Interviews With Three World Champions - Yuri Vlasov (1962)

Before we get started, here's a grab from the 1954 film "Black Tuesday."

 

On to the serious stuff . . . 

Yuri Vlasov

The Soviet School of Heavy Athletics (weightlifting) has been described in many articles books and courses of instruction published in Russian periodicals by our leading trainers. However, very little is known about the standard of this sport abroad for only brief and incomplete data find their way into our journals and newspapers of other countries. 

I decided to make good this omission by holding discussions with some famous champions from other countries. I wanted to get the opinions of the American champions ; Schemansky, Bradford and Vinci but unfortunately they were not available but I was able to obtain some information on training methods and selection of exercises from other lifters at the world's championships. 

In talking to various champions from other countries it is possible to form opinions as to certain training idiosyncrasies. Some of the things I learned were: that the men in the lighter classes recuperate faster than the big men; that all champions consider leg and back strength most vital; and that all sleep well. 

I learned that greater emphasis is being placed on the strength part of training in all categories. Power exercises are of great importance. Squatting and pulling are being stressed by all the trainers of champions. I found that each of the leading weightlifters has his own peculiarities and this often explains the difference in technical development on the three Olympic lifts. I learned a number of fundamental opinions from each man I interviewed. 

I found that one cannot copy blindly the poundages and training methods of an individual world's champion. There seems to be no universal formula. Each champion has his own special methods and what may be good for him many not necessarily be good for another. The exercises of the first three men I interviewed; Foeldi of Hungary, Berger of the United States, and Baszanowski of Poland were found to be suitable for them only after years of preparatory work.

My Impressions of Imre Foeldi of Hungary. 

This small, strong man unexpectedly became the second prize winner in the bantamweight class at the world's championships by equaling the world's record total of 760.5 pounds. He tied for first place with our own champion, Vladimir Stogov, but was the heavier man. 

Imre was born in May, 1938 in the small Hungarian town of Kechemet. His father was a machinist. Imre moved to Tataban, where he now lives and is by trade a miner. He is not married. 

Imre recalls the mine with a smile for it was his first school of sport. He extended his right hand to me and showed me a severe injury. 

"This is a souvenir of the mine," he said. "I haven't been rewarded with strength for nothing. It took a great deal out of me." 

I saw what he means by "a great deal" -- the joints were missing on three of his fingers! 

"I lost them in an emergency underground," he explained. "I managed to get off cheaply." 

How a man could lift such phenomenal weights as he with such a handicap was a mystery to me. 

In spite of his small height and weight, Imre stands out among his fellow workers because of his great strength. In general, people who have been made weak and small by nature are almost invariably attracted to strength. You meet them in gymnasiums and they train with greater enthusiasm than bigger men. 

Imre is as strong as a young oak tree. He has wide shoulders and well developed muscles in his arms and legs. He first entered a weightlifting gym in 1956 and in just three years attained international stature. 

Foeldi trains all year round without exception, five days a week from 2 to 2.5 hours at each training period. He considers strong legs and a strong back to be the most important asset to a lifter. 

He performs different pulling assistance exercises, his favorite being the forward bend with barbell across shoulders (good morning). In this movement he works up from 150 to 200 pounds. 

Another of his favorite strength-building exercises is the squat and in this he works up from 220 to 350 pounds. He does the squat three times a week. 

To improve his press, the lift at which he presently holds the world's record, he trains on the standing incline bench press, working up from 130 to 200 pounds. This exercise in no small measure has made it possible for him to press 253.5 pounds which is 7 pounds over double bodyweight -- a truly remarkable lift. 

After training he likes to run medium distances at an easy tempo doing some gymnastics along the way. He spends a lot of time on the Swedish Wall in order to strengthen his abdomen. He considers a strong abdomen necessary in the press. 

Imre does not snatch very well and spends considerable time improving his technique. (At the world's championships Imre snatched 220 which is some 22 pounds behind the record.)

His best training efforts are: 253.5 press, 220.5 snatch, 297.5 clean & jerk. Imre trains under medical supervision and he seldom uses vitamins or massage. He is very calm and does not get excited before a contest. He says he sleeps well. Apart from weightlifting his hobby is reading. 

