A mural of the Arc de Triomphe forms the backdrop for a few of the hundreds of trophies Schemansky has won over the years. Norb, still very fit at the age of 48, pauses to reflect on the many championships he brought to the United States and the little recognition he received for his efforts.
The Woodward Avenue gym was quiet and empty. There was no clanging of iron and steel, no bursts of energy and muscle; and there was no sound of lifters straining in effort, encouraging one another, or bantering back and forth. There only existed the silence of a vacated home returned to, silent cold musty, never quite the same, but filled with memories.
Norb Schemansky, after the 1972 Senior Nationals and Olympic trials in Detroit stood erect, still thick and muscular at age 48, looking for the next to the last time at the gym where he had trained for so many years. On his next visit, he would move out.
This was the final resolution, and the impact that an era has definitely ended, that a world champion athlete has retired, hits hard especially when you are there to hear the words and witness the final goodbyes. No one goes to the gym anymore. No one lifts. Those who have keys don't use them.
Schemansky paused before a mantel on which sat trophies his club had won over the years.
"The trophies. What will happen to them?"
"I don't know. Jack will probably do something with them. Our team used to win every year so they quit giving them."
Norb shrugged his heavy shoulders and grinned knowledgeably in resignation, as if that move were typical and expected.
Above the mantel was a scene of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It reminded him of an exhibition he had given October 17, 1954, in Lille, France, when he had jerked the Apollon Bar three times in succession.
"Rigoulot trained eight months to lift it," Norb said. "John Davis lifted it, but he fainted and dropped it and bent it. I jerked it the first time, even with the bend in the bar. I knew I could do 363. The only thing was to get in the groove, the rhythm. I practiced the groove a few times, and then put it away," he chuckled.
"The bend in the bar makes it difficult to hold because it slips and the weight turns and shifts in your hands. I held the bar so tight, I didn't even turn in my hands. I didn't know this until I was through."
Norb didn't linger long before the Paris scene, though one could almost hear the cheers of the crowd at his success. It was a feat that Al Ackerman, Detroit news and sports commentator describes with excitement:
". . . that men and women were crying in the streets of France in awe and rapture and joy over this man who had jerked the bar three times in succession."
He paused before a picture of Clarence Johnson, asleep in a rocking chair. Norb read and enjoyed what had been written beneath the picture: "Our glorious president, hard at work."
He grinned. "We used to write things in the magazines, too," and Norb moved to find an old copy of Strength & Health. After blowing the dust off, he thumbed his way through looking for captions that had been written just to amuse the lifters. He read some and chuckled. "Just for fun. That's why we did it. Like we used to bring pictures of girls. We'd write things if a guy liked a certain one or something. Nothing bad."
Schemansky sat on an old sofa in the gym and relaxed. "It's not a fancy place, but it's comfortable. There's a back room there where you could take a nap if you wanted. The lockers are back there, too." Abruptly, Norb got up and with the sure, purposeful, and confident strides which mark a great athlete, headed for and disappeared into the locker area. He returned quickly.
"Here's a picture of me when I was Mr. Michigan in 1953 . . . I was injured and couldn't lift, so I entered this contest." He shrugged. "I was in good shape. Didn't know anything about posing -- some spend hours in front of a mirror practicing. Gave them a back pose or two and a couple of arm shots and that was it. The photographer won a blue ribbon with this picture."
Not this photo, but it's a new one to me.
Norb's eyes twinkled. "I don't know if it was the pose or the photography." To an observer, it was obvious that the muscular back and arms on display were in large part responsible for the blue ribbon. Norb smiled again, a trifle embarrassed, a little proud, but amused by that episode in his life.
"In a month or two, this will be cleaned out," he said after a pause.
"Whose are the weights?"
"Mine. Someone's been stealing them. The small ones they can carry away in their bags. I'll store the weights in my garage or give them away, maybe, if it's to someone who's serious. Not just to anyone. Maybe I'll sell them. The pictures? I don't know. Jack may do something with them."
The photos were mostly of Norbert Schemansky, the man, the lifter, whose career of excellence spanning four decades may well go unmatched. He has enough other memorabilia, enough pictures, without adding more. He has enough trophies cluttering his home without adding the ones from the gym. Of the approximate 300 he has garnered, only about 50 are still displayed at his home. Most of them aren't worth much except for one or two foreign ones, which were more like works of art and indicative of the foreign attitude toward his sport.
