Aasgaard Company Strong Enough? : Thoughts From Thirty Years Of Barbell Training

There are lots of things about weight training in general and barbell exercise in particular that can only be learned by spending way too many hours in the gym. And honestly, unless you’re a gym owner, this is a really weird way to spend 75 hours a week. Mark Rippetoe has been in the fitness industry since 1978 and has owned a black-iron gym since 1984. He knows things about lifting weights and training for performance that most other coaches and professionals have never had the chance to learn. This book of essays offers a glimpse into the depths of experience made possible through many years under the bar, and many more years spent helping others under the bar.

The Starting Strength method of training novices is a distillation of Rip’s experiences over three and a half decades as a competitive powerlifter, Olympic weightlifting coach, and gym owner. From its inception in 1984, every new member at WFAC was taught the basic barbell lifts as a part of their membership at the gym, and the application of the basics of powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting to efficiently meet the needs of the general public form the basis of the Starting Strength method, as detailed in Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training and Practical Programming for Strength Training.

About the Author:

Mark Rippetoe is the author of Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training, Practical Programming for Strength Training 2nd edition, Strong Enough?, Mean Ol’ Mr. Gravity, and numerous journal, magazine and internet articles. He has worked in the fitness industry since 1978, and has been the owner of the Wichita Falls Athletic Club since 1984. He graduated from Midwestern State University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science in geology and a minor in anthropology. He was in the first group certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association as a CSCS in 1985, and the first to formally relinquish that credential in 2009. Rip was a competitive powerlifter for ten years. He won the 198-pound weight class at the Greater Texas Classic in 1982, and placed in state- and regional-level meets for the next 6 years, retiring from competition in 1988. For the next 10 years Rip announced most of the powerlifting meets in North Texas, including the 1995 APF Nationals in Dallas. He retired from powerlifting altogether in 1997, to focus more on Olympic weightlifting.