Jim Maister could run for 30 seconds before he had to walk for a minute.
He was 53 when he started. His first 5K, on Thanksgiving morning, took him right at 47 minutes.
In his own words, in Runner’s World.
Heavy lifting and easy running, past forty
Get stronger and fitter past forty, starting with an empty bar and a thirty-second jog.
You lift with Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength and run with Klaas Lok’s Easy Interval Method: three barbell lifts, with a little more weight each time you come back, and short, relaxed repeats that get a little faster as you get fitter. We guide you through every workout, set by set, so the only decision left is putting your shoes on.
Start your free 30 days
No card needed. Then $10 a month or $100 a year. Cancel whenever you like.
Who it’s forpast forty, any starting point
Built for you, if you lift. Or run. Or both. Or if you used to, or if you never have and want to.
- 42years old
Keeping up in the Saturday game, and getting under a bar for the first time since college.
- 55years old
The hiking trip you keep putting off, or a 5K next to your daughter.
- 70years old
A grandchild on your shoulders, or a blood pressure number your doctor circled at your last physical.
Two speedsnothing in between
Heavy on some days. Easy on the others.
Heavy
Milo and the calf.
Milo of Croton picked up a newborn calf one day and carried it across the yard. He did it again the next day, and the next. The calf grew a little every day and so did Milo, and four years later he carried a full-grown bull.
Starting Strength is that story with a barbell: the squat, press, bench and deadlift, three sets of five, and a little more weight every time you come back. Rippetoe’s publisher counts half a million copies of the book sold. You open the app to today’s weight, the warm-ups written out, which of your plates go on each side, and a timer for your rest between sets.
Easy
Short repeats, a little faster as you get fitter.
Klaas Lok won twenty-four Dutch national titles, from the 1500 meters to cross-country, on training that was mostly short, easy repeats. Lok’s case is that steady miles are the slow way to build an aerobic engine, and short easy repeats are the fast one.
So an easy day is a few hundred meters at a relaxed, controlled pace, then a short walk and an easy jog, then another. As you get fitter, the repeats get a little faster. If you are new to running, you start on Lok’s first stage: jog thirty seconds, walk three minutes.
Where you would starta few taps
See where you would start before you sign up.
What would you like to do?
Your first workouts show up here.
How far it goesas reported in the press
Where people start, and how far they go, past fifty.
Shelly Stettner started with the empty bar.
She walked into a Michigan gym in 2016 and squatted the 45-pound bar. A year later she squatted 175. At 73 she squats over 250, benches 155, and has won a world title in her age and weight class. Her coach is Andy Baker, co-author of The Barbell Prescription.
Reported by Women’s Health, via AOL.
Dan King set a world age-group record in the mile.
At 61 he ran 4:49.08, the first person over sixty to break 4:50. Nine weeks of his training are a chapter in Klaas Lok’s Easy Interval Method: cross-training days alternating with easy intervals.
Reported by Bring Back the Mile.
For people who started closer to where you are, Lok keeps a hundred letters from runners on his site, most of them past forty, and Starting Strength keeps its lifters’ stories.
Missed daysnothing falls behind
Life gets in the way. You pick up at the next workout.
You don’t have to worry about whether you can safely skip a workout or try to make it up. You do neither. You complete it when you are ready, and the sessions after it adjust. If you miss a few weeks because of injury, or sickness, or life, the next sessions ease off a bit so you don’t lose momentum.
A good week is any week with at least three days that have a workout in them. A soccer game counts. So does a tennis match or a long ride you log yourself.
Start your free 30 days
No card needed. Then $10 a month or $100 a year. Cancel whenever you like.
Questionsthe short answers
What people ask first.
I have never been in a weight room. Will I know what to do? Yes. We guide you through your first workout set by set, starting with the empty bar: the weight, which of your plates go on each side, and the rest between sets, so there is nothing to calculate in front of anyone. The type is large enough that your reading glasses can stay in the car. When you want to understand the lifts more deeply, Rippetoe’s book teaches each one step by step.
Would you rather learn the lifts from a coach? Starting Strength Gyms coach the program in person, in small groups. Find a gym near you.
Am I too old to start? Shelly Stettner started at 65 with the empty bar. Lok wrote a chapter of his book for runners past forty. You start light, you stop each set before it is hard, and you add a little each time.
What do I need? For the heavy days, a barbell, plates, a squat rack and a bench, which any gym has. For the easy days, running shoes. Twospeed runs in your phone’s browser, and you can add it to your home screen.
Do I have to do both? No. Set up the lifting or the running first, and add the other whenever you like.
What does it cost? Nothing for 30 days, and you don’t enter a card to start. After that it is $10 a month or $100 a year, and you can cancel whenever you like.
The booksbuy them from the people who wrote them
Rippetoe’s book teaches you each lift, and Lok’s explains why short, easy repeats work.
- Starting Strength: Basic Barbell TrainingMark Rippetoe
The heavy days are built on the proven principles of Starting Strength. Effective for complete beginners to world champions.
- Easy Interval MethodKlaas Lok
The easy days are built on the Easy Interval Method, the training that won Klaas Lok twenty-four Dutch national titles. Effective for complete beginners to national champions.
The offerfree to start
Thirty days is long enough to know.
By the end of it you will have a month of your own workouts saved, every set and every run, and if you lift, you will be squatting more than you did on the first day.
- $0
- for 30 days, no card
- $10
- a month after that
- $100
- or a year
Start your free 30 days
No card needed. Then $10 a month or $100 a year. Cancel whenever you like.