"Not much else to see," Norb said, and with the purpose which has characterized his lifting and his life, he led his visitor out, shut off the lights, closed the door, and turned his broad back on what had been.
On the last day of September, Norbert moved out of the gym. He did it with no fanfare, and with no recognition. His only companion was his friend, Jack Katchmar, who operated the gym. The weights now rest in Schemansky's garage, perhaps there for a long time.
Today, probably the greatest lifter America has ever produced looks as fit and capable as he did ten or more years ago. Few men will ever acquire and then retain the muscular build and physique that Norb has. He stands erect and walks briskly and athletically. His arms and shoulders have the same breadth and thickness which characterized him when he was lifting. His chest is thick and his midsection is solid. The man's forearms are still as phenomenal as they have always been. Perhaps the only hint of his age are the gray sideburns. Norb says he doesn't know when they came. He has the walk, the manner, the bearing of a great athlete, enough so that one man stared at him for some time. The man finally said to Norb, "You must be somebody!"
"That's some recognition," Norb observed, partly in jest, but just as much in seriousness, because for all his successes, for all his triumphs, he has probably never achieved the total recognition and fulfillment a champion such as he deserves. What he does have is the knowledge and satisfaction that comes from achieving because of himself, no one else. It was his dedication, His sacrifices, HIS sweat, muscle, and brawn.
Schemansky worked long and hard to become a champion of world class and stature, and though he achieved and was successful, he holds some bitterness and has some bitter memories of the past. Few are connected with his performances. He cannot understand the duplicity with which people admire strength on one hand, and then knock his sport. He finds it incongruous that some sportswriters laud other athletes for their strength, yet look down their noses at athletes who perform in Norb's kind of arena.
He laughs at Wilt Chamberlain being touted for his strength. "Someone said that Wilt could lift 450 pounds over his head. I doubt that he could lift 250. As for his lifting a Volkswagen, that's a kiddy car. He's not really strong in the field of strength, though he may be strong for a basketball player."
"Willie Horton (Detroit Tigers outfielder) is always talked of as being so strong. He and little Ray Oyler collided. It was Horton who was knocked to the ground. Why do they thrive on being strength athletes, when they really aren't?"
Not that Norb wants to thrive on being a strength athlete, or a strongman of note. "These things get out of hand. Once I lifted, or tilted, a spool weighing 2,000 pounds. Well, what I really did, some guy figured out, was lift maybe 500 pounds." There is a stigma attached to his sport. "A lifter is always expected to lift this, lift that. Someone is always wanting me to try something, even something as simple as tearing apart the plastic that holds a six-pack of pop cans together. Why do I have to prove anything? The proof, as I see it, came during the competition."
When he wasn't competing, however, and though it cost him and he got no money, he was asked to, and gave countless exhibitions at YMCA's. Boys Clubs, schools, colleges, even prisons. "I'd be the only guy to give an exhibition. The others, the professionals, would do nothing and get their 500 bucks. I'd do something and get nothing. Then they're (the professional athlete) always put on a pedestal."
"An amateur," Norb bluntly stated as he continued, "is considered an athletic bum, an unpaid bum. You can't get recognition because you can't get money, and yet your achievements are greater. In lifting, what is there is verified. It's not bullcrap (like the Wilt Chamberlain story). There isn't any money, so the majority has to come out of your own pocket. If you don't work, you have to be a bum. To be an amateur, you have to be one."
"What is lifting weights if it isn't work? One time I figured it out and I'd lifted enough weight to lift the Queen Mary. As far as work, I've done my traveling early. I can work the rest of my life." Norb went on to say that he had worked and supported a family. At times he was out of a job because he chose to compete. On occasion he took time off, without pay, to compete; and when he was out of work that kind of publicity ballooned and became more important than his sport and his lifts.
Because of incidents like this, Norb, for all his victories and world records, does not spew out fond memories. "The good things? There aren't any. The worst part of competing was coming home." In spite of words like this, which are often reason enough for him to be misunderstood, there were good things. Most were connected with lifting accomplishments, but few good thoughts were concerned with the evils with which Norb has been upset for years.
