1st off thanks
@jaymaximus for putting this together it is going to be sweet and lots of good information already.
@Perrin Aybara you beat me to it with the books but I will repeat for importance sake.
Books to buy are:
- Starting strength 3rd edition
- Beyond 5/3/1
- Squat every day
- Powerlifting the complete guide (this book is especially good for beginners that want to learn about meets and the sport more itself so they don't go into a competition with shorts and a Tshirt and not the beautiful singlet that compliments your junk)
- Supple leopard (for indirect help to powerlifting as you want you body to remain pain free)
- The RTS manual (more advanced powerlifters)
- Mens Health & Fitness guide to stretching (not a must have at all but if you stumble around when stretching and don't know what to do it is good)
A few tips I will throw in here that are usually not covered:
- Stretch, after every workout stretch stretch stretch. The importance of this will not be seen in the first weeks or months but as you become more flexible you will be able to sit in a more advantageous position for deadlifts and you are teaching your mind to have a better kenisthetic sense which will help when knowing you've broken parallel during a squat. It also helps to prevent injury which will keep you training more consistent.
-Raw or equipped? Well I recommend raw for any beginner for sure, equipped lifters are generally the ones who have gone beyond what is possible with their training and want to pick up even more.
- Implementing gear, no not drugs but training equipment I.e knee wraps, slingshots, bands, chains, boards. When should you use these? Well for the first 6 months building your strength you do not need to be pulling out special tricks with consistency you will grow, once you plateau I would implement some overload training. Even though you raw squat a session every second week with wraps on doing doubles about what's your normal raw max will help kick you through plateaus, same with bench and the slingshot. Breaking a plateau on deadlifts is harder but deficit deadlifting a at 75% and heavy rack pulls focusing on pinching your scapula will help. You can use bands for speed training on deadlifts too. Chains are great when your problem is sticking 3-4 inches out of the hole but not so good if your problem is actually getting out of the hole.
If you have any questions on brands of equipment or something on wraps, belts, shoes, sleeves, compression bands, slingshots, really any training equipment I've bought basically everything and tried all the good brands so I'd be happy to give you a personal thought on each one.