Say I don't necessarily want to be ripped but I just want to do the minimum amount of exercise to be healthy. So I can go to the gym twice a week and do the program you advocate, or go to the gym twice a week and swim or run on the elliptical for 45 minutes. Your program will be better for me--unless I injure myself, and the risk of injury is much greater with free weight lifting than with swimming/ellipticals. Are the beneficial effects of free weights really that much better that they offset the risk of injury? Honest question.
Good question, yes they are. Free weight exercise done the right way, as described in Starting Strength, is the best way to prevent injury and improve health. Progress will be fast enough to impress you and motivate you to keep working, but slow enough to where you can stop increasing the weights if you feel that you're getting too "ripped." But watch as your squat weights start increasing, your clothes start fitting better, and you start getting more looks from people of your preferred gender, and you'll love having a body that's the product of weightlifting.
I got some potentially chronic knee injuries lifting weights. As someone who barely squats ~235 these are probably not too serious. I made mistakes in form and routine to get them, serious mistakes that I see others making at the gym. I see more people make very noticeable mistakes in squat/deadlift form than not. These are average athletic 185 lbs at 6' at globo gym, hardcore gyms would be the opposite. That's where most injuries come from for non-elite athletes. Also mistakes in choosing routines, stay away from elite athlete workouts.
After correcting form and playing around with routine and resistance level, these "injuries" are bothering me a lot less. I used to do squats 3x5 at 180-220 lbs twice a week. Now doing one medium weight 3x8 back squat day, one light front squat day, one heavy 3x5 day. Increasing the frequency seems to help keep the knee ready over the course of the week.
And runners and swimmers get injuries too. I had those. One particularly memorable calf muscle pull swimming, painful to walk for over a month.
The benefits of progressive strength training over staying in "shape" exercising is that it gets your body closer to its natural well fed, well prepared state. It simulates the life humans evolved for, hunter gatherers or farmers, not lethargic bed ridden hipster skinny jeans.
Your bone density increases, your hormone levels become normal. Your face looks less childlike. I know from personal experience it helps a lot with depression and others believe this as well. Exercising without progressing to a recommended level of strength, 2.5xBW deadlift, 2xBW squat, etc. just doing 50 pushups, bunch of light curls, left me feeling not much better and not motivated to continue. But I was in extremely bad shape, people who live actively don't need a strength training shock treatment to feel normal.
> Are the beneficial effects of free weights really that much better that they offset the risk of injury? Honest question.
I would say yes. There are health effects of resistance training (with weights or bodyweight) that cannot be obtained through other means. The incidence of injury in weight training is lower than for many sports, including "safe" options like soccer.
Also, I dunno if you've ever sat in on swimmers bitching about overuse injuries.