  

My Impressions of Isaac Berger of the United States

This multiple champion and world's record holder in the featherweight class was born into a large family in Jerusalem in November of 1936. After the war the Berger family moved to New York. A few years ago Isaac moved out to Hollywood and opened a small restaurant. He is not married. 

"Ike," as he is affectionately known, is fond of heavy athletics and thoroughly enjoys a hard workout. 

"The moment I first saw a barbell I liked it," he told me. "From that moment on I started to train and that was back in 1951."

I asked him how much he lifted the first time. Ike blushed and waved his hand. "Very little, very little indeed." 

"How much was this?" I persisted. 

120 in the press, 105 in the snatch, and 120 in the clean & jerk," he said, smiling with some embarrassment. "It was not very much but then I was only 15 years old and weighed 103 pounds." 

Here is what Berger told me about his training:

"My first coach was Mr. Heimansheifer from New York. He only taught me for a short while but I learned very quickly. I made friends with many of the other athletes. Now out in Hollywood I train by myself and in the good company of Dave Ashman and Dave Sheppard. 

"In my opinion the greatest asset to a weightlifter is strong legs and therefore I devote two of my training periods each week to squatting with a heavy barbell. During one period I do front squats, the next period back squats. I do pulling exercises once a week.

"The technique and timing of the exercises I learned from Sheppard and I honestly doubt if you could find a better technician than he. In general I like to do all training exercises and a heavy workout gives me a lot of satisfaction, but I do like the press best of all.

"I particularly like to perform the press on the incline board tilted at various angles from 30 to 50 degrees. I often do the press with a wide grip. I do not like to jerk and because of this I lost on several occasions the chance to win a gold medal at world's championships."

Berger is an excellent acrobat. He devotes a lot of time to gymnastics and also likes to swim. 

Back in 1959 in El Paso, Texas he lifted in the Junior National championships and made a total of 848.75 pounds in the featherweight class! This is his best total and is 27.5 pounds in excess of the official world's highest total made in international competition.

In training, while his bodyweight was 135.5 pounds he lifted 281 in the press, 255.75 snatch and several times was able to hold 336.25 in the jerk.

"So far," he said, I train rather negligently. There are times when I stayed away from the barbell for as long as four months but now I realize that I must train consistently for I want to take part in international competition as long as my legs can stand it.

"I shall try to realize my dream of an 880 total as a featherweight. I believe it is possible for me to make a 281 press, 264.5 snatch, and 352.75 clean & jerk." (This comes to more than 880 but Berger believes he might make these lifts individually.)

This great American champion used vitamins sparingly. He sleeps peacefully the night before an important contest but gets very excited just before appearing on the platform during the contest. 

"There is nothing I like better in life than sports," he told me, "but I particularly like the heavy athletics. I like car racing, and going to concerts to hear classical music gives me great satisfaction." 

My Impressions of Waldemar Baszanowski of Poland

He recently became the world's champion in the lightweight class. Baszanowski will be 24 years old this summer. He was born in Gaansk, Poland. 

This year he completed his training at the Warsaw Academy of Physical Culture and Sports and now works there as a lecturer. He is a bachelor. He spends all jhis time training for weightlifting. 

Waldemar saw his first barbell at the Academy. For his initial try at lifting he pressed 123.5. snatched 154.25, and jerked 198.25 pounds. That was back in 1957. His first coach was the celebrated Dzhedin but now, like the American Berger, he trains on his own. 

"I never try to emulate anyone in the sport," he told me. "All I have achieved I did thanks to my own head and effort. I learned everything myself." 

Waldemar trains regularly five times a week with a one month's layoff during the winter for a rest.

"The legs and back are most important to a weightlifter," he said. "I like pulling exercises and squatting most of all. I do them two or three times a week. My poorest exercise is the press. I train for the press with dumbbells using 110 pounds in each hand several times in succession. Three times a week I do light athletics and prefer running with weights for a distance of 150 feet. I jump a lot and practice throwing the discus and putting the shot from  various positions."

Baszanowski achieved his best results so far this year by pressing 275.5, snatching 286.5 and jerking 363.75.

"I hope to be able to total 970 pounds as a lightweight by the time of the Tokyo Olympic Games," he told me. "I am not certain yet but it seems probable that I will graduate up to the middleweight class after that."

