Being a Physique Competitor - Chris Dickerson (1970)

 Strength & Health November 1970

Competing in any sport is always exciting. Regardless of whether a particular contestant wins or loses, the experience of competing can be extremely rewarding. Sometimes, however, it is heartbreaking, particularly when one does not know how to lose.

Learning how to win is always easy, but knowing how to lose is a much truer test of the stuff we are made of. Fact is, being a competitor can bring out the best and the worst in our nature.

Being a physique competitor can be rougher on the guy than being a contestant in any other given sport, because physique competitions are so difficult to judge. In swimming, running, and skiing, for instance, one is judged on “stop watch” performance. The one who passes the finish line first, wins. The winner immediately knows he has won and the losers immediately know they have lost.

Determining a winner of a physique contest, on the other hand, such as Mr. Indiana, Mr. Greater Baltimore, or Mr. Western America, etc… is not so easy. Here you are judged by many factors. These are muscular development, body symmetry and proportions, your posing ability, and even poise and speech, as compared to those vying for the title along with you. Judges often do not agree upon who the winner should be and the loser is often tempted to blame the judges rather than himself for losing. It can be frustrating.

To further frustrate the bodybuilder who is in contention of winning a title, the bodybuilder, regardless of how much muscle he has been capable of piling on his frame, is stuck with just that, HIS frame. He is short, tall, or medium in height, and will be throughout his days as a competitor. If he is particularly long limbed or short waisted, he may be at a disadvantage if competing against a man with the body structure of a Steve Reeves or Jim Haislop. The determined bodybuilder who may not have the ideal body structure, can still win major titles, even Mr. America.

Physique judging is difficult.  My first experience at judging a contest some time ago taught me that symmetry and body structure can be more important than heavy muscular development. The man I had chosen for first was not the man. My own choice was the most impressive in terms of development, but he was lacking in symmetry. After all the judges’ scores had been tabulated, the winner of the contest turned out to be the man I had chosen for third place. I was a little puzzled, even though I realized that judges are seldom unanimous in selecting a winner. I conferred with the other judges so that I might possibly learn something from them. Looking at the winner, I had to admit that, yes, he was the most symmetrical and had the best proportions even though not quite as thickly muscled as the man I had chosen.

The ideal physique, the kind that usually wins major physique titles, is one with broad shoulders, a small and tapered waist, shapely and developed legs; the neck, arms, and calves should measure the same on the tape or at least close to it. Having studied anatomy and been given the opportunity to judge in a number of contests, I personally prefer a man with developed trapezius, developed obliques and gluteus maximus as compared to one who is not fully developed in these areas. People are too often impressed by only a pair of bulging biceps. They forget that the arm is not actually a large muscle group, as are the legs, chest and back area and the gluteus maximus. A Mr. America winner must concentrate fully on each and every muscle group, and with a sense of proportion so that the difference muscle groups blend together, giving him maximum symmetry and balance.

Assuming then that you are ready physically to compete and that you’re in top shape, it is equally important that you have worked on your posing in order to show off what you’ve attained to your best advantage. This involves not only the realization of what poses suit you best, that are most flattering to you, but also how to get from one pose to the next in the easiest and most graceful manner. Although posing is hard work, involving more concentrated effort than a normal workout, it must appear effortless to the judges; moreover, it is to your credit if the judges feel you are actually enjoying posing for them. Naturally, they are aware of the pressure and strain you’re undergoing, but performing in any capacity requires a certain sense of theatre that means making what is difficult appear as though it is easy. You are, after all, a performer and are being watched every second.

The physique competitor who has practiced posing for many, many hours before a mirror, is the tone who is prepared. He is more sure of himself and will be ready to rise to the occasion. It will show, believe me. (The judges are no fools and that’s why they are judges.) Practice diligently your posing routine. Time it so that it is one minute in duration. One minute posing is standard in A.A.U. competition. Practice walking before a mirror and then before a friend or your family. Know that the judges will be watching you from the instant you walk out to the platform, until the time you have finished posing and have completely left the stage. Practice your posture and take careful note of your appearance by simply standing relaxed, as you would in the line-up. The line-up is usually at the beginning of each contest, when all contestants are marched before the judges in order for them to compare you together. It is a most crucial test of your appearance and poise and often the eventual winner is chosen from this stage of the competition, even before anyone has had an opportunity to pose.

In addition to being in top physical shape, of knowing how to stand, walk, and pose, there is in all national contests (contests beyond the local, regional, and state level) that which is called the interview. The following national contests require the all important personal interview: Teenage Mr. America, Junior Mr. USA, Junior Mr. America, Mr. USA, and Mr. America. At these meets, you will always have the interview, but be prepared for it at all smaller meets as well. I can tell you from experience that there can be an interview whenever those in charge of a particular meet feel that it is necessary to hold one.

The purpose of the interview is to give each individual competitor the opportunity to demonstrate his personality and display his ability to speak and answer questions put to him by the judging panel. In this way the judges are given the pertinent background information on him, so that he becomes a person to them and not just a mass of muscle on display. The interview may be as long as five minutes for a contestant and is the first part of the competition; so in the name of Hercules, please dress for all contests you may enter so that you are always prepared for the interview. Being dressed properly for the interview means wearing a suit, dress shirt and tie. My advice is to go out and have a suit tailor made, it’s worth it, believe me.

