  If it’s not a squatting movement, a “quick lift” such as power cleans or power snatches, or an overhead pressing movement then do not train the lift frequently, especially exercises that work the lower back directly, such as the deadlift.  Starr believed that the one muscle group that takes the longest to recover from directly being worked was the lower back, so he never recommended anyone perform conventional deadlifts more than once-per-week.  In fact, even when you first start on a Starr-style H-L-M program, I would rotate pulling movements at each session.  Some good “starter” exercises would be deadlifts or sumo deadlifts for your heavy day, power cleans or power snatches for your light day, and high pulls or Romanian deadlifts for your medium day.

     The favorite lift for most lifters to perform for the upper-body pushing movement—what Starr referred to as the shoulder girdle exercise in his routines—is the bench press.  But the bench press also shouldn’t be performed three-days-per-week when starting out, though it can be trained more frequently than the deadlift.

     The easiest way to program the bench press is to do bench presses on your heavy and medium days—perform 5s at your heavy workout and triples at your medium session, as shown in the squats above—and to do overhead presses on your light days.  Another option is to do bench presses on your heavy day, overhead presses on your light day, and incline bench presses on your medium day.  Once again, you can train as “heavy” as you want on each movement and they still fit in the parameters of heavy, light, and medium for workload.

     Okay, so you can get a “feel” for everything discussed so far, here is what a possible 9-week block of training might look like using different exercises for the squat, the shoulder girdle movement, and the pulling exercise.  Keep in mind, however, that this doesn’t include assistance movements (which we’ll get around to shortly), so these aren’t complete workouts, but they’re getting close.  (All lifts are for 5 sets of 5 reps unless otherwise noted.)

Weeks 1-3:

Heavy Day: squats, bench presses, conventional deadlifts

Light Day: reverse lunges, barbell overhead presses, power cleans

Medium Day: front squats, incline bench presses, high pulls

Weeks 4-6:

Heavy Day: squats, bench presses, sumo deadlifts

Light Day: walking lunges, incline dumbbell bench presses, power snatches

Medium Day: barbell hack squats, bench presses for triples, Romanian deadlifts

Weeks 7-9:

Heavy Day: squats, bench presses, deficit deadlifts

Light Day: overhead squats, one-arm dumbbell overhead presses, hang cleans

Medium Day: bottom-position squats, weighted dips, thick-bar deadlifts

As You Become Advanced, Vary Your Set/Reps on a Regular Basis

     Although Starr’s system was known most notably for using 5x5—as seen so far throughout this article—he believed in rotating set/rep ranges on a regular, consistent basis once you got more advanced.

     As a rule of thumb, I would advise varying your repetition ranges, on each training day, once every three weeks (after you have been following his system for three to six months).  If you use the above 9-week example for changing exercises, this would mean that you would change your repetition ranges each time that you rotated to a new exercise for each training day.

     Here is the set/rep methodology preferred by Starr: Weeks 1-3: 5 sets of 5 reps; Weeks 4-6: 2 sets of 5, 3 sets of 3 reps; Weeks 7-9: 4 sets of 8 reps; Weeks 10-12: progressively heavier singles—when performing the singles, you will probably want to perform 5s, then 3s, as you work up to a heavy, near-max weight.  Take your time to work up to your maximum single, but DO NOT fatigue yourself as you do so.  Keep in mind, too, that the sets listed are all progressively heavier sets, however, as you get even more advanced, you will, at some point, simply want to go to some “straight” sets at the end of your lift.  For example, let’s say you reach a point where you can squat more than 400 pounds for sets of 5 reps.  At this point, you would want to do more than 5 progressively heavier sets of 5 reps just to reach your max weight, and you would do well sticking with your last weight for multiple sets; because of your strength, you will need the additional work.  If you can squat, say, 405 for 5 reps, here is what your set/reps might look like: 135x5 reps, 205x5, 275x5, 315x5, 350x5, 375x5, 405x5x2 sets.

     As you get more advanced, and simply more accustomed to the program, you will also figure out if you like taking larger or smaller jumps in weight.  Some lifters, when using 5x5, for instance, will want to take their 4th set of 5 reps close to what they will use for their 5th set, while other lifters like using significantly less weight on their 4th set, and making a much bigger jump to their max set of 5.

     And, yes (if you’re wondering), once you build up the work capacity to handle it, you can do 5 straight sets of 5 reps, or multiple sets of triples or even singles.  Once again, this is what makes his system so damn good.  The template of full-body and H/L/M never changes, but within that template is an endless amount of variety in exercise selection, sets, and reps.

The Best Way to Increase Your Workload is Through Back-Off Sets and Assistance Work

     As a lifter gets even more advanced, Starr believed in more than just 5 sets of 5 reps, or 4 sets of 8 reps, or whatever it is that you are using for the training week.  He believed you would need both back-off sets to increase your workload for that exercise and assistance exercises to work on any weak points that you have.