Blunt, outspoken, honest, filled with a satiric candor, Schemansky has had words about the Michigan AAU, the Olympics and officialdom. At times, Norb is an anomaly, a man of contradiction. He appears to disdain recognition, yet he feels he should have it for what he has done. And he should. He doesn't seem to care openly that he is not in the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame, yet he and many others do not understand why he isn't. It is unfortunate that he is not judged on his achievements and merits, which are overwhelmingly better than a speedskater who entered the Michigan Hall of Fame after winning one gold medal. Maybe instead of lifting the equivalent of the Queen Mary, he should have skated the equivalent of the Atlantic Ocean. Norb, also, does not care to display his still 20-inch biceps, though he has them. Yet he entered the Mr. Michigan contest and didn't mind an article which described his body from head to toe. In typical Schemansky fashion, he reacted, "It was something good, wasn't it?"
He questions and is suspicious of "higher-ups" and some writers. The article, "Looking For a Lift," published in Sports Illustrated in 1966 was not what Norb expected it to be. "It wasn't the story of a champion, was it?" It was about a champion, but the treatment was intended to ignore his accomplishments and concentrate on his lack of work and Jack Katchmar's futility about Norb's lack of attention. Norb mentioned another example of a writer's inaccuracy. "When I first started lifting, I told a sports writer: "Why does a guy golf? Because he's buggy about golf." So the next day, the headline came out: "Golfers Are Buggy."
"Getting hooked" on lifting, as Norb once described, is not entirely accurate, either, of why he began and continued. Schemansky explained it simply enough: "It's human achievement. Records are there to be broken. You do it because of you, yourself."
Some men play gold, some play fastball, others prefer to put the shot, and still others prefer to climb mountains, or whatever form their enthusiasm takes. Norb lifted weights longer and with more consistent excellence than any other heavyweight in history; longer than Vlasov, who Norb inspired; longer than Anderson or Davis or Hepburn, during a career which found him competing in four Olympics.
Each time he won a medal: a gold, a silver, bronze twice. In addition Norb has been World Champ three times, which is like adding three more gold medals. Never has he finished lower than third in international competition. He won nine national titles, set about 26 world records, collected roughly 300 trophies, and by "giving them a couple of arm shots," collected one blue ribbon.
Continued in Part Two.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
"The man's forearms are still as phenomenal as they have always been"...big understatement, especially at (then) 48 years old. Inspirational.
ReplyDeleteLike John Grimek, Norb retained his athletic physique into his later years because it was BUILT using proper training methods and eating normal foods (albeit large quantities)...and without "enhancements" that wreck body chemistry and processes.
Proper training and nutrition, yep, but also due to rare genetics. Schemansky would have looked relatively huge through his life even if he'd never touched a barbell.
DeleteI'm a 68-year-old on the opposite end of the genetic spectrum. I began training at age 15 in 1971. I never used anabolic steroids. I consistently trained progressively as heavy as possible, primarily on compounds, including barbell back and front squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, rows, dips, pull-ups, chin-ups, straight-legged deads, bench presses, curls, calf raises as my constant core program, primarily 5 to 8 rep sets; and maintained as optimal-as-possible nutrition, relying on real food not supplements.
However, even after ten consecutive years of dedicated training, including a ten-month bulking phase when I consumed 5,000 calories and 180 grams of protein per day every damned day, my slender-bones structure and short muscle bellies never allowed me to build more than a 15.5" cold arm (and THAT was after adding two inches to my arms) at a fit-but-smooth 175 lbs at 5'8". Guys who'd been lifting for a year typically carried more muscle than I had built after ten years.
I've been lifting, am still lifting, for over fifty-three years. When I was age 48, I looked fit but no one ever thought I was a bodybuilder or weightlifter; same now that I'm age 68.
So, agreed, hard, heavy training and eating real food, naturally, is the method I recommend too. Most guys will maximize whatever their muscle size and strength potentials are using those. Most guys can build respectable physiques and develop above-average strength.
But genetics are what separates most of us from the Grimeks and Schemanskys.
A fellow staffer once quipped to Grimek, when Grimek was writing his monthly training advice article for "Muscular Development" magazine, "John - - with your genetics, you can build more muscle than the rest of us merely doing a few push-ups in the corner."
