The Canadian Colossus who throws around polysyllabic words like loose change saw a massive arm on a fellow who was getting on the bus, and he knew right then that
that was what he WANTED.
He started to train and became acquainted with all the greats. His idols at the time were the great John Grimek and John Davis. He had Grimek's picture up on the wall.
Mr. Weider came into the picture . . .
"He did assist me financially to some extent, to help me out so that I could continue with my training and still get my food. He gave me protein supplements, and also also a lot of articles that were written by Charlie Smith appeared in his magazines, and they made me famous in those early days. I must also say that Weider was the man, the one man, who took me in the beginning and recognized my potential ability and went ahead and promoted it. Nobody at the time did.
"Fundamentally, the most productive way I discovered was to perform extended series of sets of low repetitions. What I mean by that is even 20-30 such sets. My reps would go down to 3 or 5. I found that this stimulated muscular growth because I don't believe that the average strength athlete, although they may more now than they did then, trained that way. They thought they could go and do higher repetitions with a reasonably heavy weight. There's not enough stress there to stimulate maximum muscular growth.
"The principle of it was extended sets of 3 repetition, combined with singles - possibly as many as 8. This is a variation to the sets of 3's. Then, for the other part, I used to do some sets of consecutive repetitions, up to as many as 8 for what you might call a pumping procedure.
"I incorporated that basic routine when I was 54 years old. I decided to come back, and I went in there and I was way down in weight, weighing maybe 200 pounds. And I went in this gym and I hadn't been feeling too well. I used a routine similar to the one I just explained the principles of and, when I was 54, I was doing repetition squats with 600 pounds, doing sets of 6 and 7. At 54 years of age, without wraps of any kind and of course without steroids, I did a standing press of 390 pounds."
On Overtraining
"You can train every day. If you organize it right, you can train every day. That's what I did when I was 54. When you're older, your strength will dissipate faster. Certain things happen.
When you're young you can get away with heavy workouts every three days or so because nature is working with you. As you age, you have to increase the frequency of your workouts. For example, now at age 66, I find that I have to train every day up to a heavy weight or I cannot maintain my strength.
"When you're older your recuperative powers are diminished, and your recuperative powers are essential to maintain strength. If I didn't train heavy on one given exercise at the most on every second day, and preferably every day, I'll go backward.
So I've reached the point in my life now that I'll fall back to a point but I'll still maintain a basic strength. I could squat once a week for half and hour and always do a 350-lb squat, even at the age of 65. The reason for that is that I'm using the strength in the body that has been build over a lifetime, and that level won't go down beyond a certain point unless you get sick or something. Also, any exercise that you do when you're older that involves the tendons heavily will give you more strength.
"Heavy weights influence the tendons as well as the muscle, of course. Great strength comes from the tendons. More so than muscles. Steroids affect muscular strength, but not to the same extent in the tendons. It doesn't matter if you do a partial or what, I don't think you can develop the strength of a full movement by doing a partial movement. To get strong, it's more built upon the structure of your routine."
Developing Pressing Power
"When I developed my pressing power I did it without using weights. I did handstand pushups. When I was a young man on the beach at 23, I weighed about 240 pounds. And I was a lifeguard, and there were logs on the beach. And from morning to night I would go up into a handstand with my hands on those logs and I'd begin to press myself up and down using my bodyweight like a barbell. I used to do it hour after hour. I could do sets of 10 reps all day. It got to the point where I was pressing upwards of 300 pounds just by using my own bodyweight. I believe that laid the foundation for my later strength in the shoulders. That developed it.
"It would be very good for a person to do handstand pushups for any lift - they're excellent for training. Of course, when you're upside down the blood rushes into your shoulders and, man, I think it's really good. Couple it with your actual weight training. A lot of bench pressers can't do anything standing up. Standing presses give a better comparison of your basic body power. The whole structure of your entire physical structure is involved. If you've got a weak back, a weak waist, or a weak link in there, they you can't press the weight. I believe that the standing press is a better test of overall physical strength than the bench press."
Lifts Doug is Proudest Of
"I guess I did them all. I did a curl, and I never really thought about it at the time. After the British Empire Games (1954), I believe that for pressing power I was as strong then as I ever was. And I weighed about 300 pounds.
"I believe I had won the Games and I was out in the area where the university was with a little friend of mine, and we went into the gym the guys used for training. Some of the athletes from the Games had not yet gone back to their own countries, and I remember there were some strength athletes there from Trinidad and Jamaica who I knew, one was a 198-pounder. I walked into the gym with a suit on, and I'd just eaten a big meal. I used to like to puff on a cigar once in a while - Grimek likes cigars, you know. Stanko and Grimek each used to have a good cigar going during their lunch break.
"Anyway, I went into the gym and was feeling pretty good, so I took my suit jacket off and started to do some presses off the rack, which was set at about shoulder height. These guys were watching me, and I did a couple just to warm up, then took 400 pounds off the rack and did it for an easy 4 reps in the overhead press.
"This was back in 1954, and the funny part was, when I put it down, I looked at my friends from Jamaica and they were white as a sheet, which is something for a native Jamaican, let me tell you! Their color was just gone. They looked pale, and one of them walked over to me and tapped me on the chest and said, 'What have you got in there?' He wanted to know what I was made of because they never dreamed that a man would be able to do that.
"I always did my stuff through my mind. The mind gave me a pinpoint direction, the concentration of the mind. Two or three years ago, a fellow came to me who was a psychology student at the University of British Columbia. And he said, 'You know, the professor referred to you in his lecture in psychology? He said that Doug Hepburn had subjugated his libido.' He said, 'I don't know how the hell the man did it, but he did it.' He said it's virtually impossible for the average man to do that. I was in a state throughout those years that everything was completely subjugated to that one desire to develop strength, and I believe that is what gave me tremendous power."
Doug's Greatest Lift
"According to strength historian David Willoughby, and he's probably right, it was not the press but the curl. I did a 260-lb strict curl and, I understand, I didn't get against the wall because I use my shoulder strength in curling and I can't use that when I'm against the wall. You also can't use a quick start. That doesn't reflect overall body power because you can't use your delts or trapezius.
"In training I could take a 360-lb barbell at shoulder level, drive it out away from my shoulders in a horizontal position, and pull it back into my shoulders before it had time to fall. My top press weight was 440 pounds. Although when I was a lifeguard in 1949, weighing maybe 235 pounds, I took a barbell that was loaded up with weights from a trestle and, wearing only my bathing suit and using a slight bend at the knee, rammed it up overhead. I found out later that the weight was 465 pounds."
continued in part two
Enjoy Your Lifting!
