However, there are a lot of unqualified lifting coaches out there, and many fitness certifications don't cover lifting well. So if you just walk into your local fitness club and ask for a trainer, you can easily wind up with the incompetent leading the ignorant.

A practical compromise might be to buy a phone tripod, record your lifts, and work online with a qualified coach. Just looking at the larger Starting Strength community, I've been deeply impressed by Barbell Medicine, and some people seem to like Starting Strength Online Coaching.

There are lots of other good programs out there besides Starting Strength, obviously. And honestly, all the uninjured, grey-haired lifters I've met were careful bodybuilders and not powerlifters (but my sample size is small).

To say that his advice is antiquated is controversial at best. SS is written for the brand new beginner, and is advertised as such. Its prototypical student is a high school freshman that weighs 140 lbs and needs to get bigger and stronger to make the football team.

Another commenter said it ignores other factors like diet and rest. This is objectively incorrect. The book harps on eating and sleeping/resting. Rest days are sacred. If you are trying to go from. 100 lb squat to 300 in a few months, you sleep and eat, taking occasional breaks to lift heavy. If you are fat, eat slightly less.

SS isn't about body building, it's about a brand new lifter getting to a non-embarassing level of strength. That means eating an adequate amount of food, erroring on the side of eating too much, and just cut back the calories after you have a 300+ lb squat. People like to make a meme of things like the 'Gallon of Milk A Day' advice. That's not general advice. That's for the 110 lb 15 year old who doesn't like eating food and wants to get bigger. It's not advice for the 20 something software dev trying to go from weak and fat to bodybuilder