I had an uncle like that. He'd never trained or exercised, he smoked and drank, he wasn't careful about his nutrition, just worked his blue-collar factory job like thousands of other guys. Yet he had the upper body of an Olympic gymnast plus the legs of a track-and-field competitor. I witnessed him numerous occasions, when he was in his late forties, just for fun, effortlessly do one-handed push-ups, bouncing between arms between sets, on the spur of the moment, and doing a Russian-style deep-squat alternate leg-thrusting dancing at family parties.
Not to diminish by one iota Schemansky's accomplishments nor his enviable build at age 48. Nor to disagree about anabolic drugs - - I dissuade young guys especially beginners from even considering them. And, as I said, I totally agree with heavy training and real food being the program to use.
But Schemansky still looked good at age 48 due to more than heavy training and good food. Plenty of us have pursued the same method with as much dedication and effort but haven't had the genetics to become what the Schemanskys and Grimeks can.
Dang, Dude, you make me ashamed with how dedicated you are. I started out about the same but when I got a set of weights (110# vinyl) at 14 I didn't get instructions and didn't know anyone who lifted. I saw the weightlifters on television and idolized Steve Reeves. I'd seen both doing overhead presses and figured that was how it was done. So...
DeleteMy first two years of working out consisted of one set of overhead presses to failure every day after school. When I finally got a new, heavier set at 16 I had large shoulder and triceps, could press my 100# barbell for 29 reps at 5"9.5"/135 lbs., and do a one arm C&J with the same weight.
Other than one stupid teenage bulk with Hoffman's Weight Gain (I rue the day I ever heard of it, it built up fat stores I still have to deal with), in my 30s I went as high as 218 with a 40" waist but did my best lifting at around 195. Most of my training was in home gyms except for a few years at the old Orange Avenue Gym in Orlando.
Like you, I never took roids. I was scared of them and considered them cheating. Unlike you, I had long spells of no training at all, mostly due to long hours at two jobs, but also inherent laziness and lack of goal setting.
Now at 69 (pushing 70) and shrunk down to slightly under 5'9" and 180 I'm mostly retired and enjoying training as much as ever, but I now have the free time to indulge myself and am training much more steadily. It's fun and keeps you young.
So now to come full circle, my youngest grandson is 15 and addicted to kettlebells, chins, and pushups. The beat goes on.
My first set of barbell/dumbbells was a Sears, concrete-filled-plates, 110 lb set I wanted for Christmas, 1971. I was exactly 15 1/2 years old. The set came with what I realize now was an excellent instruction manual, with a beginner program of about 10 movements -- barbell squats, standing presses, bent-over rows, deadlifts, bench presses, straightlegged deadlifts, shrugs, upright rows, curls, standing calf raises - - to be done as a full-body workout, one work set, 6-12 reps, three times a week. It instructed how to gradually add reps and sets and poundages, up to three worksets per movement. It also contained an "intermediate" course which added some other movements.
DeleteI began training the day after Christmas in 1971. I carefully followed that instruction manual for a year or so, and along the way learned all I could about training, nutrition, and recovery.
I worked for a couple decades in my forties/fifties as a self-employed roofer/builder contractor, but still continued training; I scaled back my volume and frequency due to the manual labor but still kept at the iron (addict yet genetic-low-responder that I am, lol), always doing barbell squats, straightlegged deads, rows, pull-ups, dips, overhead presses as the core program of any overall routines.
I've even maintained an annual calorie schedule for the past twenty years. I deliberately gain 10 - 12 lbs from Oct 1 to Dec 31, then gradually drop a pound per week of bodyfat from Jan 1 until April, then cruise along maintaining at about 159/160 lbs which holds me at 11-12% bodyfat until Oct 1 again. My wife (of 45 years) and my six adult kids and their spouses/partners have long since taken for granted me sipping black coffee at the birthday parties and family get-togethers from January until October of each year, lol
Ironically, I did a scheduled workout during the day of this last, 2024, Christmas Eve, lol. That's 53 years since I first owned my first barbell.
Keep going with your own iron pushing! It certainly doesn't prevent the inevitable deterioration of aging (as I'm sure you know) but it certainly slows it down, and, makes quality of life better in our older ages.
Good stuff Joe! What were some of your best lifts?-BW
DeleteMan, you sure do have it dialed in. Such discipline! Is that something you developed or an inherent trait? I've known regional champion bodybuilders who weren't anywhere near that dedicated and thorough.
