Where are the before and after photos of dudes "transformed" by Starting Strength?

[TruthSeeker]

Nowhere. 

One would think that a book that has been transforming weak kittens into manly men for years would have a gallery of before and after photos, but of course that is not the case.

There are some ridiculous claims reaching up to 70lbs of muscle gains in a year or so, but we all know it's lard and water.

Yet the fairy tales about squats, bulking and miraculous natty gains are still supported by the 5x5 zealots. 

Every year a new generation of kids turns 18. 

Every year they sign for this insane transformation.

Every year they are baptized.

Where are the graduation results?

Nowhere.

[khrazz]

They are nowhere because the hype is over. Starting strength is a great program for someone to get in shape, but the whole 4 gallon milk drink fest hype is long gone. I think the whole hype actually ended when Rippetoe showed the before/after picture of Zac, which revealed that he got fat as hell without gaining noticable amounts of muscle or strength. Thats when rippetoe was exposed and lost a lot of following. Before that photo, everyone was talking about how 5x5 is the elixir for steroid like results.

I remember i had lots of arguments on Scoobys old (and long gone) forum where people acted like rippetoe was god on earth... until "progress" photos of Zac came and everyone suddenly shut the hell up and actually accused Rippetoe for false marketing.


Oh and btw, its almost a decade after ripettoe published his GOMAD program + 5x5. A decade ago, is a hell of a long time to see if someone knows what he is talking about or if he talks shit. So where are the results? nowhere... just like you would expect from white collar scammer investing your money to give you +100% the return of your original investment. yea right

[TruthSeeker]

I remember Zack too. Rippetoe was doing everything in his power to present the gains as legit muscle mass. It was obvious, except to the brainwashed kids who couldn't see that the emperor has no clothes, that Zach had gotten quite fat.

But even to this day, the army of dudes who have allegedly built gladiator physiques from low bar squats is still undercover.

Why? Because natties will be natties regardless of the exercises or rep schemes they do.

[khrazz]

I remember Zack too. Rippetoe was doing everything in his power to present the gains as legit muscle mass. It was obvious, except to the brainwashed kids who couldn't see that the emperor has no clothes, that Zach had gotten quite fat.

But even to this day, the army of dudes who have allegedly built gladiator physiques from low bar squats is still undercover.

Why? Because natties will be natties regardless of the exercises or rep schemes they do.

In all honesty, you can get strong as hell if you are willing to sacrifice your outer image (get bulky, watery, fat) BUT that comes with a huge price and creates juxtaposition in the mind . A lot of people join the iron game to improve their image and not  further "destroy" it by adding slabs of useless meat. This is the reason rippetoe is no longer popular and only people who follow him are people who dont care for their image anymore.

I have come to realize that a huge number of people who bulk up to huge amounts of bw usually have a lot of deep phychological issues. Maybe social anxiety, or sexual performance anxiety. They bulk to such bw so as to become intimidating and deter women . A lot of times if you ask them if they are dating a woman their usual reply is "nah, i am training 7 days a week for at least 2 hours, i have competition coming up"
While whats really happening is that they themselves dont know how to talk to women or be a man . And this creates a vicious never ending circle until someone pulls them out of this circle or if they realize it themselves (both very unlikely to happen )

After all, no normal human being likes to be 100kg+ pure fat... These people have the same mentality of a very fat chick/dude who eats a shitload of food but expects others to like them for their "deep personality". Lets face it, humans are image driven animals. A bad image makes the mind think that the person you are looking at is unhealthy thus an unsuitable mate. Other animals use pheromones and smells to detect unhealthy mates, humans have their eyes and mind. Its not bad, its just nature and the way it is. No matter how hard we try change that, its deeply coded in our DNA...

[TruthSeeker]

That whole "I want to become as strong as possible." chant is just a way to rationalize your failure to build that dream body.

People adopt this mindset after trying to build a great physique naturally rather than before.

Very few men (weird exceptions) go to the gym and get fat so that they can lift heavier barbells right from the start. Most do bodybuilding for the visual effect and then transition to powerlifting as a way to vent.

