Beginner Prescription - Why so much deadlift volume + why is OPH prioritized?

I want to preface this set of questions by saying thanking for all the work and content you guys at Barbell Medicine have put out. I’m 39/M, went on the Starting Strength novice progression 8 years ago, and hit a sequence of walls after having a lower back injury about 4 months into training. I’ve been thoroughly entrenched in the biomechanical model of pain and it’s been incredibly liberating to discard that nocebo and get back to lifting, which I’ve really loved. So again, thank you!

I am running the Beginner’s Prescription right now, and had some questions that I haven’t seen answered anywhere, though you guys put out so much content that it may have been addressed here or there and I just haven’t run across it yet.

  1. Compared to SS, your program has a lot of deadlifting. I’m almost on week 4, and there are 4 heavy sets per week, and some lighter volume/accessory stuff. 4x4s once a week is about 3 times more than most other novice programs I’m aware of. What are the advantages and/or disadvantages (if any) to the triple dose in the Beginner’s prescription? People talk about deadlifts beating people up, though there’s obviously variation in how people respond. I personally enjoy the volume so far, at least at the light weights I am restarting at (pulled 225x4@8x2 today).

  2. A more pressing question…: why does the Beginner’s Prescription favor the overhead press over the bench press, in the first phase? Is 1x/week enough for the bench press to make progress, or is the thinking more that in the first phase the bench press is not emphasized but it’s included minimally to get used to the movement and make some slow progress in preparation for some later work.

JW,

Thanks for the post. Happy to hear about your journey so far. For your questions:

  1. Our view is that deadlifts are no more fatiguing than any other lift. The existing evidence supports this view :

We think that deadlift is one of many exercises that can adequately train the hinge movement pattern and lower extremities within that constraint. One of the more interesting things here is that when people don’t train their deadlift (or that pattern) with enough volume to drive improvements in work capacity, they’re kind of up a creek later on when it comes to training enough to actually get stronger. 1 set a week is not gonna get it done.

  1. Nice pun. Interestingly, the 1st version of the excel had the bench press favored over the press and now it’s flipped. Really, they’re just placeholders and I have no allegiance to the press or the bench press. You could pick either and be completely fine.

-Jordan

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Thanks, Jordan. That makes a lot of sense. As an aside, I’m curious about what drives that lore about the deadlift. Individual variation that might not be captured in that study? Nocebo?

A follow-up question: Regarding dosing, I have felt so far that I could increase my upper body dose. I am playing around with the idea of doing something like:

Monday: Heavy (4@8x2, etc) bench press, Volume (8@8x2,etc) OHP
Wed: Heavy OHP, volume bench press
Friday: Heavy bench press, volume OHP
…and continuing to alternate like this, for the first phase of the program. I experimented with this just one workout so far, because I am missing my Friday workout this week due to a wilderness trip and wanted to squeeze more in at the front of the week.

Based on my previous experience, years ago, I feel like I can tolerate this higher dose. I am inclined to follow my intuition on this one and see where it takes me, but I thought I’d check with you, Doc, to make sure it’s not contraindicated. Today doing heavy bench and volume OHP felt pretty good, and seems to bring the overall pressing volume more on par with the SS model and what I’ve tolerated previously.


I think it’s mostly people who haven’t developed any sort of training tolerance for the deadlift like they do the other lifts. Kind of a predictable response IMO.

I don’t really have strong feelings for or against you modifying the template. The template is what I would default to when working with someone I don’t know much about, but whom the template is otherwise appropriate for. I can’t think of situation where I’d modify the template as you have it here, but I don’t think it’s necessarily “wrong” either. If you’re making progress right now, I’d think really hard about changing things.

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