Best Mark Rippetoe Quotes & Sayings

You guys that worry about eating clean are actually merely bodybuilders looking for justification for your obsession with abs. You cannot get big and strong on 3000 kcal/day. And you cannot eat 7000/day and eat perfectly "clean". — Mark Rippetoe

If your expectations are always those of someone content to live without physical challenge, then when it comes time for mental, moral, or emotional challenge you fail to meet it because you are out of practice. Meeting and overcoming obstacles are skills that can be honed, as opposed to talents with which we are born. The best way to prepare for the inevitable shit that life occasionally hands us all is to live in a way that prepares you for it. If you can treat personal tragedy like a heavy set of 20 squats, you'll do better than someone who has never met any challenge. Intentionally placing yourself in the position of having to complete a task when you don't know if you can is the single best way of preparing to be in that position unintentionally. — Mark Rippetoe

On resting in between reps: It varies with the length of the set. 5s or fewer get a breath to reset. Longer sets might take 2 breaths. During the last few reps of a true 20RM squat, just do what Jesus tells you. Trust me, if you do an honest 20 rep program, at some point Jesus will talk to you. On the last day of the program, he asked if he could work in. — Mark Rippetoe

The spine is best at bearing a load in an arch — Mark Rippetoe

There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat. — Mark Rippetoe

Most of the problems with the bodies and minds of the folks occupying the current culture involve an unwillingness to do anything hard, or anything that they'd rather not do. I applaud your resolve, and I welcome you to the community of people who have decided that EASY will no longer suffice. — Mark Rippetoe

People seem to have acquired the idea that they have the inalienable right to stroll through life without either having sweated, picked up anything heavy, worked hard, or eaten less than they wanted at every meal. This approach is, of course, wrong. And it has resulted in a lot of expensive, unattractive, and entirely preventable problems amongst people who seem puzzled about why things aren't going well. — Mark Rippetoe

I don't even like Greg Glassman. I don't have a cult like allegiance to the guy. I really don't like him. He's too hard to get on the phone and he doesn't drink my kind of scotch. — Mark Rippetoe

Mediocre athletes that tried like hell to get good are the best coaches. — Mark Rippetoe

Women who do look like men have taken some rather drastic steps in that direction that have little to do with their exercise program. — Mark Rippetoe

The full squat is a perfectly natural position for the leg to occupy. That's why there is a joint in the middle of it, and why humans have been occupying this position, both unloaded and loaded, for millions of years. Much longer, in fact, than quasi-intellect ual morons have been telling us that it's 'bad' for the knees. — Mark Rippetoe

You don't get to mis-define a thing, and then on the basis of that mis-definition, say that that thing is bad ... it's incumbent upon you, if you're going to make a criticism of something, that you actually have at your command a working definition of the thing you're criticizing — Mark Rippetoe

Stronger people are harder to kill — Mark Rippetoe

Since the trainee is both inefficient and unadapted, only a few basic exercises should be used, and they should be repeated frequently to establish the basic motor pathways and basic strength. — Mark Rippetoe

but the reality of millions of years of adaptation to a ruggedly physical existence will not just go away because desks were invented. — Mark Rippetoe

If you insist on wearing gloves, make sure they match your purse. — Mark Rippetoe

The hang clean is unweighted and is of little use to watch, except that it shows a problem known as a Donkey Kick. As the jump occurs, the heels come up in the back and then stomp back down into place. This is a terrible waste of time and energy, and contributes nothing to making the bar go up. Stop doing this immediately or I will have you killed. — Mark Rippetoe

The full-range-of-m otion exercise known as the squat is the single most useful exercise in the weight room, and our most valuable tool for building strength, power, and size. — Mark Rippetoe

The Olympic Snatch is gymnastics with a bar — Mark Rippetoe

Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general. — Mark Rippetoe

The BEST training program in the entire world will be a DISMAL FAILURE if people fail to hold up their end of the deal. The success of ANY training program is ultimately the trainee's responsibility. — Mark Rippetoe

I can teach idiots to squat in ten minutes. — Mark Rippetoe

If you insist on using a thumbless grip on the bench, you need to do it at home so that when the ambulance comes (if anyone is there to call 911), it doesn't disrupt anyone else's training. — Mark Rippetoe

You do not need to do many different exercises to get strong - you need to get strong on a very few important exercises, movements that train the whole body as a system, not as a collection of separate body parts. The problem with the programs advocated by all the national exercise organizations is that they fail to recognize this basic principle: the body best adapts as a whole organism to stress applied to the whole organism. The more stress that can be applied to as much of the body at one time as possible, the more effective and productive the adaptation will be. — Mark Rippetoe

History tells us what works in the gym, and everything else walks down the road with a carrot in its ass. — Mark Rippetoe

When you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. But other strategies with dead horses [include] the following: buying a stronger whip; changing riders; saying things like 'this is the way we've always ridden this horse'; ... and, finally, harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed." Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson — Mark Rippetoe

Only people willing to work to the point of discomfort on a regular basis using effective means to produce that discomfort will actually look like they have been other-than-comf ortable most of the time. You can thank the muscle magazines for these persistent misconceptions, along with the natural tendency of all normal humans to seek reasons to avoid hard physical exertion. — Mark Rippetoe

There is no easy way to do a deadlift - not involving actually picking up the bar - which explains their lack of popularity in gyms around the world. — Mark Rippetoe

Poor form in the gym is caused by insufficient yelling. — Mark Rippetoe

I recommend that you change colleges. — Mark Rippetoe

There is no such thing as "firming and toning." There is only stronger and weaker. — Mark Rippetoe

But a hot gym is where most of us have trained before. Learn to deal with it: more water, more minerals, bigger balls. — Mark Rippetoe

A weak man is not as happy as that same man would be if he were strong. This reality is offensive to some people who would like the intellectual or spiritual to take precedence. It is instructive to see what happens to these very people as their squat strength goes up. — Mark Rippetoe

You are right to be wary. There is much bullshit. Be wary of me too, because I may be wrong. Make up your own mind after you evaluate all the evidence and the logic. — Mark Rippetoe

Your muscles cannot get "longer" without some rather radical orthopedic surgery. — Mark Rippetoe

There are few things graven in stone, except that you have to squat or you're a pussy. — Mark Rippetoe

I recommend against a wooden squat rack, for much the same reason that I recommend against a wooden car. — Mark Rippetoe

Opinions are like phasers - everybody ought to have one. — Mark Rippetoe

A squat cannot be performed on a Smith machine any more than it can be performed in a small closet with a hamster. — Mark Rippetoe

The deadlift also serves as a way to train the mind to do things that are hard. — Mark Rippetoe

Humans are built to move. We evolved under conditions that required daily intense physical activity, and even among individuals with lower physical potential, that hard-earned genotype is still ours today. The modern sedentary lifestyle leads to the inactivation of the genes related to physical performance, attributes that were once critical for survival and which are still critical for the correct, healthy expression of the genotype. The genes are still there, they just aren't doing anything because the body is not stressed enough to cause a physiological adaptation requiring their activation. The sedentary person's heart, lungs, muscles, bones, nerves and brain all operate far below the level at which they evolved to function, and at which they still function best. — Mark Rippetoe

I know that I'm an animal that displays bilateral symmetry. I understand that one side should be the mirror of the other, and that human perceptions of beauty are intimately associated with symmetry. For example, I am very handsome. — Mark Rippetoe

I like musicianship, and it's quite lacking in most modern popular music. You're always safe with old Chicago, the Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule, or Tower of Power. — Mark Rippetoe

Physical strength is the most important thing in life. This is true whether we want it to be or not. — Mark Rippetoe