Training System of the Japanese Lifters - Kenji Onuma (1968)

Strength & Health November 1968 

They didn't mention this as part of their training, but the forearm muscles on the author have to be huge.  3500 words to just say hard work - sheesh.  Still a nice snapshot in time for the lifting happening in Japan in the mid-late 60's. 

Recent issues of Strength & Health have featured a series of very well written articles on the training systems of the Polish, Hungarian, and Soviet lifters. The readier will notice that the current training methods in these countries are entirely positive in their approach to training. They now train five to six days a week, some of them even twice a day, whereas not a long time ago, such a system was regarded as suicidal not only by ambitious lifters but also by even the most aggressive coaches. Their idea is that if a lifter can train six days a week and recuperate from the effects of the hard training, he will improve faster than when he is training less frequently. They try to build endurance and to “rest positively” by participating in other sports. I believe this positive approach has been responsible for the tremendous improvement the Poles, Hungarians, and Russians have made during the past few years. It makes sense, too, because it is evident that if w had unlimited recuperating power, we would no doubt improve faster by training harder. In fact, the main reason why we try to control the among of training is because we know we would simply burn out if we trained too much. Therefore, what matters most is how to build recuperating power through scientific methods.

But it makes me feel glad and a little proud to know that they are using this positive method of training, for it is just what most of the Japanese lifters, more specifically university and high school students, have been using for quite a long time. No doubt the reader will recall the steady rise the Japanese have made during the past few years, the highlight of which being the 1964 Olympic Games. As of February 1968, they hold five world records as well as many junior world records, and I am sure they will set many more in the future. What is responsible for this remarkable rise of the little fellows from the land of the Rising Sun? (I say remarkable because the Japanese have no state support such as the one we find in some countries.) Is there any secret, one of those mysterious things said to be found in the Orient? No, there is no secret. They have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat. Perhaps the only secret behind their methods is the rigorous program under which they have been training for many years. This program is backed with a burning, self-motivated desire to improve. Let me remind the reader here, however, that a lifter must have trained systematically for at least one year before he can condition himself for this kind of hard training, and it may hinder, rather than promote, his progress if he takes up a training system of this sort without proper preparation. With this kind of training, planning becomes very important. Each workout is carefully controlled so that the lifter can get the maximum results and yet not overtrain. Well, the Japanese were using this system at a time when everybody took it for granted that a lifter should not train more than three times a week.

I think I’d better point out here that almost all of the registered lifters in Japan are students or young graduates. In fact, it is not an overstatement to say that the university students support amateur sports in Japan. At any rate, the students are in a particularly favorable position to work out under the program I have described above. Even so, they are distinguished in that they do not waste time. The students know they must improve really fast in order to become an international-caliber lifter within the limited number of years they are at school. As a matter of fact, this was one of the motives that prompted the adoption of the hard training program. Incidentally, I am of the opinion that the United States, with all her tremendous wealth and advanced social conditions, is the only country capable of producing lifters who can compete against those state-subsidized athletes without yielding an inch. The U.S.’s reserve of robust young men is colossal. I have seen so many well-built men in the U.S. of whom I was envious from the lifter’s point of view. There are so many men apparently capable of becoming future world champions. So far as the physique is concerned, the U.S. is the most gifted nation. But let me put it frankly by way of constructive advice. I do not feel this reserve is fully exploited. I do not feel most of the American lifters are training hard enough, or perhaps I should say often enough. As a result, they do not accomplish the maximum they are capable of. Needless to say, “training” does not necessarily mean lifting weights alone. It also includes exercises for flexibility, speed, endurance and so on. The standard of lifting is so high today that it is no longer possible to become a world champion with a take-it-easy training program.

Hiroshi Fukuda at 1964 Olympics

Now then, I will try to give the reader a brief account of how the Japanese lifters train and what the basic ideas of their system are, so that the reader will get some hints on training which may benefit him.

When Bob Hoffman came to Japan back in 1961, he spent one day at our Intercollegiate Meet that was being held in Tokyo. As usual, he sat there for ten hours and enjoyed watching the lifting. What impressed him most was the vast number of lifters competing on the particular day. More than sixty lifters were competing in each of the two classes being held on that day. As a matter of fact, one of the classes, the lightweight, had a little more than eighty entries. He was very much impressed and said to me with a sigh, “Kenji, I wish we had as many lifters in a class back in the States!” The reason why I quote this episode here is to impress the reader just how severe the competition to become a champion in Japan. Let me remind you that this was seven years ago. Now we have more member institutions and naturally more lifters, especially after the 1964 Olympic Games.  The Collegiate Weightlifting Federation has had, therefore, to adopt qualifying totals in order to limit the number of lifters competing in a class. For those who fail to make qualifying totals, we have novice meets which permit any registered lifter to compete in. Anyway, I think competition is one of the most important factors in our system.

