Bike Forums - View Single Post - The Barbell Prescription

11-26-25 | 10:51 AM

#8

work4bike

Senior Member

Joined: Jan 2006

Posts: 2,431

Likes: 1,989

From: Atlantic Beach Florida

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Like To Ride

I am a huge big fan of resistance training and strength training but I disagree that barbell lifting is the one and only way or the best way to get strong. Barbell lifting isn't for everybody and it may not always be the most optimal way to maintain strength for everybody There are some serious limitations with barbell lifting which mostly have to do with the movement pattern that a barbell forces your body into. There are many other ways to maintain strength besides barbells. Another thing to consider is that strength without good mobility and good cardio is dysfunctional and useless. I thing older folks need to focus more on mobility and movement than just raw strength.

I agree that barbell training should not be the only way to get strong. I would never dream of just doing barbell lifting for strength training and mobility training is very much part of what I do, in addition to training my type IIA & IIB fast twitch muscle fibers, which I believe to be very important to fighting off the negative effects of aging.

To be fair to those at Greysteel & Starting Strength (to some extent), I think the reason they focus and advocate so much for barbell training is because their main clientele (especially Greysteel) are elderly people that were, for the most part, sedentary for much of their life. For those people it seems like barbell training is the best to start out with and maybe they do other things after that, I don't know.

However, I do know that some of the people are in such bad shape that they can't even start out with barbells, some can't even do full body-weight exercises, so they start them off with more specialized programs to build them up and eventually get them on to barbell training.

.

Reply

0