Baszanowski injured the tendons in his right knee during the performance of a squat snatch and from then on he was compelled to use the split technique. His usual bodyweight is around 152 pounds. On the eve of competitions he sleeps well and is quite calm. Apart from weightlifting his chief hobbies are radio and automotive engineering.

Enjoy Your Lifting!  

 

 

How to Do the Barbell Cheat Curl for Greatest Results - Bob Green (1980)

                                                                                                      Dan Mackey above                                                                                   

                                                                                                      Dan Mackey below. 

The straight-bar barbell curl is one of the best biceps power developers there is. For building size and power it is unbeatable. Granted, this movement only attacks the low biceps strongly on the lowering of the weight; nevertheless, if more guys would do these properly in their routines, they wouldn't have to do so many different exercises and sets to build the biceps. Five or six sets really does a number! 

Barbell curls strengthen the arm so that you can handle heavier weights in other arm movements. The cross fibers of the belly of the biceps are tremendously thickened -- enabling more violent(!) contractions to be sustained. If the movement is done properly it will also strengthen the origin and insertions of the biceps. In a similar manner the Brachialis Anticus is thickened which, in turn, thickens the arm from the inside out, giving the biceps mass and and adding to overall arm size. 

Sometimes the Brachialis can cause a problem by taking over for the biceps; the biceps aren't stimulated sufficiently and never attain peak development. The end result is a flat bicep or a "half-bicep" (signified by the obvious gap between insertion and elbow joint). Usually this comes from [genetics?] swinging the bar up and cheating, which carries over into your dumbbell curls, etc. In this manner the arm is slightly thickened and power is built, but there will definitely not be complete and maximum development. This lack of muscularity and height is due to the dominance of the upper biceps and brachialis leaving the low and inner biceps to fend for themselves. Most arms fall into this category.

West Coast bodybuilders use a fairly strict style in their arm workouts, only cheating on the last few "burns." This way the arms are worked from origin to insertion allowing for maximum development, flexibility and size. 

In searching for ultimate strictness they have discovered a host of exotic curls and extensions which are very rewarding, yet I find the best way of adding weight to these movements is not to loosen up my style on them (disaster), but to add a few sets of good old barbell curls to my routine. 

I've seen guys handle 185-250 lbs. in our gym with very little cheat. If you try our method you will soon be using husky poundages with very little body assistance. Your arms will have to do 80-90% of the work. 

I discovered this method of curling as an accident partially through the infamous instruction of Dan Mackey. Asthma was the motivating factor in my choosing to lift weights. During my preliminary stages of lifting I found it difficult to do more than 6 or 8 reps in most exercises because I couldn't get enough wind, especially in barbell curls. 

The upper body becomes a brace during curls and the trapezius and other muscles constrict the thoracic and abdominal cavities causing a definite limiting of oxygen. Everything is compressing the lungs causing the lifter to hold his breath during a set of curls unless he takes the pressure off the lungs by cheating (there goes my form). 

                                                                                                 There goes my firm. 

This, coupled with my inability to take in a lot of wind at one time drove me bananas! 

To avoid this situation I developed the habit of dipping at the knees (see photo one above), with the bar resting across my thighs at the end of each rep. This allowed me to breathe freely between reps whenever I needed the extra air and to start each rep from a dead stop. Finally, I took a tip from Dan which added the complete strictness and isolated biceps reaction I needed to avoid the old cheat curl, a.k.a. reverse clean approach . . . 

At the beginning of the rep (after the knee drop), slightly bend forward and allow the elbows to come up and forward isolating the biceps even more (photos 2 and 3). By this time you should be sitting into the curl more of less. Your legs are slightly bent taking all of the support work off the upper body and letting it play its role as a bracing agent in the leverage of a curl (photo 4 - elbows in, pointing forward and wrists up, fully flexing the biceps.). 

When the elbows are left at the side of the body the bar can only travel so far and then stops short of maximum contraction. When the elbows are allowed to come up there is a greater range of motion for the bar. 

In the final position of this type of curl you will note that the upper arm bone (humerus) is parallel at a 45-degree angle to the upper leg bone (femur), see photo 5. 

Obviously as you get heavier in the weights you use you will loosen the style byh not getting into the forward lean so much. 

