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Comment by valenterry | Hacker News Reader

Speaking in effective time, it is obviously more than 60 minutes, I would say rather 160 minutes in the beginning and then getter lower with experience and getting used to it.

Resistance training is great, but let's not oversell it to others! A beginner not only needs to buy stuff (or commute to/from the gym) and create their plan and schedule it, they also need to account for spending extra time to correct their posture, have a longer recovery time, shower etc.

Thinking to get away with 60min from the get go might be discouraging.

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Nope 60 minutes as a beginner sounds about right with correcting posture and whatnot. Once I was familiar with it that dropped right down. Starting Strength is a very minimal program.

Obviously no one is going to account for commute in how long a program takes. Some take hours to get to the nearest gym and others have home gyms.

Okay, maybe I did something terribly wrong as a beginner, but how did you make sure that your posture is good?

I used to do the exercise with little a no weight, record myself and double check for a longer time, until I found that I got used to the right movements.

Video occasionally but once I knew what good posture felt like then I could feel when I was leaving it.

I always found good lifting form to be a will power thing more than a skill thing. Easy to maintain when the bar was empty, very hard to maintain on the last couple reps of my heaviest sets. Did form check videos occasionally to keep myself honest but really, I knew when I had bad form.

At the beginning you should be on a relatively light on the weight anyway and as you progress you should be building locking in that form naturally.

Sometimes you'll need to deload to correct form and you'll likely be starting to look at different programs soon enough.

For one reason or another I've had to deload, usually missing training for a prolonged period of time. I'm at my longest sustained training period in awhile now and about to attempt a new 5rm squat tonight, I'm a little intimidated:). It soon becomes more about the psychology imo.

posture (a) doesn't particularly matter to begin with, and (b) is already massively improved by basic compound movements.

like, it's hard to imagine what you would do for a better posture other than highbar squats, deadlifts, rows, etc

> Speaking in effective time, it is obviously more than 60 minutes, I would say rather 160 minutes in the beginning and then getter lower with experience and getting used to it.

I seriously disagree with this. 60 minutes is more than sufficient if you aren't screwing around. I also think it's baffling that people are still recommending Starting Strength when there are far more efficient and productive programs to start off with.

Especially as a beginner, you can get a significant training stimulus without having to waste 2-3 hours of your day. How absurd. Think 80/20. I even think spending that much time would be more detrimental than beneficial in the beginning.

I've never spent that long in the gym on starting strength.

For beginners i doubt there is much variation in progress from one program to the other, and remember SS is for beginners.

The benefit of SS is its simplicity, 4 basic lifts with simple programming. Beginners benefit from such simplicity.

Would you care to share any recommendations for alternative programs?

Could you name some of the more effective and productive programs?

if you need almost 3 hours to do a beginner strength program, something is amiss, or you are resting for 10+ minutes between sets.

what do you need to buy? what posture correction are you doing? how is showering a meaningful amount of time when most people already shower daily?

you're inventing problems that don't exist.

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