This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an original
concept on my part. Bob Hoffman, Peary Rader, Bill Pearl and John
Grimek preached the basis idea for many years. They firmly believed
that when people added muscle to their frame, they should also
enhance their strength. To have huge arms and a massive chest but
be weaker than the average man on the street was a sham. It still
is.
I bring up the subject now because there seems to be a trend in
weight training that emphasizes size without the corresponding
increase in strength. Whenever I go out of town, I visit new gyms.
I enjoy checking out the different layouts and, mostly the way
members train. Over the past 10 years I've rarely seen anyone train
heavy or hard. The workouts are so easy, a teenage girl could do
them without sweating. I do, however, see some big boys strutting
around the gyms wearing tank tops and those ugly, baggy pants.
Usually, they have straps dangling from their wrists, indicating
they're about to lift some weight that's much too heavy for them to
hold without assistance.
I keep a watchful eye on them, for I enjoy watching feats of
strength. I soon learn, though, that they never move anything
heavy, and the straps are merely part of the costume. If they do
happen to use at all, it's to strap themselves to the lat machine.
Once I did a monster of a human do shrugs. He weighed more than 250
pounds and had the arms the size of Delaware but all he used was
225. Nevertheless, he screamed loudly on each rep, causing everyone
in the gym to stop what he or she was doing and watch him-which was
his intent.
Those pumped up specimens sincerely believe that they're admired by
the rest of the members and looked upon as superman by the general
public. Wrong. They're not considered freaks-and not good freaks at
that. Since they're not strong and don't use their muscles for any
reasons, other than to gratify their own egos, they're not more
than physical abominations-facades, fakes-for muscles equal
strength and if a person don't have sufficient strength to back up
those showy muscles, he's a joke.
The practice of building muscles merely for the sake of having huge
muscles is more prevalent now than it used to be. Most people who
started lifting weights in the 1940s,50s and 60s did so to gain
size and strength. It helped them improve their sport or prompted
them to display their new physiques on a posing platform. Still,
they never sacrifice their health or allowed strength to waver in
that quest. They were tightly knitted together, as they should be.
Today, these considerations take a back seat. In fact, young
bodybuilders are more than ready to sacrifice their health simply
to add inches to some bodypart.
There are several reasons for the change in attitude over the past
few decades. One is equipment. Before the machine explosion in the
'70s, those who trained with weights didn't have much choice of
equipment. There were power racks, squat racks, flat benches and
sometimes an incline bench plus barbells and dumbbells. Some gyms
might have a lat machine or calf machine, but that was about it. So
when people wanted to gain inches on their arms, chest or legs,
they used what was available, which meant they worked with free
weights. Moving the free weights allowed them to work on their
attachments much more easily than using the machines, so in the
process of getting bigger, they automatically got stronger.
That's no longer the case. Now young men as large as the Hulk spend
their entire workout using a variety of machines. Rarely do I see
anyone do heavy pulling movements off the floor, and the squat rack
is almost used for seated presses or curls, but they're standing in
line to use the pulleys, leg presses and other machines. And when
those huge men do use the various machines, they still don't work
them hard and heavy and it's the same thing with free weight
movements. I've watched monsters lie down on the bench and only be
able to handle 315 for a few reps, often getting assistance on
them. From their size and appearance, one would assume they'd be
using 405 easily.
The modern propensity for choosing machines rather than free
weights has been brought about to a large extent by gym owners and
personal trainers. Gym owners don't like members who train heavy.
They stay in the facility much too long and tie up many of the
weights. In addition-and even more alarming-is the fact they just
might influence other members to do the same. They prefer everyone
run through a quick circuit on the machines and get the hell
out.
A similar philosophy holds true for personal trainers, although for
slightly different reasons in most case. Trainers also want to
hustle their clients through their workouts rapidly, for time
equals money. In addition, one of the main reasons that personal
trainers seldom include any heavy strength movements in their
routines is that they don't know how to teach the exercises. Show
me a personal trainer who can teach power cleans, power snatches,
high pulls or even deadlifts, and you'll show me a rare exception.
They'll use light weights and token exercises, as their real motive
is to avoid getting their clients sore. Getting stronger never
enters the picture.
The situation has gotten so strange that in most gyms people don't
do any strength work even if they want to. Fitness facilities are
slowly removing stations where you can do heavy pulls and leg work.
A few months ago Jim Moser came from Maui for a visit. He owns
several gyms on the island and was at one time a nationally ranked
Olympic lifter. He wanted a place to train and to train his son and
he asked me where he should go. I shook my head, saying, "There's
not a place in the country where you can do overhead lifts or pull
of the floor."
That's the case not only where I live but almost everywhere. My
athletes go home for the summer or on holidays and seek out places
to train. My program revolves around the Big Three, which means
they squat and do some forms of heavy pulling, usually power
cleans. They all come back with the same story. The local gym
doesn't have a place in which to do power cleans, and in many
cases, there isn't even a squat rack available. The topper was that
one football player told me the gym came running out of his office,
screaming at him for doing overhead presses. It was too dangerous,
the owner said, and not allowed. Now that is really bordering on
the insane.
Another reason that the modern crop of young men shuns all forms of
heavy strength is that those at the top no longer set an example.
When I became interested in strength training, the bodybuilders I
trained with were of a different breed. If they looked strong, you
could bet the ranch that they were strong. In 1958, I trained with
Vern Weaver, John Grimek and Steve Stanko at the olde York Gym on
Broad Street. Grimek and Stanko had already won the Mr. America
title, and Vern would win it a few years later. I watched them work
out for almost two hours, and all they did was strength work: heavy
pulls, squats and presses-no curls or tricep pushdowns.
Later, when I worked at York, I often trained with some of the top
bodybuilders in the East. When Val Vasileff and Bill St. John
showed up, we knew we were in for a spirited session, for they'd
challenge us on every exercise. No one wanted to squat with St.
John because he could do 500 for reps, and Val was exceptionally
strong on all the shoulder exercises. The same held true for Bob
Gajda and Sergio Oliva. I got to train them when I was in graduate
school in Chicago. They not only crushed me on the primary strength
movements like squats and high pulls, but they often humbled me on
the quick lifts as well.