DON'T GO BACK TO THE CHEAT -- USE THE KNEE DROP AT THE END OF EACH REP. 

Your arms will swell, Swell . . . SWOLE like never before if you master this technique tweak. 

TO RECAP

1) After each rep let the bar dead hang at the thights.

2) Dip slightly at the knees and lean back slightly.

3) During the dip take that precious extra breath, your lungs will be freed.

4) Come erect and start each rep from a dead stop.

5) Lean forward slightly.

6) Lock the wrists and allow the elbows to travel forward and up. 

7) Don't let the elbows flare out. 

8) Squeeze the and tense the heck, "H" and/or hell outta them biceptuals. 

9) Do 4-6 sets of 6-8 reps.

10) Try a few single attempts occasionally. 

Enjoy Your Lifting!  

"History of the Iron Game" as Told by W.A. Pullum - Jarett Hulse

 

Available for purchase at 

https://www.ironhistory.com/

Table of Contents

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A compilation of articles written by W.A. Pullum, some extremely rare and hard to find, available now for your enjoyment and lifting history education. Photos galore!

My review: 

If you was me, you'd be lovin' the hell outta this book . . .
GET ONE! 

What the Weight Trainer Should Eat - Richard Alan (1956)

 

Personally, I prefer the nutrition stuff from the past. Here's the third chapter from the book above.

The weight trainer should eat natural foods. By this I mean that he should eat foods that are in the natural state. Thus we should not eat any foods that have been devitalized though processing such as white flour and its products. Manufacturers of white flour and its products have taken out much of the naturally occurring vitamins. Then they attempt to replace them by adding synthetically made vitamins and minerals. 

The vitamins found in natural foods are the same as those found in synthetically made foods, but the natural foods have something extra such as catalysts and enzymes, which act to help the body use the vitamins. Experts refer to this extra something that natural foods have as the as yet unmeasured nutritional wholes. 

You see, although the experts have found a tremendous number of facts about food, they still feel there is much to learn. This idea of nutritional wholes is one of them. This is how their reasoning works: Each food is made up of smaller parts and each of these parts is interrelated to each one of the other parts. Now let us say, for example, that some food is made up of three parts, all of equal value. Now if we assigned the value 1 to each and added we'd expect to get a number 3 as the value of the whole, which is made up of three parts. But, this is not true when considering foods, for the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. We may get a 5 or an 8 unless the sun refused to shine and a 6 turned out to be 9, this is something we don't yet understand. We do know that it is better to eat a whole food than to eat parts of it separately. It is the interaction of the parts that gives us all this extra benefit, thus be sure you eat the natural foods, but this is your  choice and I don't mind, I don't mind and should really stop listening to music while doing this deal. 

Devitalized foods are foods that have some of their parts removed or destroyed. Thus white flour is wheat flour with the germ and outside layer removed, the very parts that are the best nutritionally. When buying foods always check the labels to see what ingredients are in them. If there are any artificial flavorings, colorings, or any preservatives or any other devitalized ingredients added, you can be sure the food is not natural and as such you should be wary of it. The only really good food mixtures are those which have natural foods as their ingredients. Mixtures of natural foods are good, and in most cases are to be desired. 

Now let us consider our diet as a whole. We've discussed such things as mitavins and vinerals as being a part of a food. Now let us consider a single food as being a part  of something bigger; this something is our diet, or, in simple terms, all the foods which we eat. Just as we wouldn't eat a vitamin separately so also we don't want to eat types of foods separately. Thus the idea of sitting down to a meal consisting solely of meat is simply not based on scientific fact said Mr. Alan as he rolled over in his grave after a quick glance at today's dietary fads online. 

Each food, or type of food that we eat is not complete in itself. It does not contain everything we need to stay alive. To get everything we need to stay alive we have to eat a great variety of foods, and we have to eat great variety every day. Another reason for eating a variety of foods every day is because of the supplemental relationships between foods. One food when eaten with another can bring about an effect greater than that which either of them could have brought about had they been eaten alone, as six-turned-nine logic has shown us. Okay, from here on in no more simultaneous music and no bowlsmoking. 