Now. Lets sum up what a physique competition will involve, from beginning to end. First of all, your application to enter has been sent in, along with your usual two dollar entry fee. Two dollars is a standard fee for A.A.U. competition. This takes some of the sting out of meet expenses. Make sure that the application has been sent in before the “deadline.” Next, you should arrive at the meet on time; the time as given on the application. You should be dressed appropriately, in suit, shirt and tie, and shoes shined. You should have your gym bag with you to carry your posing trunks, towel, some kind of gym shoes, a warm-up or sweat suit so that you remain at a constant body temperature and don’t cool off too quickly and catch cold while you are down to your posing trunks.

Be sure that you have with you your A.A.U. membership card and that it is current and has not expired. An A.A.U. membership card can be obtained by calling your local Amateur Athletic Union (A.A.U.) and simply asking for an application for a membership card so that you may compete as a bodybuilder. Bring that card with you because you cannot compete without it.

A travel permit is no longer required of a contestant, unless he is competing outside his region (or association) and his expenses are paid for by his gym or other than himself; in other words, he is being sponsored. But this need seldom concern most of us.

Prior to the competition, all contestants are usually called together, either by an A.A.U. Official or the man who is emceeing the show. You are then given a number, and will be expected to wear it on your trunks to help judges identify you. You are then called individually, but that number, to appear behind closed doors and in private, before the panel of judges, usually seven in number, for the personal interview.

After all contestants have been individually interviewed, you are directed to change to your posing trunks, and to re-appear before the panel of judges for the physique judging itself. Generally, there is the “line-up” first, where all contestants face the judges in trunks in a single line, so that they may compare you with your opponents. You are asked to face front, give a right side turn, face back, another right side turn, and again to face front. In this manner, you can be observed and compared from all sides. This is important for fair judgement and all the more reason that the competitor should have good development all around and not just from the front. You are then marched off and brough back for individual posing.

Now is your chance to show off your posing routine and your posing ability. If there are body parts being awarded, best legs, chest, back, arms, and abdominals, you will be called back to give your best pose, showing that particular body part.

For all practical purposes, the contest is now over. Let me explain. It has been decided by those of the A.A.U. Committee, that contests should be prejudged. This means that the contestants appear in the afternoon of the evening of the contest, to be judged at a more close and intimate situation and under normal overhead lighting. This allows more time for each contestant and makes it possible for each contestant to be called back as often as judges feel it is necessary for fair judging and results. All of this comparing and being called back and forth can be boring from an audience standpoint. Therefore, it is done before the audience arrives and what the audience sees that evening is each contestant posing under the posing light on the posing platform, but the results have already been decided. In running the contest in this manner the best interest of both contestants and audience are considered.

Generally contests start at 8:00PM and so all contestants, at the end of pre-judging are asked to return by 7:30PM. You are warned that even though the judging has been decided, the results can be changed according to your behavior or lack of it on the platform before the audience that evening.

It is evening and the contest begins. You have completed your individual posing, this time in the main auditorium before the audience. Next comes the presentation of awards, and with it, the increase of each contestant’s heartbeat. As a contestant, let me say, it’s the part of the competition that’s the toughest.  You ask yourself, why am I here? Why did I ever go into bodybuilding? You wish you were out sitting in the audience, instead of sweating out the results backstage.

What’s it worth anyway, all those sets and reps  and all the sweat? What are you doing here, and on a Saturday night, when you could be out having the kind of fun you have grown unaccustomed to, for the sake of training? Wow! You must be nuts!

Finally win, place, or don’t place at all, the contest is over. The chips are down and the pressure is off. Fellow contestants climb in cars to drive to some place to eat, to go catch a late flight home, or back to the motel for a little sleep. You think and suddenly you feel a part of a fraternity and you’re proud, even if you didn’t fare too well that evening. You congratulate the winner, there can only be one. You sit eating and talking about what has happened on this long day. You know yourself where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing on Monday. On Monday, you’ll be back training and training harder than ever. You think to yourself that you’re going to change your routine a bit, that the exercise that Ron told you he does for shoulders, sounds great, that you’re going to try it. You can hardly wait.

Enjoy your lifting!

What is an All-Around Athlete? - David Willoughby (1975)

 Iron Man March 1975

I don't have the subsequent issue, but I would guess this article got a lot of feedback from loyal Iron Man readers. 

Frequently a familiar term or expression will refer to an object or condition that admits of more than one definition. For example, among conventional followers of sports the term “all-around athlete” is generally taken to mean a performer – particularly one of championship class – in the decathlon. Yet the decathlon, as conducted under A.A.U. ruling is only an arbitrary  set of track and field events chosen to determine the most capable all-around performer in those particular events. Obviously, as I have pointed out in my book The Super Athletes (pp. 532, 541-547), there are a great many athletes who could be considered “all-around,” yet who have never competed in a conventional decathlon meet. And of these athletes, many have been more on the side of strength than of speed and specialized skill.

