Mark Rippetoe Quotes

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.

Any idiot can get on a treadmill and watch TV and then take great pride in the fact they've ‘exercised.

Trust me, if you do an honest 20 rep program, at some point Jesus will talk to you. On the last day of the program, he asked if he could work in.

If a program of physical activity isn't designed to get you stronger or faster or better conditioned by producing a specific stress to which a specific desirable adaptation can occur, you don't get to call it training. It's just exercise.

Mediocre athletes that tried like hell to get good are the best coaches.

Start training yourself. You don't have to have been an elite lifter to be a good coach - I sure as hell wasn't. But you have to at least have been under the bar enough to know why wedon't look up at the bleeding ceiling when we squat!

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.

Your muscles cannot get "longer" without some rather radical orthopedic surgery.

Opinions are like phasers - everybody ought to have one.

I was driving home the other night, listening to the radio, and the guy filling in for Art Bell on Coast to Coast AM was talking to some other guy about Nazis, UFOs, the Kennedy Assassination, time travel, and George Bush, and how it all relates to OneWorldGovernment. This, of course, made me think about barbell training.

If you insist on wearing gloves, make sure they match your purse.

The only legitimate use for a glove is to cover an injury... A desire to prevent callus formation (possibly so as to not snag one's pantyhose) does not constitute a legitimate use. And if you do insist on wearing gloves, make sure they match your purse.

The hang clean is unweighted and is of little use to watch, except that it shows a problem known as a Donkey Kick. As the jump occurs, the heels come up in the back and then stomp back down into place. This is a terrible waste of time and energy, and contributes nothing to making the bar go up. Stop doing this immediately or I will have you killed.

But a hot gym is where most of us have trained before. Learn to deal with it: more water, more minerals, bigger balls.

Your ideal body weight as an ectomorph at 6' 0" will be 214.378 lbs. There. Happy? And if you lose or gain a pound, I will have you killed. It is important to be ideal.