This post was submitted by StrongLifts.com reader Flying Fox.
This is a description of Bill Starr’s strength training program described in The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football (1976). I recommend reading Bill Starr’s book, even if you’re not a football player.
Bill Starr’s program shows similarities with many other routines: Madcow’s 5×5, Eclypse, Starting Strength, The Texas Method, Timed Total Tonnage, …
What Are The Big Three? The Big Three are the Squat, Bench Press & Power Clean. The reason Bill Starr chooses these movements is that they build strength in all major muscle groups.
Even though Bill Starr’s program is designed for building overall strength and explosiveness in American Football players, it can be used to build strength and explosiveness in any other athlete.
Programming the Big Three. The Big Three are trained 3 times a week in a heavy/light/medium fashion. Which means you don’t train with maximum poundages every workout.
- Heavy Day: Work yourself up to one heavy set.
- Light Day: 80% of the heaviest set on Heavy Day.
- Medium Day: 90% of the heaviest set on Heavy Day.
Sets & Reps. 5×5 is used for The Big Three: 5 sets of 5 reps. The weight is increased on each successive set, the 5th set being your strongest set. The first 4 sets are used to warm-up to your heavy 5th set.
For the advanced trainee, a change of rep range is useful:
- Presses. Instead of doing 5×5, the trainee does 3×5 reps, 3×3 reps & 1 “back-off” set of 6-10 reps. Sets of 3 enable the trainee to handle heavier weights on the final set. The back-off set insures sufficient work. Back-off sets can also be applied to squats, but are less useful for pulls.
Squats. Tens, fives and threes is another proven rep range. One would do 5×10 on Monday, 5×3 on Wednesday and 5×5 on Friday, increasing the weight each set. The difference with this routine is that a trainee goes to the maximum each workout. The program still follows the heavy / light / medium system, based on total tonnage. Even though the tens utilize the lightest weight, they produce the most total work load. The threes produce less workload and the fives something in between.
Circuit Method. The Big Three are trained with the Circuit method. The trainee does one set of an exercise and then moves on to the next exercise. When he has done the first set of every exercise, he will do the same for the second set, the third set, and so on.
The Circuit Method insures all exercises obtain equal attention and workload. This might not be possible due to a lack of equipment, so the trainee may do all his sets of one exercise before moving on to another instead. It could be a good idea to change the heavy/light/medium structure if you drop the circuit method. For example:
- Monday: Heavy Squats, medium Bench Press & light Power Clean.
- Wednesday: Light Squat, heavy Bench Press & medium Power Clean.
- Friday: Medium Squat, light Bench Press & heavy Power Clean.
Substituting Exercises. Although it is perfectly possible to do the program with nothing but the Big Three, variations are possible and recommended when you stall. This is where we replace the big three on some of the workouts by exercises that have a carry over on them.
An important thing to remember with these substitutions is that a trainee goes heavy on each of the lifts. If he does only bench press in the program, he would decrease the load on light and medium days. However, if he does military presses on light day, he should go to the maximum on this exercise. The muscles involved in benching still get some rest, because of the lighter load that is used on the military press, so it can still count as a light day.
The general rule is: put the heaviest load on heavy day, the lightest load on light day and the one in between on medium day. This can be accomplished by lowering the weight on the same exercise or by choosing a less or more stressing exercise. Bill Starr describes the following:
- Overhead Presses. These can replace the bench press on a light day or medium day, as they are less stressful to the shoulder girdle. Behind the neck presses would be done on light day and military presses on medium day.
- Incline Bench Presses. Similar to the overhead presses, we can replace the bench press with incline press on medium day.
- Front Squats. Because lighter loads are used compared to the back squat, Front Squats would replace back squats on light day
- Power Shrugs. A good way to overload the pulling muscles, and thus a good replacement for power cleans on heavy day. This is an advanced exercise that should not be put in the program without enough experience in the power clean.
- High Pulls. A good replacement for power cleans on heavy or medium days. It works the same muscles as the power clean, but has some advantages. There is no stress on the wrists and more weight can be used. Doing the power clean on light day is still recommended to keep the form which you have developed. Just like power shrugs, this exercise is more advanced.
Weekly increase. This routine would be nothing if you didn’t make progress. The goal here is to increase the poundage on each heavy day, and derive the poundages on medium and light day from this heavy day.If you have substituted certain exercises, it is not always possible to derive the correct weight from the heavy day, as you do another exercise. In that case, you could just improve the poundage of the same day the week before. General rule: only increase the weight when you successfully did all the planned sets and reps the previous week.
Putting it all together. An example says more than a thousand articles. So here are a few:The basic program (the weights used are only examples):
Monday, heavy day:
squat: 5 x 135, 5 x 165, 5 x 185, 5 x 205, 5 x 225
bench press: 5 x 135, 5 x 155, 5 x 175, 5 x 190, 5 x 200
power clean: 5 x 115, 5 x 135, 5 x 145, 5 x 155, 5 x 165
Wednesday, light day:
squat: 5 x 135, 5 x 150, 5 x 160, 5 x 170, 5 x 180
bench press: 5 x 135, 5 x 135, 5 x 145, 5 x 155, 5 x 160
power clean: 5 x 115, 5 x 115, 5 x 115, 5 x 125, 5 x 135
Friday, medium day:
squat: 5 x 135, 5 x 155, 5 x 175, 5 x 190, 5 x 205
bench press: 5 x 135, 5 x 150, 5 x 160, 5 x 170, 5 x 180
power clean: 5 x 115, 5 x 125, 5 x 135, 5 x 145, 5 x 150
A little more advanced, and with the different heavy/light/medium structure:
Monday:
Heavy squat: squat 5×5
Medium bench: Incline bench press 5×5
Light power clean: power clean 5×5
Wednesday:
Heavy bench: bench press 5×5
Medium power clean: High pull 5×5 (90% of Friday’s heavy set)
Light squat: Front squat 5×5
Friday:
Heavy power clean: High pull 5×5
Medium squat: Squat 5×5 (90% of Monday’s heavy set)
Light bench: Military press 5×5
Including shrugs and more advanced rep ranges:
Monday, heavy:
squat 5×10
bench press 3×5, 3×3, 1×6-10
High pull 5×5
Wednesday, light:
squat 5×3, 1×6-10
Behind the neck press 3×5, 3×3, 1×6-10
power clean 5×5
Friday, medium:
Squat 5×5, 1×6-10
Incline bench press 3×5, 3×3, 1×6-10
High pull 5×5
There are many other possibilities, depending on your own experience and preference. I leave adding extra exercises at the readers own discretion. However, I do not recommend adding too much. Make sure the extras don’t have a negative influence on the main lifts.