In the ancient Greek pentathlon, the events were: (1) jumping (for distance, using weights in the hands); (2) running (usually a sprint of about 200 yards, or the length of the stadium); (3) throwing the discus (an underhand toss, without body turns); (4) throwing the javelin (using a spirally-wrapped thong to give the missile a twirling motion and greater distance); and (5) wrestling (in what later came to be known as Greco-Roman style). The consequence of using these generally more strength-requiring events was that the typical Greek pentathlete acquired a physique substantially heavier than that of today’s typical decathlon performer. The latter, at a height of about 70 inches, would weight only about 163 pounds, whereas the Greek pentathlete, if of the same height, would weigh at least 20 pounds more. Yet some truly great “all-around” athletes – Jim Thorpe and the senior Douglas Fairbanks, for example – have been of no heavier body build than a typical modern decathlon performer. To show how greatly the average or typical height and weight ranges among the performers in various forms of physical activity, the above table (No. 1) is presented. The statistics have been drawn or computed from the sources listed in the last column.

In this table the ideal “all-around” athlete, at an assumed height of 70 inches, weighs 174 pounds and is assigned a body build of 100.0. Accordingly, the formula for rating body build becomes: the square root of (bodyweight at 70 inches divided by 174) x 100.

This formula indicates the average girth in relation to height. For example, if a build of 100.0 (at a height of 70 inches) indicates a chest girth of 41.8 inches, a build of 90.0 would indicate a chest girth of .90 x 41.8, or 37.6 inches, and so on. The maximum body build (muscular) is here assumed as 126.5; and the corresponding minimum (or most slender) build is 100.0 126.5, or 79.0. At the height of 70 inches, this would mean a minimum bodyweight of .790² x 174 or 109 pounds. Thus, the possible range in bodyweight at a given height among healthy athletes is seen to range plus or minus 60 percent, or from four to six times the range prescribed by conventional “what you should weigh” tables.

As Table 1 shows, there is a different physique, or body build, for each and every athletic or gymnastic event. That is, the typical body build in a given event is dictated by the particular combination of strength and speed required in that event. Forms of effort in which the chief requirement is either speed or endurance, and in which the need for muscular strength is minimal, are best performed by persons of slender, rangy physique. In contrast, events or feats requiring a great expenditure of force in a heavy, momentary effort accordingly require a powerful, heavy-built physique. Between these extremes are the performers in events which require a more balanced combination of speed and strength. And somewhere near the middle of the range of athletic requirements are performers who possess the maximum of physical versatility – the most favorable combination of strength, speed, endurance, agility, and so on. Of course, there are exceptions here as elsewhere, and occasionally there may appear a very capable heavy-built sprinter or a slender-built weightlifter.

 

Edit: Interesting to see how the build of sprinters, specifically, have changed since this was published. Bigger weightlifters are obviously stronger, but double bodyweight snatches and triple bodyweight clean and jerks aren’t happening for the supers.

Nevertheless, as a rule, body build varies in ratio to the physical or athletic requirement.

 

In Table 2 are given the typical girth measurements that prevail among athletes of various bodyweights at the assumed height of 70 inches. The lightest bodyweight listed (140 pounds) is naturally accompanied by the smallest girths, while the heaviest (280 pounds) represents essentially the maximum of muscular development in relation to height. I say “essentially” because in rare instances an even larger muscular girth may occur in some part or parts of the body. For example, a few years ago, at Northwestern University, there was a football player who stood only 64 ½ inches in height and weighed only 158 pounds, yet had calves of 18 inches! This was about 2 ½ inches larger than would be expected from  his weight per inch of height. And nowadays some of the devotees of excessive arm size have attained comparably disproportionate measurements. Moreover, some bodybuilders who actually possess 19-inch arms, as if not satisfied with such enormous girths, insist on claiming them to be anywhere from 20 to 21 ½ inches. The contestants in “Mr. Universe” contests, for example, exaggerate their arm measurements  on the average by 1 ¼ inches and their chests (normal) by about 2 ¼ inches. On the other hand, by retracting their anterior abdominal walls, they measure their waists about 1 ½ inches too small. Evidently the idea is to show the greatest possible difference between the girth of the chest and girth of the waist, even if this has to be accomplished by trick contortions and faulty measuring. In a real strong man the difference between these two girths is rarely more than 12 inches, even in athletes with 50-inch chests.

In the lower four rows of Table 2 are shown, first, the typical measurements (at a height of 70 inches) of an all-around athlete of symmetrical development and physique; next, of the typical ancient Greek athlete, as averaged from the measurements of twenty well-known statues; thirdly, of a typical “Mr. Universe;” and lastly, the measurements of the Greek conception of Heracles (Roman: Hercules), as averaged from six noteworthy statues of this ancient symbol of strength. From these measurements it will be seen that Hercules was not an athlete of extreme muscular size, but rather one who combined maximum strength (by reason of muscle quality) with great endurance, activity, and agility. Only by such a combination of physical assets could Hercules have accomplished his twelve famous Labors, along with the numerous other mighty exploits that made him the greatest hero of Greek mythology (or legend?).

