Top 10 Bill Starr articles (redux)

A while back, I wanted to do a Top 10 Bill Starr articles but my research skills deserted me and I was only able to find three.  They were a good three articles, I hasten to add, but three isn’t really the same as ten…

Thankfully, some generous readers did some extra Googling for me and now we have a full complement.  In fact, my main problem this time has been in deciding which articles to include and which to leave out!  And with that, I give you my Top 10 Bill Starr articles…

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1. Bulletproof back (parts one and two) – in this exceptional two-part article, Bill questions whether trainees get enough lower back work from deadlifts and squats and concludes that they don’t.  He argues that the main reason that we exlcude lower back exercises like RDLs and good mornings is that they are quite hard and unpleasant to do.  Interestingly, Bill often replaces the power clean in his Big Three programmes with the good morning.
2. Get bigger without curls - these days, every modern functional strength coach or personal trainer has written an article about how to get bigger arms without curling.  But going back to the source is always an interesting voyage.  If you have a friend who still does nothing but bench and curl, this might be a fun link to send them…
3. The seat of power - glute training is more popular these days than it used to be, thanks mainly to the writings of Bret Contreras.  However, Bill has always recognised the importance of this muscle and its role in making an athlete faster and more powerful.  Bill starts by discussing the anatomical background to the upright human posture, covers the main muscular components of the glute complex and then discusses various ways in which they can be trained.
4. Low rep lowdown - Bill gives a passionate defence of using low reps (singles, doubles and triples) in a programme for strength gain.  He explains that low reps are not riskier than high reps, despite what some people think.  He also  argues that since size is predicated on strength, bodybuilders who “only” want to get big would be best served by using low reps at the outset of their training too.  He also describes an interesting Hepburn variant routine, in which he programmes three singles followed by three sets of five.
5. Build stronger shoulders - Bill’s opinion on the overhead press is well-known but he doesn’t just talk about the overhead press in this article.  He also discusses exercises for the whole shoulder girdle, including the trapezius.  For the traps, he recommends the basic barbell shrug and suggests that with some determination you should be able to get up to five reps with 585lbs (265kg) within what he calls an off-season.  I guess that is between 3 and 6 months so I might see whether I can hit that goal by the end of this year.  At the very least it should give my power rack a good test…
6. Midlife muscle - in this great article, Bill gives some suggestions for how to structure your workouts, diet and supplementation regimen as you get older.  This is an area that I am very interested in, being a big fan of Biomarkers.  Many of the things he says here will resonate with those of you who have read Dave Draper’s writings in the last few years, as well as those of Clarence Bass and Dave Tate.
7. Training in cold weather - in this long piece at Starting Strength, Bill extols the benefits of training in cold weather.  He tells some great stories of people clearing snow so they can lift, of gripping bars so cold that they feel like icicles and of people working out so hard in such freezing temperatures that the steam rises of them in huge clouds.  Fun stuff.
8. The path less travelled – Bill looks at the historical circumstances that led to bodybuilding changing its attitude towards heavy lifting.  He looks back to the 1950′s and 1960′s and sees that, in that era, everyone believed that it was necessary to lift heavy weights in order to get the physique that they wanted.  However, in the 1970′s, with the onset of HIT and anabolic steroids,  people found that there were individuals who were able to make considerable gains without hard training.  For commercial reasons, the gyms embraced this idea and the public came to believe that weight training was something competely different from what it actually was…
9. Strong traps -  back on the subject of traps, again, Bill goes into some detail about how to build them, starting with power cleans, power snatches and high pulls and progressing to shrugs.  Bill makes the point that strong traps will help with all of your lifts, not to mention broadcasting the fact that you’re as powerful athlete.
10. Strength training for throwers – most people think of Dan John when thinking about strength training and throwing in the same sentence but this article by Bill is a fairly long consideration of the topic.  Worth a look if your interest is not just in picking up heavy objects but also launching them into space…

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That’s it.  It’s good to finally get the top 10 done at last.