Mark Rippetoe: Your muscles cannot get "longer" without some rather ra...

There is never an absolute answer to everything, except of course that you have to do your squats.

Mark Rippetoe

absolutes courses answers

You can't make people smarter. You can expose them to information, but your responsibility stops there.

Mark Rippetoe

smart responsibility people

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.

Mark Rippetoe

use doe desire

On resting in between reps: It varies with the length of the set. 5s or fewer get a breath to reset. Longer sets might take 2 breaths. During the last few reps of a true 20RM squat, just do what Jesus tells you. 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.

Mark Rippetoe

lasts might jesus

There are no shortcuts. The fact that a shortcut is important to you means that you are a pussy.

Mark Rippetoe

bad-ass workout mean

There are few things graven in stone, except that you have to squat or you're a pussy.

Mark Rippetoe

squat pussy stones

People seem to have acquired the idea that they have the inalienable right to stroll through life without either having sweated, picked up anything heavy, worked hard, or eaten less than they wanted at every meal. This approach is, of course, wrong. And it has resulted in a lot of expensive, unattractive, and entirely preventable problems amongst people who seem puzzled about why things aren't going well.

Mark Rippetoe

meals people ideas

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.

Mark Rippetoe

growth stress exercise

Only people willing to work to the point of discomfort on a regular basis using effective means to produce that discomfort will actually look like they have been other-than-comf ortable most of the time. You can thank the muscle magazines for these persistent misconceptions, along with the natural tendency of all normal humans to seek reasons to avoid hard physical exertion.

Mark Rippetoe

mean people looks

Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.

Mark Rippetoe

workout strong motivational

Most of the problems with the bodies and minds of the folks occupying the current culture involve an unwillingness to do anything hard, or anything that they'd rather not do. I applaud your resolve, and I welcome you to the community of people who have decided that EASY will no longer suffice.

Mark Rippetoe

community mind people

I am of the opinion that anyone who can squat 400 lb below parallel without a suit or press200 overhead has a strong core. I am of the opinion that when a person increases their squat, theyhave increased their core strength. I am also of the opinion that if a person wants to strengthentheir core, they must make something quantifiably stronger.

Mark Rippetoe

suits strong want

A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up.

Mark Rippetoe

strong spiritual reality

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.

Mark Rippetoe

bars energy watches

An adult male weighs at least 200 pounds

Mark Rippetoe

males adults pounds

Bodybuilding is men on a stage in their underwear wearing brown paint showing other men their muscles. It is training for appearance only, and at the contest level requires a degree of vanity, narcissism, and self-absorption that I find distasteful and odd

Mark Rippetoe

bodybuilding vanity men

There is no such thing as "firming and toning." There is only stronger and weaker.

Mark Rippetoe

stronger

A squat cannot be performed on a Smith machine any more than it can be performed in a small closet with a hamster.

Mark Rippetoe

squat closets machines

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

Mark Rippetoe

purses gloves ifs

The full squat is a perfectly natural position for the leg to occupy. That's why there is a joint in the middle of it, and why humans have been occupying this position, both unloaded and loaded, for millions of years. Much longer, in fact, than quasi-intellect ual morons have been telling us that it's 'bad' for the knees.

Mark Rippetoe

perfectly-natural knees years

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