Anybody who visits a typical weight-room of a Japanese university will be amazed at the pace training is going on there. The bars have literally no time to gather dust. The lifters form a queue on the platform and wait their turns to lift the bar. As soon as a man returns the bar on the platform, the next man steps out while two other men adjust the weights on the bar. And the waiting men shout to encourage the lifter while the lift is made. There is always a strong sense of common cause. On the floor, others wait in front of the incline-bench or squat racks. They do not waste time. Many college weightlifting clubs have a membership of a hundred or more, and under such circumstance, one cannot afford to fool around or indulge in lengthy conversation between lifts, because one may be skipped over easily and it is quite a long time before the next turn comes around. I hope the reader will not assume we have good gyms over here in Japan. Some of the schools do not have a weight room, and the lifters have to train outdoors summer and winter, rain or shine.

Another thing worthy of special mention is that there is no offseason in Japan so far as weightlifting is concerned. Under the present situation, a young, ambitious lifter is not to lay off completely for, say, a couple of months and then start all over again. He simply cannot afford to do so. Instead, he will train all the year round with continued enthusiasm, although he avoids falling into monotony and staleness. Generally speaking, he prefers taking “positive rest” to laying off completely. Needless, to say, the emphasis at a particular time of the year may be somewhat different from that at another. The intensity of training is controlled according to a year-long schedule. For example, the students train more or less shorter but with heavier weights during the weeks they have annual exams. Also, it so happens that national and collegiate competitions are scattered throughout the year and keep the lifters, particularly the students, busy all the time. Therefore, the students are always prepared for intensive training or competition even though they may take a couple of weeks rest after a big meet. They have to. We in Japan encourage young lifters to enter sufficient number of competitions every year for maximum development and improvement. Under normal conditions, the college lifters, for instance, enter an average of ten competitions in a year, with perhaps three important “peak” competitions. A typical annual schedule will be as follows:

February or March – Record tryout*

May or June – Intercollegiate Meet*

June or July – National Championships

August – World Championships tryout. National Industrial Championships (for working men, exclusive of students)

September – World Championships

October – National Athletic Meet

November – Collegiate Championships*

December – Collegiate Novice Meet*

(* Denotes events sponsored by the National Collegiate Federation.)

Besides all such competitions, a few schools have inter-school tournaments with others. Most of the students will also lift in local competitions, often to qualify for nationals or national athletic meet. Moreover, they must train even harder during the pre-Olympic and Olympic years for, like in other countries, they must not only lift well in most of the major competitions during these years (in order to remain on the list of favorites), but also qualify at the final tryout.

I feel I must point out one more thing in connection with college lifters. Most universities provide the athletes, particularly those in team sports, with special dorms where they can stay so long as they hold membership in the varsity athletic clubs. Lifters are no exception. Some of such dorms are exclusively for lifters and even have a weight room within the building. Moreover, the dorms in most cases provide food at low prices. To say the least, the dorms are a privilege and advantage because, besides many other things, they provide the lifters with an ideal opportunity to live weightlifting. According to Bob Hoffman, to live weightlifting is indispensable if you want to lift really well. Outside of the communist bloc, the Japanese college lifters are, it seems to me, the only group of lifters who want and can afford to live weightlifting. Especially the younger men benefit greatly from living with more experiences international lifters. To live with topflight lifters enables the younger ones to absorb training ideas, to learn about the psychological aspect of competition or about preparations for a big competition. It would be much harder, if not impossible to learn these things if they did not live under the same roof.

By now the reader may have come to the conclusion that we in Japan have access to every desirable thing. On the contrary, we do have shortcomings and disadvantages. For example, none of the universities has a paid, full-time coach. Traditionally, a graduate who in most cases is or was a lifter looks after the students as coach on a voluntary basis. And this of course means a large sacrifice on the part of the graduate who has a job to support his family. It is therefore quire natural that he cannot come to the weight-room frequently during the normal training hours, usually from two through six p.m. Even so, one must take advantage of a disadvantage. With the advice of coaches and fellow lifters, the college lifters learn the techniques that befit them best and the proper quantity of training faster than when they are under constant supervision of their coaches. In other words, they are independent lifters when they succeed in making national team and can take care of themselves to a large extent, if not perfectly. Another example is the lack of well equipped gyms such as those we can find all over the United States. As I said before, some schools do not even have a weight room and the lifters have to train in the open air. Others have old, bent bars and worn out platforms. Some have to share the floor with other sports clubs which are not necessarily quiet. This reminds me of a scene at the basement weight room of Meiji University where Tony Garcy and Isaac Berger had a workout during their stay in Tokyo for the 1963 little Olympics. When we arrived there, the gym was being shared by the lifters and Kendo-ka’s or fencers in martial fencing. Fencers raised such a tremendous chorus of kiai (shouts) as they practiced that we could not hear each other. Tony and Isaac were amazed and even Bob shook his head, but the Meiji lifters kept on training undisturbed because they had been accustomed to the environment. Men like Ichinoseki, Myake and Ouchi, three of our current or former world record holders, trained in the open air during their college days, and Meiji has produced many international lifters from its noisy basement weight room. Let me give the reader an idea of how hard the Japanese college lifters train despite such handicaps. At Hosei University’s Weightlifting Club – whose proud products include the Myake brothers, Ichinoseke, and Ouchi – the lifters train outdoors simply because there is no indoor weight room. There they tackle the barbells one after another until the onlooker gets sick of the flying mass of steel. I have seen them practice cleans one day. When one of them failed to clean a weight, others encouraged him to try again and again. After a few futile tries, the senior students had him perform ten deadlifts with the weight. They called, ten, but he ended with 25 reps of grueling deadlifts. I do not mean to say that I accept this method as ideal or scientific. On the contrary, I feel such a method may prove dangerous to some people. What I want to stress here is the burning desire and energy which the Japanese college lifters train.

