StrongLifts or Starting Strength?

bozodos said:

It's a hard thing to define - generally a beginner would be someone who's been training continuously for less than a year say, most poeple would agree on that, but what about someone who's been training for 3 but using shitty programs with not enough effort, and is therefore still weak/small?

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That is spot on: you can train for years, and still with no real idea.

Or you can stick to a workout and continue to make improvement for years. At a Lee haney seminar, he was adamant that he trained in a similar way throughout career, but only with poundages going up and up over time.

To be honest prob 90% of people who are going to gyms could be counted as "beginners" they either have bad form, bad programs, not putting the effort in, not eating correctly, under training, over training etc etc etc

There is really only a small % of people that go to the gym that you would consider - advanced etc

A great article by bret contreras in regards to what defines strong and i would think very much high internediate/advance
Strength Defined | Ben Bruno

Rugby88 said:

To be honest prob 90% of people who are going to gyms could be counted as "beginners" they either have bad form, bad programs, not putting the effort in, not eating correctly, under training, over training etc etc etc

There is really only a small % of people that go to the gym that you would consider - advanced etc

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Strength Standards this site has fairly accurate indicators of strength vs ability IMO

bozodos said:

Strength Standards this site has fairly accurate indicators of strength vs ability IMO

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Strength as such isnt an indication of a beginner or advanced etc - of course its a good bench mark but def not the be all and end all - i.e I have a mate when we were 15/16 we had both trained for about a 1 or so just really messing around/abit of 5x5/abit of rugby stuff and he was benching 140kg haha and in some peoples books that would be the sign of a advanced lifter but really we werent at all - we were still "beginners"

Good link btw!

I think a beginners section would be amazing. I think beginner/intermediate/advance is best measured by one's ability to exert effort in the gym. Compare the reps of your bench press when you first started with now, you can feel it in your muscles a LOT more now, the tightness of the grip, the tension through your tris and pecs, the gravity slowing the bar, which intensifies as you get heavier/higher reps - wheras when you started it just feels like moving a bar up and down - that is what i mean.

A beginner is someone who does not know exercise or practiced the skill of performing exercise correctly
An intermediate is someone who has advanced from beginner, is performing exercise and progressing.
Advanced is someone who can go real hard, lift hard and who's intensity of work is maximum (on the day) and lifts perfectly and progression slows.

All this takes time, and the time it takes differs for everyone.