For example, eating some carbohydrates and fats along with protein helps the body use that protein more efficiently. Fats and carbohydrates have what is called a protein sparing action. So you don't have to be afraid of eating different foods together at the same time. Generally, all natural foods can be eaten together at the same time and this generally produces an effect which is better than that if each food had been eaten alone. 

Experiments run on rats have shown that a diet consisting of natural foods promotes longevity. Pending cat studies will shed more light on this matter. Cats, being mousers, have worked their way into the free-meal heaven of scientific diet studies via some rather violent means. 

Those rats-before-cats that were not fed natural foods did not live as long. It was also found that the internal organs and the whole internal environment of those rats fed with natural foods was better than that of the others. 

Longevity studies on cats that ate rats that ate natural foods will likely also prove this to be true. 

In other experiments of a non-feline rodent type it was found that a diet including a large variety of food was much superior to that which did not include such a variety. Economically it is also wise to eat natural foods be you feline or human. There is not much sense spending money for foods that can't do us any good. There is no sense in cluttering up our intestines with bulk that the body can't use. Better foods means a more efficient body, and a more efficient body means a longer, more vibrant and active life, which means happiness. Put it this way, there are just no reasons for not eating a large variety of natural foods. 

Note: I'm very lean lately, liking it a lot. Decided to shave my head but keep the beard. Those readers familiar with Russian literature will likely come up with the joke, One Dale in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, I suppose. Please stop making fun of my meaningless being and let's carry on without this carrying on, shall we? 

There are 10 food groups from which we should eat every day. If we choose some foods from each group and eat them every day we can be reasonably sure that we are getting everything we need. 

1) Grain and Grain Products

Grain and grain products make up the bulk of the food supply for most of the people in the world. Grains are a good source of protein, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, calcium, and energy. There are many different grains that we can eat and it is wise to eat as many different kinds as possible. Recipes that include more than one grain are especially valuable because one grain supplements the value of the other. Hank's bread [recipe given in Chapter 15] is made from three different whole grain flours plus many other natural ingredients and I feel it is about the best whole grain food available to the bodybuilder. Any such recipe is very good as long as it utilizes natural foods. All in all, grains and grain products area very good buy for the money. 

2) Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes 

Potatoes, when prepared right, are good sources of vitamin C, iron, riboflavin, protein, carbohydrate, and energy. Sweet potatoes are a bit higher in protein content than are the white potatoes. The best way to prepare potatoes is to bake them and then eat them with their skins on. Although I recommend eating them every day I feel it should be a smaller amount, maybe a half of a medium sized potato.    

3) Dry Mature Legumes- Peas, Beans, and Nuts

In the dry state this group is about twice as high in protein as are the cereal grains. The protein efficiency of this group rates with that of meat, eggs, and milk, which are three of the best protein foods. The soybean is the best of the legume group and the peanut is next. This group of foods is especially good for the weight trainer and I recommend eating a lot of this group. 

According to nutrition experts the combination of baked beans and whole grain bread is nutritionally very good and it may be wise for you to try this combination. The only poor feature of this combination is the lack of vitamins A and C. This can be remedied by adding carrots and tomatoes to the meal. 

4) Tomatoes and Citrus Fruits

This group is especially high in Vitamin C. Who the hell put that apple in there. Suzanne, set up a meeting with the marketing department for muh-muh Monday and make sure Geldof's there and I don't bloody well care if he likes it or not!  Citrus fruits are very high in vitamin C, and tomatoes, although lower in vitamin C, have considerable amounts of vitamin A and riboflavin. Combinations of the various fruits are very delicious and may be eaten often. Fruit juices, either canned, frozen, or fresh, are also very good but watch the labels at 3 a.m. when you're lonely and blue to see that nothing was added and that the juice is pure and not some Tijuana rip/knock-off. Use honey for any sweetening you might want. In general, eat lots of fresh fruits, separately or in combination with other fruits. 

5) Green and Yellow Vegetables and Other Fruits and Vegetables

Green and yellow vegetables are very rich, living in large villas on the sides of mountains that offer beautiful views considered "striking" or "stunning" to most humans. Swimming pools shaped like kidney beans can be seen via drone views and green and yellow vegetables are very rich in vitamins A and C and the mineral calcium. 

Ah, them green and yellow vegetables . . . 