     When first performing back-off sets, Starr recommended sticking with  2 sets of 8 reps on days where you do sets of 5s, triples, or singles.  Let's say that you work up to 405 for your final set of 5 reps.  Rest a few minutes, strip the weight down to around 275 to 300 lbs and perform 2 sets of 8 with this weight.  On days where you do 4 sets of 8 reps, perform only 1 back-off set of 15 to 20 reps.

     At first, only add back-off sets to your heavy days.  After a few weeks of this, add back-off sets to your medium days.  You can probably stick with doing the back-offs on both the heavy and medium days throughout your training.  The exception is for those of you who are really advanced.  If you are squatting and deadlifting close to triple your bodyweight and bench pressing double your bodyweight, then you will want to also add some back-off sets to your light days.

     Once you have been performing back-off sets for a little while, at some point you will want to start doing some assistance work in addition to your “Big 3.”  Some of the stuff that you are already doing could be considered assistance work.  Squatting movements will help your pulling lifts and vice versa.  But the first things you should probably add are an additional back exercise and a curling movement.  With these two additions, you have a complete workout.  Don’t pick another heavy pulling movement or quick lift for your back.  Do either chins or some sort of rowing movement.  The chins can be done using different grips, and different rep ranges by adding weight.  For the rows, alternate between barbell rows of different grips, T-bar rows, and one-arm dumbbell rows.  Barbell curls and standing dumbbell curls are probably all you’ll need for quite some time for your arms.

     Any other assistance lifts that are added should be done so because they help to bring up a weak point in one of your “Big 3” exercises.  The exception would be if your main goal is aesthetics over performance, in which case your assistance movements should be done in order to bring up a lagging body part(s).

Takeaways for ALL Lifters

     I would encourage all lifters and bodybuilders to spend at least some time training using Starr’s H-L-M system, but even if you don’t do that, there are some other takeaways from his methodology that, I believe, can benefit you no matter what program you use.  Here are some tips to allow you to incorporate his principles despite your training program.

     Even if you’re fond of split programs, try performing a few weeks of full-body training on occasion.  Starr believed that there was just something about full-body workouts that stimulated muscle growth more than the entire body.  At the very least, try splitting your body no more than two-ways if you won’t utilize full-body workouts.

     Spend at least one week where you calculate the workload in your program.  This helps you to see just how much total work you’re putting into a muscle group, or several different muscle groups, throughout the training week.  If you find that you’re doing double the amount of work for your upper body as your lower body, perhaps it's time that you reconsidered your current program.

     Even if you train each muscle group fairly infrequently, I still think it’s a good idea to rotate between heavy, light, and medium workouts.  (Once again, this should be determined by total workload, not how “heavy” you lift.)  When I was competing in powerlifting around two decades ago, I got sort of “burned out” from using a combination of Russian-style “Sheiko” training and Starr’s 4-day-a-week program (as you get more advanced on Starr’s system, you add a 4th full-body “light” day to the mix).  Anyway, I felt as if I needed a break from the constant training, so I switched over to a 1-on, 2-off schedule but where I still rotated between heavy, light, and medium sessions.  This meant that my training schedule looked something such as this:

Monday: Heavy

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Light

Friday: Off

Saturday: Off

Sunday: Medium

Monday: Off

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: Heavy

     And so on and so forth.  This gave me a full 10-days between heavy training sessions, which is just what I apparently needed at the time, as it finally got my lifts “moving” again since I had been struggling to apply progressive overload for a couple months.  And even if you use something such as a so-called “bro split,” the principle still applies.  It’s always good to have days when you’re not going all out all the time.

     Lastly, make sure that—as you get more advanced—you are rotating between different exercises, and rotating to new set/rep ranges on a regular basis.  But be systematic about it, and don’t just randomly change exercises, sets, or reps.  Use the different set/rep schemes that Starr favored, and you can be systematic no matter your program.

In Conclusion

     There is so much that I could write about Starr that I would need another 10 articles of this same length to really flesh out all of his ideas.  His training theories for older athletes alone would be worth an entire series.

     I wish I could have met Bill Starr, but I never did.  I should have written to him at some point when he was still with us, if for no other reason than to tell him that the writer C.S. Sloan would never have been without his immense influence.  But I let that time pass me by so the best I can do is offer this essay to honor his memory.  Hell, knowing something of Starr’s personality, he could probably care less if he was forgotten so long as his training system lived on.

     Who knows, perhaps when I too leave this world behind, he’ll be at the same ‘70s Muscle Beach-in-the-Sky where I go—we can discuss training, lifting, and living.  Maybe all the deceased strength and bodybuilding writers will be there, where Starr will be king, and the rest of us will simply bask in the glory of his expertise.