Present-day seekers of physical distinction should pause to consider the value of muscular quality as compared with quantity. If, for example, a finely-developed strong man with 17-inch arms can curl 200 pounds, one with 19-inch arms should curl 246 pounds, and with 20-inch arms 270 pounds. And if those who possess such measurements cannot equal these curls – which are by no means maximum possibilities, they might ask themselves what advantage their oversized arms confer, unless it is just so much extra bulk to look at and display.

It should be realized that the size and strength a muscular part may normally attain is governed by geometric as well as physiological laws. The surface area of the body varies not as the body weight, but approximately as the cube root of the weight squared; and the same degree of variation applies to the cross-sectional area of a muscular part, such as the arm. Accordingly, muscular strength varies approximately as relative muscle cross-section, which is expressed by the weight per inch of height. However, the extent to which the muscle is stimulated (into contracting) remains more or less constant as the cross-section of the muscle is increased through exercise, so that strength at an increased bodyweight (the height remaining constant) does not quite keep up in ratio to bodyweight per inch of height.

In short, while strength can be increased through simply enlarging the muscles and increasing the body weight, there is a law of diminishing returns, so that a weightlifter, in order to lift what would be expected at a bodyweight of, say, 250 pounds, might have actually to weight 300 pounds or more. This, of course, results in a decreasing ratio of strength-to-weight so that the performer becomes stronger only at the expense of becoming less active and agile. There is only one alternative to this prospect, and that is by  increasing one’s strength without becoming appreciably heavier. It can be done.

It is the writer’s earnest hope that conventional “bodybuilding” may return to the stage where accomplishment rather than gross size is the sought-after goal, and where an athlete who can perform, say, ten one-arm chins or 80 parallel bar dips, or spring 100 yards in less than 10 seconds, or throw a baseball over 400 feet, will be recognized and emulated more than another who can only assume grotesque postures to show how big his muscles are.

Editors Note – This is an unusual article that some readers may disagree with. Everyone has his own ideas of what a great athlete is and how he should be chosen. We did not carry a photo with this article because we couldn’t come up with one we thought would be acceptable by readers. You tell us who you think is the greatest athlete. You may recall some time back that a big meet was held in Florida with champions in various sports participating. Each excelled in his own individual sport but his showing in some other sports was rather miserable. An all round athlete seldom receives much acclaim because he does not excel at any one sport, and yet we probably must recognize that such excellence is most desirable. 

I'm a month or so late on posting this, but this is pretty incredible.  Cicely Kyle dislocated her finger on her clean and jerk, popped it back in while in a front rack, then stuck the jerk (to win her weight class.)  Life's hard; be harder.

https://youtube.com/shorts/CaOZt4Wduv4?si=cX_UnvHq_OS7tZ1j

Enjoy your lifting!

The East German Olympic Training System - Frank Shuman (1977)

 

The East German Olympic Training System – Frank Shuman (1977)

Strength & Health June-July 1977

With the Olympics starting in a couple weeks I figured it'll be fun to look back at some all-time bad takes on past Olympic performances.  At least one photo in the feature was a Bruce Klemens heater that I didn't see him get credit for.  Do yourself a favor and go check out his flickr account:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bklemens/albums/72157669291356315/

Bruce is still showing up to US Nationals and taking photos.  

The 1976 Olympics in Montreal were filled with many surprises by the emergence of East Germany as an Olympic power might have been the biggest surprise of all. And yet, it did not come as a surprise to anyone following international competitions, for they knew that the East Germans had developed an all-encompassing training system for their athletes in all sports.

This year, however, for the first time, some of the secrets have been revealed to the West. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) invited a group of Western journalists to visit their sports facilities around the country and to investigate, somewhat, their training programs.

Much of the information in this article is based on the report of one of these journalists, Craig B. Whitney, to the New York Times.

Although the East Germans won more gold medals (40) than any other country except the USSR, they are already laying the groundwork for their assault on the XXII Olympiad in Moscow in 1980.

Their system which also produced 25 silver and 25 bronze medals in Montreal is comprised of teams of doctors, coaches and athletes. There are 21 sports clubs around the country and 19 specialized sports schools, which arrange their curriculum hours to fit around the student-athletes’ needs.

The Sports and Gymnastics Club in East Berlin is one of the largest in the country and it has over 600 athletes training there for three and four hours a day under 32 professional coaches. The budget is over $500,000 and the training facilities include gyms for soccer, handball, basketball and gymnastics. There are also special weightlifting rooms, boxing rings, an indoor ice-skating rink, and swimming pools with diving boards made in Sparks, Nevada.

Since East Germany is a relatively small country (population 17 million), it can be assumed that the sports clubs and specialized schools are within easy distance of all their athletes. This isn’t really true, of course. The clubs and schools are open only to those athletes with promise. Ulrike Richter, the 18-year old backstroke champion, for example, was “discovered” by a “scout” when she was six years old and she was put in a special boarding school in East Berlin even though her family live 100 miles away.

Unfortunately, this is the rule and not the exception. Most of the East German athletes have been in serious and supervised training since their early, formative years.