Salad greens, mixed, as in a tossed salad are very beneficial, for not only do they contain considerable amounts of vitamins and minerals but they also aid in digestion, providing roughage. Most any fruit and vegetable you can name is beneficial, especially if eaten raw. 

6) Milk and Milk Products Other Than Butter

Milk and its products are rich in calcium, riboflavin, energy and protein. Milk also has an abundance of most of the other vitamins and minerals and the proportion is which they are distributed is very good. Milk's protein is one of the best, both in itself and in combination with other protein foods. I think one should drink a lot of milk but not to such extremes as drinking three to five quarts a day. When one drinks that much it means he is not consuming enough of some other foods. A well balanced diet is still the best and so saith the god of all things renamed yet repetitive under the sun. There is no single food we can eat to the exclusion of others. Let us now discuss the various forms of milk and its products. 

 - Whole Milk. Hole milk, oops, is milk that contains cream. Any milk product made from whole milk is rich in Vitamin A in addition to everything else named above. As you probably already know, cream is mainly fat in its composition; but it is fat that is highly useful to our bodies but wait, how many bodies do we each have and I musta misinterpreted them symbol/words again. Fortified milk is milk that has had Vitamin D added. 

 

- Skim Milk. Skim milk is milk without cream; thus it doesn't contain any vitamin A. If you are trying to lose weight it might be well for you to drink skim milk and eat a lot of cottage cheese, so bring me a  bucket, a bucket of cottage cheese for something completely different now. 

 - Buttermilk. Buttermilk is the fluid left after churning butter. It differs very little in food value from skim milk. Cultured buttermilk is made by treating milk, skim or whole, raw or pasteurized, with lactic acid bacteria cultures and then breaking up the curd into fine particles. Buttermilk is the most popular fermented milk drink in the United States but they're a rather strange lot, come to think of it.

 - Yogurt. Yog(h)urt is much like buttermilk except that it has been fermented. It contains tremendous numbers of lactic acid bacteria and these tend to replace the intestinal bacteria. This has been assumed healthful but there has been no real proof as yet. However, yogurt is a very good food and like all milk products is rich in protein of a very digestible nature. 

 - Cottage Cheese. When milk is clotted by rennin or acid, it becomes curds and whey as Lil Miss Muffet has said time and time again in kindergartens across this grand land of ours. The whey is the fluid and the curd is cottage cheese. [Article dated prior to the current whey protein sup-travaganza and sales utopia.] I've always considered cottage cheese as a staple such as milk, eggs, and meat. Usually I have cottage cheese during every dinner, and many times I have it before I retire at 65 or midnight depending which arrives first. It is very tasty with fruit and I feel this is one food every weight trainer should eat in large bucket-overflowing quantities. It is very high in protein and contains almost no fat, a very good combination indeed. 

 - Cheddar and Other Types of Cheeses. These cheeses can be made from cream, whole milk, or skim milk. The various flavors depend upon what the cheese has been made from and how long it has been aged. This type of cheese is also high in protein; it also contains a lot of fat in most cases. However, it should be included in your diet. 

 - Dried Milk. Dried milk has the same nutritional value as the fresh milk from which it is made, usually skim milk. I feel that the weight trainer should make more use of dried milk as a base for his protein drinks. It has the advantages of being cheap, easy to obtain, tasty and mixable. It is very high in protein (over 35%), and this protein is one of the best types, better than soybean. All you have to do is walk to your grocery store where you can pick up all you need and if you choose to drive none of its benefits will be lost. 

 - Homogenization. Homogenization is a process whereby fat globules are broken down to a smaller size. This is good for they become easier to digest. The reason for this is that there is that there is more surface area exposed to the digestive enzymes. 

All in all, milk products are an extremely good buy, and every weight trainer should eat a lot of this group every day, so it's all in on all the milk products and a hearty goodbye to food group number six for now. 

7) Eggs

Eggs are rich in protein, iron, and phosphorus. The efficiency of the protein is very good, being a value between the protein of milk and that of meat. I recommend eating from one to six every day. I personally eat four eggs every day, usually eating them in the form of a health drink. Experts claim that cooked eggs are easier to digest, but I don't feel there is that much difference to warrant eating them cooked instead of eating them in a health drink. A properly made health drink is very delicious, and this is very important to good digestion and assimilation as we will find out later. [Chapter 13: The Role of the Mind in Digestion: two pages.]