At Meiji, Bob Hoffman was deeply impressed by the way the fencers and karate men trained down in the basement gym. In both instances, I noticed the coaches and the seniors handled the pupils strictly and in some cases even roughly. But, when they train, they feel this is the most effective way in martial arts for they would learn faster and deeper so to speak because of this serious atmosphere. After all they feel sports is no play, and if someone cannot stand such hardships, he might not be able to stand hard training of any sort, to say nothing of life’s hardships. Similar philosophy underlies the coaching and training methods of some varsity weightlifting clubs. This is another factor I feel I must point out when I give the reader an account of the training methods and approach to lifting of the Japanese lifters. Evan kiai is not mere desperate cries. It is an occasional outburst of the athlete’s controlled mental energy which prepares him for the task he is determined to achieve. More often than not a lifter can reach the stage where he can control his mind almost as an enlightened Zen priest. This is a strong support of Japanese sports, and it is especially characteristic  of weightlifting. Because of this serious approach to training, nobody can afford to fool around while training if he wants to be anybody. Nobody talks while training, but concentrates on his lifting. Often the lifters walk around between lifts so that they can keep moving. Walking not only keeps them warm but also helps deepen the concentration. Of course most of the lifters are ordinary young men even though they are dedicated lifters, and it is quite natural that they joke or fool around in other phases of life. But not while training.

Speaking of young lifters, I want to explain further about the regular training camps organized for them every year. In Japan there are two major vacations at the end of spring and winter terms, each lasting for about two months. During each vacation, every school or university weightlifting club organizes a training camp for its lifters. Such a training camp usually runs for anywhere from ten days to two weeks, during which the lifters literally live weightlifting. Sometimes it may be moved out of the campus for a suitable campsite. This is especially true of summer camp, for most cities are just terrible because of heat and humidity. Regardless of whether they train in the city or in the suburbs, the lifters usually return to the campus in great shape. Besides these vacation camps, the varsity clubs may organize a couple more before important competitions such as intercollegiate meet. Then they usually train after attending class but live together. The only disadvantage of this seemingly wonderful system is that the students have to pay camp expenses, while a part is borne by the varsity clubs. Often the club members work part-time in order to save up enough camp funds.

When the lifters are invited to training camp – normally two weeks long – sponsored by the Japanese Weightlifting Association in preparation for the Olympic Games or world championships, or just to give incentive to younger lifters, they do not have to pay because the expenses are borne by the association. This is another incentive to young lifters. They feel it is not only a pleasure but also an honor and a privilege to be selected among those who are invited to the camp. I believe the Japanese lifters benefit greatly from the various kinds of training camps that are thus made available to them frequently. Training camp provides the young lifters with excellent opportunities to watch top-flight lifters in action and to get firsthand experience on their training methods. In this sense, I want to congratulate the AAU Weightlifting Committee for having insight to launch the Olympic Weightlifting training camp program recently. Although it may take some time, I am sure this effort will bear fruit in plenty in not too distant future.

The last but not the lease important factor in the Japanese system is international experience. Whenever possible, we try to provide our young lifters with opportunities to get international experience by sending them to World Championships and other international competitions. Needless to say, we send our best lifters to world competitions, but we don’t forget to give incentive to younger, rising lifters either. Taking advantage of every opportunity available, we try to have two teams participate in two or more different international competitions. In such a case, one team comprises our best lifters and another is usually made up of young promising lifters. Sometimes we include a couple of young hopefuls in our national team along with top lifters. I can say without hesitation that the high standard of lifting in Japan today is an important direct outcome of our participation in international competitions during the past decade. As the reader will recall, Japan sent only one lifter to the Helsinki Olympics for the first time. Then a team of five lifters was sent to Melbourne in 1956. But it had taken four years before Japan next participated in world competition. However, those who participated in the 1956 Olympic Games made such improvement during these four years as to justify the value of international experience. It was realized that they had not only benefited from their experience at the Games but also given a favorable incentive to other ambitious lifters. Ever since 1960, therefore, we have been sending a 7-man team to world competitions every year, and this effort has paid off well. Without reliable heavier lifters, we can now place among top three or four nations in team standing at world competitions. And the Japanese hold five world records. The rise of the Japanese in  international standing, in the final analysis, is thus attributable at the very least to a great degree to the hard training of the Japanese, the training camp program, and the international competition program Japan has adopted.

Masashi Ouchi at 1964 Olympics