The United States can loo with envy upon the results of other systems but there will surely be no one clamoring for us to emulate these systems and “imprison” our young and potential champion athletes.

On the other hand, the East German athletes do not consider themselves imprisoned. They seem genuinely concerned with strengthening the international reputation of the German Democratic Republic and this is why the long-isolated East German regime is willing to spend so much money on it.

In addition to the clubs and sports schools, the army is another organization entrusted with turning out athletes. They are able to offer outstanding facilities for training and their soldier-athletes are often promoted in the ranks according to how they’ve progressed in competition.

The system itself, however, is built upon a foundation of national sports. Physical education classes of two to three hours a week, for example, are compulsory for every East German schoolchild, beginning with the first grade. The coaches in these schools, then, act as “talent scouts” and they appear to know what they’re looking for as most schools send five or six students a year to the special sports schools. There is some room for dissent, though, and a student who is picked for one of the sports schools can refuse to attend.

As stated, however, attending these schools and belonging to the clubs or the army is a privilege open only to superior athletes. Anyone who has any ambition as far as the Olympics are concerned will join because there are simply no other ways to attain the Olympic standards. There is no such thing in East Germany as training on one’s own in neighborhood gyms.

How does the government pay for its programs and facilities? We in the United States have seen all sorts of fundraising events but it is doubtful if we would accept the East German way. They encourage workers to spend an extra shift at the factory and then to donate those wages to the sports programs. A sports official in Leipzig says “The majority do it voluntarily, but of course those who don’t volunteer, go along with the others anyway.”

And it takes a lot of extra shifts to pay for the East German program and facilities. In addition to the half-million dollar budget in East Berlin, the little town of Wunschendorf has a budget of at least $160,000 a year for its programs.

The East German Gymnastics and Sports Federation has 2.66 million members and there is an elite sports club in Zella-Mehlis specializing in skiing, skating and wrestling. In Halle, in a modern building along the Saale river, there is a sports medicine office (wink wink, cough cough) specializing in swimming. In Leipzig, there is the German Sports Institute, which has produced more than 7,000 trained coaches and athletes.

There is a special department of sports medicine at the Institute with a staff of 85, and research there is believed to be the most advanced in its field in the entire world. The Leipzig Research Center is equipped with all sorts of complex medical equipment and swimmers train there with masks on so that doctors can study their metabolic rates. Dr. Alois Marder, who was graduated from the Institute and worked at the swimming club in Halle with Kornelia Ender, fled to West Germany two years ago. He is the one who provided the first information about the East German swim training.

According to him, the tests made on the swimmers involve blood samples taken in the first, second, fifth and 10^th minutes of a workout, so that the buildup of lactic acid in the blood- and thus the level of physical exhaustion – can be monitored at every stage.

This method is used to predict the maximum performance attainable by an athlete. Dr. Marder said that he took a sample of blood from Kornelia Ender’s earlobe in 1973 and he knew she could swim the 100-meter freestyle in 56 seconds. That is exactly what she did last summer in Montreal! Dr. Marder explained at the West German Sports Institute in Cologne, where he is now trying to do the same kind of research, that the lactic acid level is the key.

“Lactic acid builds up in the bloodstream as the muscles work hard,” he said. “It builds up to a certain level and then exhaustion sets in. If you measure the levels in a swimmer’s bloodstream at a constant speed after one, two, five and 10 minutes, you can draw a line on a graph and predict accurately how fast he can swim – and then train him to that level.”

Some athletes’ metabolism, he claims, make it impossible for them to work their bodies as hard as Miss Ender could. The athletes who can work as hard are the ones who care given such intensive training. And is it all worthwhile? Well, maybe not by American standards. Living in a free enterprise system, our athletes are pressed with the need of making a living. Such a thing is not a factor in East Germany.

The athletes who do succeed make nowhere near the money and get nowhere near the benefits our professional athletes receive but neither do they go wanting. After her spectacular performance of winning one silver and four gold medals in Montreal, Miss Ender received a government-sponsored vacation trip to Cuba along with her fiancé, Roland Matthes, the backstroke swimmer. They will also be assured of an apartment and maybe a new car without the standard eight-year wait. Miss Ender will probably receive another important benefit. She wants to study medicine – a coveted field in East Germany – and her plans will probably not be disappointed, although no one else contemplating a career in medicine can be so sure.

“I gave the state quite a lot with my four gold medals,” said Miss Ender, “and now I’d like to make a contribution to society as a pediatrician, perhaps, or in some other field of medicine.” (Not so surprisingly, in 1977 she was banned from the East German team as she refused to take PEDs as prescribed by the team doctors.)

She is right when she says she gave the state quite a lot. After all, she was discovered by a coach in her hometown of Bitterfeld when she was only eight years old. When she was 11, she was sent to the sports school and club in Halle. Probably because of her fantastic performance in Montreal, Miss Ender received more attention from the Western journalists. It was pointed out that she is a big woman – broader in the shoulders than most men her age – and the question of steroid usage was raised.