8) Lean Meat, Poultry and Fish

This food group is rich in protein, riboflavin, and thiamine; it may also be rich in fat, depending on the type and cut. The protein of this group is of very high efficiency, being rated just below that of eggs. One common mistake people make is that they think steak is about the only type of animal meat that is any good. Thus you'll find that many bodybuilders bemoaning the fact that they can't afford steak and that therefore they'll never gain. This certainly is not true for you'll find that organ meats such as liver are good and not too expensive. Ground beef is very good if made from lean meat. Almost any cut of meat, if lean, is high in protein. So I recommend that you buy the cheaper cuts of meat. By doing this you can have meat more often and in larger quantities than otherwise. Make sure that the meat is lean, however. Also, don't forget to eat large amounts of poultry and fish, for these are just as good for you as regular meat. Variety is the best -- remember our discussion in an earlier paragraph?   

9) Fats

You owe it to yourself to try several different 

bacon-butter recipes in the upcoming months. 

Fats are commonly known as our fuel foods for they are very rich in calories. This group includes bacon, butter and margarine, to name but a few. Some fats are absolutely essential to life for they contain what is known as unsaturated fatty acids. If you have to fry anything I recommend you do it very slowly in butter, not grease or lard, etc. Keep the pan covered while you're frying for this keeps the heat in a more concentrated area; this also conserves more of the food value. 

10) Sugars

This group is also a good source of fuel, but it is not nearly so concentrated as the fats. This group contain such foods as syrup, brown sugar, molasses, and honey. The most widespread use for this group is as a sweetener. It is up to your individual taste which of the four you prefer. Most weight trainers feel that honey is the best. Most sugar we find on the market shelves today is refined; thus it follows that we want to make sure we buy the unrefined type, for as we've already learned, refining takes much of the good from any kind of food. 

 - Water. 

Water? 

Although water is not a food it is absolutely essential to life. Walter is the most important constituent of every organism. Walter makes up the major portion every body secretion, it plays an important role in the healing process, it helps regulate body temperature, and it is important in many other body processes to numerous to mention here. The amount of water we need varies with such things as the temperature of the air, the amount of activity we are engaged in, and the speed of the activity. 

Many people claim that one should drink from six to eight glasses of water every day, regardless of those external factors I just mentioned. However, I do not agree with this for it stands to reason that our bodies need more or less water at different times, depending on the situation. Also, if we drink a lot of milk or juices our needs for water will be less. So the best rule to follow is to drink as much as we need whenever we feel thirsty. 

It is not harmful to drink water with meals for our digestive enzymes work just as efficiently in a dilute solution as in a more concentrated solution. Don't wash your food down with water or any other fluid, however. To get the most from our foods, we must chew them thoroughly. If you like to drink something during your meals you are better off to drink milk or fruit juice, rather than water. You see, water has no food value; thus when you drink water you are taking up space in your stomach that could better be utilized for food. At meal time you should eat and drink only foods; drink all the water you need in between times. This way you don't bloat your stomach trying to get all of your food and drink at the same time. 

Many weight trainers like to drink water while working out and I feel that this is a good practice. However, drink only water or alcohol when working out, for milk or fruit juices require digestion and this interferes with the blood supply to the muscles which we are exercising. Exercise is a very strenuous activity and we must insure that the muscles get all the nourishment they need to function properly. If we interfere with this we are defeating the purpose of exercise. If we eat properly throughout the day we will have plenty of energy for a full workout.

I found Chapter Two of this book from 2023 the most interesting. You'll see the title at this link that includes the chapter, but I prefer titling it

"The Twisted Story of How Bottled Walter Took Over the World" 

https://books.google.ca/books/about/Unbottled.html?id=3bO9EAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Oh, that pesky Walter. 

These, then, are the various groups of foods from which we should eat every day. This really is only a thumbnail sketch of each group and you will find out many of the reasons for eating from group further on in the book. You'll also find lists of food belonging to each group. The purpose of this chapter is to get you interested in what foods make up each group and why it is that these groups are so important. For answers to these fascinating questions I invite you to read on.

Enjoy Your Lifting!