The difference is that it’s been simplified for a more general audience: StrongLifts is often said to be loosely adapted from Bill Starr’s classic strength training program for football players.There are no assistance or accessory lifts, resulting in less overall muscle growth, but meaning there are fewer lifts to learn.There are no sets of 10 reps, everything is 5×5, arguably resulting less muscle growth as well as versatility, but again, keeping the workout simpler to understand.There are no Olympic lifts, and that’s probably a good thing. Olympic lifts are great for developing explosive power and athleticism, but rather awful for stimulating muscle growth. The original program used a series of progressively heavy warm-up sets followed by a heavy set of 5 reps. StrongLifts uses the same weight for every set, making the workouts quite taxing. So what we get is a much simpler workout program that’s quite a bit harder to recover from and not quite as good for developing general athleticism. Not necessarily easier to do, but easier to learn. However, it seems that StrongLifts may actually be ripped from Starting Strength. If Mark Rippetoe is to be believed-and his account seems credible to me-then Mehdi ordered Starting Strength, was sent a copy, asked to be an affiliate, and was refused. At that point, Mehdi created a slightly modified version: StrongLifts 5×5. The first workout emphasizes the squat but also includes the bench press and the from-the-floor “Pendlay” barbell row. All three lifts are done for five sets of five repetitions. The second workout emphasizes the squat but also includes the overhead press and the conventional deadlift.
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