Professor Kurt Tittel, head of the division of sports medicine at the German Sports Institute in Leipzig said, “We have developed our athletes without recourse to anabolics.” Eberhard Schramm, head of swimming department at Leipzig said that the ideal training regimen for athletes should include gymnastics, isometrics, games and weightlifting.

“Weights are quite effective” he said, “but only up to about 40 percent of the maximum a swimmer can lift. We want to build endurance and flexibility, not maximum strength.”

Ski jumpers and skaters also work with weights but they do it differently. They use heavy weights so as to prepare their muscles for the bursts of maximum strength required in their particular sport.

Weightlifters, on the other hand, use a variety of calisthenics and gymnastics-type exercises to increase their flexibility. The GDR Weightlifting Federation is a strong, independent body with five full-time administrators and two part-time secretaries as well as two paid national and five paid regional coaches. There are 7,500 registered lifters in East Germany compared  to just a little over 2,000 for the United States. Their athletes also participate in far more international competitions a year than ours. They hose four major international events and they send teams to about 12 others. Actually, international travel is one of the big incentives of the East German system. Athletes and government officials are the only ones who are allowed to travel to capitalistic countries and, it seems, everyone wants to be among those fortunate few who are allowed outside the closely-watched borders.

Although there were no defections in Montreal and all the East German athletes professed a sincere desire to boost  the international reputation of their government, security of the entire sports organization is extremely tight. Representatives of the FDJ (Free German Youth) and the KEPD (German Communist Party of Unity) are present at all trainings and competitions to exercise their supervisory function. The President of the Weightlifting Federation of the GDR himself is a political appointee and has no experience in weightlifting.

The top lifters are well0-known throughout the country and are treated as national heroes. Even minor weightlifting events are attended by huge crowds, whose interest is aroused by detailed reports about the progress of the sport in the daily press. International weightlifting events are given direct TV coverage throughout the evening hours for as many days as the competition lasts.

East German citizens are extremely proud of the accomplishments of all their athletes. But for Dr. Marder and others in the West there is doubt about the ideals of amateurism and international brotherhood that were revived with the Olympic Games in 1896.

“Is this really sport?” wondered Dr. Marder. “You in the West will have to decide that because someday you won’t be able to compete with those people fairly if you insist on being amateurs while they put computers, medicine and a whole society to work turning out champions.”

The choice is ours… and that is appropriate because our system of government is based on choice. Hopefully we will decide to improve our system of training by following the recommendations of the recent Presidential Committee on the Olympics and seek the support of private industry an the American public as well as the Federal Government. 

Enjoy your lifting!

Updating the Program - Tommy Suggs (1971)

 Strength & Health April 1971

The paintings used on the early 70's "Lifter of the Year" covers was not the most flattering

As mentioned in previous articles featuring "Charlie" the author may have been Bill Starr and being published under Tommy's name.

One problem about being in a small town is that you can’t get away from people you know. Since I run a gym I serve as a 24-hour authority on fitness, which is terrific, but sometimes I would like to talk about bussing my kids or inflation. No one ever asks me what I think about the Women’s lib or Janis Joplin’s death. And so it was on this day as I wandered downtown to buy some household supplies. I hadn’t even picked out my brand of toothpaste before a friend I bank with cornered me about a jogging program. By the time I got to the Right Guard I had arranged appointments with three men and one woman, and volunteered to speak at a PTA meeting. Charlie grabbed me at the cash register.

“Hey, what you buying?”

“Just some home supplies.”

“See you have a little body odor problem.”

“No, you knucklehead, it’s for the family. Don’t you use deodorant?”

“Sure, just bugging you. Say let’s work up my new schedule.”

“Now?”

“Sure, we can set over in that booth. I’ll get some paper and write down the program.”

And he was off. Charlie never seems to be in one place very long. I paid my bill and sat down while he grabbed a handful of napkins from the counter dispenser.

“Nice paper. Best you could buy huh?”

“It’ll be all right. Nothing too good I always say.”

“Tell me your present program.”

“Don’t you know it?”

“Charlie, I’m pretty sure that I do know it but I’ve laid out 20-30 programs since yours and in orer to save time just tell me.”

“Mondays and Thursdays I do power cleans, bench presses, and back squats. On Tuesdays and Saturdays I do overhead presses, power snatches, and front squats. But since you gave me that program I have added Olympic presses, cleans, jerks, and snatches. I need to fit in the Olympic lifts.”

“Fine. Let me take just a minute to explain why I’m setting your program up this way. When you first got started we were interested in building a stronger base to work from. This is why benches, squats, power cleans, and power snatches were included. Now, we need to work more on the technique of the Olympic lifts so that your form progresses along with your strength. You with me?”

“Sure, you’re making sense for a change.”

“We will be doing a combination of form and power work with an eye towards a contest in about three months.”

Charlie’s eyes light up at the suggestion of a meet. “You think I’m ready for a contest?”

“A lifter is never, ever ready for a contest – or at least he doesn’t think he is – but you will be ready to get your feet wet soon. Not the Seniors mind you, but there’s a novice meet coming up within reach that we’ll plan on attending. This program is a good one to get you ready for a contest although we’ll alter it yet again about six weeks before the actual meet.”

