Starting Strength uses compound lifts that go through the full range of motion for that reason. It takes ~3 hours a week. I’m sure doing cardio a lot would be better again but you can get a big improvement going from sedentary to three hours of vigorous exercise a week.
I get it. I’m a fan of starting strength (though not really of mark riptoe). But the background context of the book is a precovid world where “sedentary” had a much different connotation than it does today.
