The three questions.

By now, lots of people have done the program, and lots of people have gotten stuck.

Their progress has stalled at some point, having done what they thought was the program,

discussed in starting strength basic barbell training and practical programming for strength training to the letter. Let's examine the problem

more closely, find a way to keep this from happening. Strength is simply the production of force

against an external resistance, in this case the loaded barbell. The load on the barbell you're

lifting increases over time you've gotten stronger.

The simple idea is that, for untrained people, strength accumulates rather quickly if you ask it to,

and the stronger you get, the longer you've trained, the slower your strength increases.

We force the process to occur by adding a little weight every time you train until that stops working.

At that point, it becomes more complicated.

But not until then.

You just do the program and use every means at your disposal to keep from getting stuck.

By the program, I mean the novice progression, detailed in both books.

For a young novice training three days a week, the squat and deadlift will increase a little each workout for a while.

Five-pound jumps work well for several months.

Sets of five reps have proven their value over decades of experimentation to the extent that the

experiment is over.

Likewise, three sets of five have proven to work for everything except the deadlift,

which gets only one set of five. The press and the bench press alternate, each increasing a little

every time they're trained, albeit with smaller increments, perhaps one and a half to two pounds.

Because the limiting muscle groups are smaller and fewer in number. Shortly after you start, the power clean is introduced and alternates with the deadlift.

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