Charlie now had a blank look on his face. The idea of lifting was flashing visions in his head so fast he couldn’t hear what I was saying.

“Charlie, you listening?”

“Yea, sure. Feed it to me.”

“On Mondays you will be doing Olympic presses from the rack for form. You will do 6-8 sets of doubles going up to 30-40 pounds of your best. You should stress timing and position and not try to go heavy. Next, you will do squat cleans in sets of three. They’re really murder, but they will help you develop a pattern for cleaning like no other exercise. Do 6-8 sets counting your warm-ups. Go as heavy as you can for three and try to increase the poundage each week. Follow the cleans with three sets of high pulls using straps. Do the first set of high pulls with 20 more pounds than the final clean, add 20 more for the second and 20 more for the third. Finish off with 30 sit-ups and 20 leg raises and call it a day.”

“Tuesdays will include jerks off the rack, power snatches, and back squats. Do 6-8 sets of jerks in doubles and go as heavy as possible every session. The power snatches will be done in sets of threes. Do eight sets of these. Four warm-up sets and then four sets of three across at a given poundage. The squats are the same as before, five sets of five increasing weight on each set. Any questions so far?”

“No questions, but slow down a little. This napkin keeps getting bunched up.”

“Are you going to carry that crumbled napkin to the gym every day?”

“No, I’ll put it in my workout book when I get home. Go ahead. I’m ready.”

“Wednesday will be a rest day from the weights, but not a do-nothing day. Get some form of running in, either at the high school track or a game of volleyball, paddleball, or whatever at the Y. Run at least 20 minutes to insure plenty of cardiovascular work.”

“Jim and I have been playing paddleball once a week, so we’ll just switch our playing day to Wednesday.”

“Fine. Thursday’s workout will begin with power cleans. Eight sets. Work up a heavy poundage in sets of three and then handle the same weight across the five sets of three. Gives plenty of pulling work. Get the weight up every week if possible. Next come incline presses.  We have a 45 degree incline board that we will use.”

“Why inclines?”

https://billstarrarticles.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/stabilizing-the-shoulder-girdle/

“Two reasons. They work the shoulder girdle in a little different position from the overhead press which is good and they take the stress off the lower back. Too much overhead pressing has a tendency to fatigue the lower back which in turn could lead to injury. Inclines are done in triples and a total of six sets is plenty. Front squats for five sets of three will round off the day.

“Friday is a rest day and make it just that. We want to give Saturday a good shot so Friday should be a day of almost complete rest from physical exercise. This doesn’t mean that you couldn’t partake of some recreational activity but don’t get into something that will fatigue you in the least. Saturday is the day you test yourself. You will go heavy on two of the Olympic lifts and do squats. We only do two because all three tend to be extremely exhausting week after week. Do presses and snatches on Saturday and Clean and jerks and presses the next week.”

“How do I decide which to do on a given Saturday?”

“A great deal depends on how you feel that day. Some days you just feel more like doing cleans and jerks rather than snatches. Whichever two you select make certain that the third is included the following Saturday. Warm-up sufficiently and work on singles going up as heavy as you can. As I said, it’s a test day to see if your form is improving as well as your strength. Finish off the day with five sets of three in the back squats, again going as heavy as possible. You should be tired Sunday, but get out and do some running for 20-30 minutes. Nothing strenuous, but it will help to get the kinks out and will have you ready for Monday better than if you stay on your back all day.”

“Whew, looks like I asked for it didn’t I?”

“Well, it’s not a program for the undetermined athlete. Lots of work but there’s success at the end of the rainbow.”

“Sure, sure, along with the pot of gold. When should I start on this new program?”
“Today’s Saturday, so do your regular program today and start on this fresh Monday.”

“Got it.” He was out of the booth in a flash, folded the napkin, stuck it in his Levis and was out the door before I realized we were through.

I was about to be late myself, so got my supplies together and headed for the parking lot. Almost made it too, but Doctor Ames whom I have known since I was a wee tot stopped me as I was about to get in the car. He asked if I could give a brief talk on fitness at the next medical association meeting. Flattery works wonders on me so the following Thursday was set aside. It makes life interesting anyway.

Picking the Opening Poundage - Bill Starr (1970)

 Picking the Opening Poundage - Bill Starr 

Strength & Health April 1970

The Philadelphia Open has built up a reputation throughout the years as the number one contest in the east. The primary reason for its seasonal popularity is that it is the first big open contest of the new year and the lifters are anxious to get in the thick of things and test their training programs. The Philly Open brings out a great audience and, this too, adds to its appeal. The fans that show up in Philly are knowledgeable and extremely responsive to good lifting. The level of competition is also a factor in the meet’s popularity. It is an ideal time to test your skill against some of the best in the nation. It is often referred to as the “Little Seniors” because of the pressure of tight competition. Every year a couple of fellows shine while others fail to meet the crowd’s expectation. The fun at Philly is largely due to the people there. Every official within 250 miles is on hand to assist Steve Stoyan with his show. To name them all would be to go through the AAU roster. And the audience is filled with lifters, some who have been through the course themselves such as Grippaldi, Shephard, and Mills and a large group who are watching and learning from the more experienced.