As you said it very well, we are image driven. The fatso swines produced by all those bulking scams do not appeal to anyone. More importantly, you don't feel well yourself when you are overweight. You spend the whole day being uncomfortable so that you can have 10 minutes of fun in the gym during your heavy sets.

[Jonesy]

It isn't that starting strength/stronglifts 5x5 etc are terrible programs, it's just that they are unnecessary for what we start lifting to achieve. When I was a clueless beginner, I decided to go on bodybuilding.com and ask for advice on a good beginner program. I was immediacy referred to the rippetoe cult. Believing that this was the best first step in the iron game, I soon got sucked into the nonsense about adding 2.5kg to the bar every session. When you start feeling like the battle against gravity is about to cripple your spine you start stressing about why things aren't working for you like the other brahs on the Internet who are all squatting 200kg as a warm up.... "drink your milk." is where you've been going wrong according to coach.

Next thing you know, there's a fatso in the mirror who still can't squat 200k.

[TruthSeeker]

It isn't that starting strength/stronglifts 5x5 etc are terrible programs, it's just that they are unnecessary for what we start lifting to achieve. When I was a clueless beginner, I decided to go on bodybuilding.com and ask for advice on a good beginner program. I was immediacy referred to the rippetoe cult. Believing that this was the best first step in the iron game, I soon got sucked into the nonsense about adding 2.5kg to the bar every session. When you start feeling like the battle against gravity is about to cripple your spine you start stressing about why things aren't working for you like the other brahs on the Internet who are all squatting 200kg as a warm up.... "drink your milk." is where you've been going wrong according to coach.

Next thing you know, there's a fatso in the mirror who still can't squat 200k.

When you fail, the answer of Rippetoe is to eat more and squat more. Don't you know that every problem is fixed by getting fatter and spine supporting more and more weight?

[Jonesy]

It isn't that starting strength/stronglifts 5x5 etc are terrible programs, it's just that they are unnecessary for what we start lifting to achieve. When I was a clueless beginner, I decided to go on bodybuilding.com and ask for advice on a good beginner program. I was immediacy referred to the rippetoe cult. Believing that this was the best first step in the iron game, I soon got sucked into the nonsense about adding 2.5kg to the bar every session. When you start feeling like the battle against gravity is about to cripple your spine you start stressing about why things aren't working for you like the other brahs on the Internet who are all squatting 200kg as a warm up.... "drink your milk." is where you've been going wrong according to coach.

Next thing you know, there's a fatso in the mirror who still can't squat 200k.

When you fail, the answer of Rippetoe is to eat more and squat more. Don't you know that every problem is fixed by getting fatter and spine supporting more and more weight?

Haha, exactly. It's madness now when you think about it. But at the time this terrible fucking advice was taken seriously.

---

If you're familiar with the starting strength forums you will know that there was a Q&A section to Rippetoe himself (dunno if that's still the case, I haven't been there for years). Anyway, one thing that stuck in my mind was how Rippetoe used to answer any difficult questions with a question. Someone would say something like "hey coach, I know you say that curls are for faggots, but..." and then Rippetoe would respond with "Where did I ever say curls are for faggots?"... the keen iron apprentice is then left speechless. No, Rippetoe never said curls are for faggots, but he implies it with his program. If you are doing curls your are NDTFP (not doing the fucking program) and basically an idiot, but ask coach why he thinks curls are shit and he says "I never said they were."

[TruthSeeker]

The main benefit of Rippetoism is that its getting people into lifting. Some of them are old people who have spent most of their life pushing paper around and now their bodies are a wreck. Getting them to train is great.

But the young kids who are after the muscle gains are up for a big surprise. They would keep upping their squat until it reaches something like 1.5BW and then the limit will hit them.

They will bulk up, and their squat will increase but will be once again at 1.5 BW. This is the permabulking cycle - every gain you make is linked to an increase of body fat percentage.

[jimjohnson]

i managed to get my squat to 130kg...at b.w of 77kg...but that's it. That was 2 years ago. it's actually gone down a bit now as i only do partial squats...That was my limit.