‘Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training’

Improving your life through lifting

Strength training requires a commitment of time for the full rewards. Maksim Toome/Shutterstock

Strength-training is an effective way to get a handle on life because it induces confidence, and it suggests many analogies for dealing with and overcoming life’s difficulties. “Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training” by Mark Rippetoe, is the perfect book for getting started in this training because it doesn’t offer false promises of easy success, and, at the same time, provides solid, usable information that can get one started immediately.

The book is more than the pages: It offers involvement in an attitude and ethic of hard work for reasonable goals.

The Reasons and Challenges to the Book

The reasons to read are powerful. For one, the program offers the chance for increased self-confidence in a relatively concise program: these six lifts (squat, press, deadlift, bench press, clean, and snatch) will allow a person to reach 80 to 90 percent of his or her potential strength.