There is much to be learned from watching. Often one learns by observing the mistakes other’s make. It is often quite wrongly surmised that York lifters are so wise and confident that they never flub. York lifters do, perhaps, have a slight jump over some other lifters because of the high level of competition found in the gym each week, but they are far from being infallible.

Back to the Philly Open for verification. Frank Capsouras, Gary Glenney, and Bob Bednarski have been three of the team’s most consistent performers for the past three years. Yet they all failed out with poundages below what they had done in the past. Bill March missed all of his starting attempts, Jeff Moyer missed his first two snatches. I, too, increased my own anxiety by missing my first two presses. Now comes the question of the hour. If experienced lifters who have lifted on the international stage, such as Bednarski, Glenney, Capsouras, March and Moyer all have, are having problems picking starting attempts, then how can a Class III or Class II lifter expect to be able to pick weights wisely? Tough question. It is a question that plages every international coach and every lifter at every level at every meet.

The advice contained in this month’s “Behind the Scenes” should help you set some realistic guidelines on selecting starting poundages, but it is no guarantee – since the human factor is involved. The following are some of the factors you must take into consideration before putting ain a starting poundage. First of all you must set your starting poundages from what you have done in prior competition and not from what you have done previously in the gym. I say this for two reasons. The one being that a contest has its own set of variables and these variables, such as long delays, added pressure, etc… influences a lift considerably. The other reason is that some lifters do much more in a meet than they could ever hope for in the gym whereas others must make a weight in the gym before accomplishing the same in a contest. Louis Riecke, for example,

https://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2019/11/louise-riecke-john-terpak-1964.html 

never remotely approached his best in the gym. For him to start with 265 or 270 in the snatch because that was the best he could muster in training would be foolish. Likewise, for Bednarski to start with a weight 20 pounds over what he can make in the gym would be a mistake. So, you must go by competition standards, not training standards. If your best press in a contest is 250, then a safe start would be 235 or 240 regardless of whether you just made 260 in the gym two weeks before.

A second major factor is, of course, your physical condition going into the contest. Have you been making gains? Is your overall strength level up? Are you satisfied with your technique on the three lifts? All of this is important as you approach contest time. And you must realistically consider injuries. Does your injury really slow you down or hurt your lock out? Has your injury curtailed hard training on critical areas such as the legs and back, thus affecting your pull? I said that you must look at your injury or injuries realistically. Some use injuries as an “out” – an excuse to explain poor showing, but this type of lifter never gets far anyway so time will not be wasted on him. An injury to the wrist or shoulder might necessitate a lower starting poundage even though your strength is up, just because of this new variable.

Another factor to consider in picking a starting poundage is the level of competition. This is not to suggest that you should be lazy and pull your starting attempt back to a ridiculous weight when the going is easy, but conversely, one should not sacrifice a win and team points because of a too-high start. You can always jump 20 pounds after you get in the contest. It should be added too, that you may have to start a bit higher if the contest is fierce and the stakes are high since every pound is essential. Bill March started with 360 at Seniors since the stakes was an international trip. At Philly 340 sufficed since a trophy was not as important.

Probably the number one factor to consider when selecting the starting poundage is your warm-ups. You can generally tell whether you are in the groove or not. If the weights feel unusually heavy, then it would be wise to drop the start back. If they are really zinging overhead, then perhaps a higher poundage than previously planned can be taken. I have actually seen cases when a too light poundage for a starting attempt has created more trouble than a slightly heavier one. Bednarski missed a 400 press twice in Monroe last year, moved to 420 and made it smoothly. The 400 was moving so rapidly that he lost his balance. The 420 was heavy enough to make him keep his balance. A lifter that is exceptionally strong on meet day would do well to adjust his start so as not to give anything away. It is extremely commendable to make nine out of nine, but any lifter could do that if he chose to sacrifice top weights. The trick is to make all the attempts and have the last attempt to be an absolute maximum. There’s few things more frustrating than to make a successful third attempt and know you could do 10-15 pounds more – and then end up losing by 5 pounds.

One final factor to consider is your mental attitude for the meet day. If you are bubbling with enthusiasm and confidence you just might turn a mediocre day into a good one. Should you, however, be in a mood of dejection then all the good training, strength, and technique may not make the difference. How to fight dejection and depression is the subject of another article, but at this point you should be wise enough to recognize mental states in yourself.

In summary, selecting a starting poundage is a most difficult task. The rule of thumb I learned was that the opener should be 10-15 pounds under you best (in competition), the second attempt should approximate your best, and the third idealistically should be a shot at a personal record. But all of this has to be considered on a given day. Your previous best in competition, your prior training, your injuries or lack of injuries, your mental state, the level of competition, and your warm-ups on meet day all have to be considered. Taking these factors into consideration might help you finish more contests than you have in the past, but as long as human factors intervene there is no guarantee of success. It has been found that if a lifter starts off well, with successes, he will generally build on this and proceed on to better and better lifts. All the more reason to make that first one.

Enjoy your lifting!