DeleteI'm pretty much the opposite, a training airhead if you will. I'd focus on one movement (mostly), gradually building up over 6-8 months until I was burned out or injured (a comically recurring theme), then take 3 or four months off and do nothing. It'd drive my training partners nuts.
The goals had no rhyme or reason, varying from 1 rep max ATG squats to 20 rep good mornings, to max triples in the reverse curl. One of my favorites was doing 6 sets of 20 in the straight arm pullover with a "swingbell". I'd call that movement a silver bullet for the triceps.
I've averaged 120 workouts per year for most of my latter training life and should beat that this year, in retirement. If I wanted to characterize my training career I'd probably say: "Crazy, but I've enjoyed it immensely."
An inherited trait. Like all traits, has to be used at whatever maximum potential y'get, but I'm self-disciplined/self-motivated like that in other things, have been since childhood. So, I might get credit for utilizing it, but I don't get credit for having it. It's really the only favorable trait I got for bodybuilding.
DeleteMy best lifts, even after a decade and in my prime, were weak relative to what most guys of even average genetics who apply the same dedication that I did can do.
It's probably more illustrative to describe the physical point at which I started.
I'd done the usual sports activities like other guys up until then, but, significantly, was always one of those chosen last in any gym class, neighborhood sandlot, or pick-up games. I could never made the roster of any school team. At age 15, after getting that barbell set for Christmas, I was doing floor presses instead of bench presses because I didn't own a bench yet. Floor presses, of course, are more like lockouts, so usually someone can floor press more than they can bench press. After having trained consistently for four weeks on that three-day-a-week full-body beginner program, I finally managed to do FORTY (40) lbs, including the barbell bar itself, for one set of eight reps, barely getting the last rep, in the floor press. I weighed 145 lbs. I was using 40 pounds for one set of eight squats, 45 lbs for a set of eight deadlifts, 30 lbs for a set rach of 8 overhead presses and barbell rows. I recall those poundages because they were personal records after my first month of training, LOL!
Yep. THAT weak, to begin.
To compare...when I was age 20, I'd managed to progress to using 220 lbs for three sets of 5-6 reps for bench presses. I owned a York vertical home-gym leg press unit (which I modified and padded) and did one set of 7 reps with 690 lbs once; then after doing leg presses, I'd do front squats and did a set of 7 with 245 lbs once. Deadlifts, on a standard bar loaded with standard 25 lb plates, 390 lbs for 7 (I liked seven-rep sets). My best overhead pressing was a pair of 62.5-lb dumbbells for seven reps while seated on a plain flat bench. Bent-over rows with 240, T-bar rows with 300, pull-ups with 75 lbs, all eight rep sets. Incline bench seated curls with a pair of 50s for 7. What I recall as some of my PRs (I log workouts, but discarded those earliest logs when my wife and family made interstate moves through the decades). I weighed 175 lbs at my 5'8" by then.
Nope, nothing impressive, especially considering I was religious about progressive training (I'd skip social events and train on holidays, wake up to train at 5 AM when my job hours required it, scheduled my life around workouts and eating and sleeping, for the first ten years when I lived exclusively for bodybuilding, fool that I was then). But compared to how weak I started off, my final outcome was "successful for my less-than-average genetics". I began as that proverbial 99 pound weakling and became strong comparative to how I began, but never built the strength that average-gened guys typically attain if they're dedicated and train progressively for three or four years.
But, nevertheless, still fool that I am, I love pushing iron.
Those are strong numbers, Joe, especially when you remember that the current lifts are as inflated as the muscles are by steroid use.
DeleteLooks like you're strong in the back and legs. Bradley Steiner would have loved you. I imagine you've read his stuff, right? I wrote to Mr. Brad when I was a teen and he was kind enough to reply. His advice was pretty much like his articles: leg work, back work, brief workouts, dedication. I managed two of the four. You didn't mention brevity, but you nailed the rest.
My numbers are pretty ordinary. My best/favorite lift was doing doubles with 215 in the seated behind neck press. I could usually single with 225. This was at 185 lbs. Bench press was hard for me. I was in my 30s before I did 300, and my PR was only 320. I have the advantage(?) of short legs, so I was good in the squat (relatively) and did 405x3, 425x2, and 445 for my PR. These were ATG, in gym shorts and running shoes. I once did 2 sets of 20 with 290 in the breathing squat; I don't recommend that. I could strictish barbell curl 155 on the olympic bar. I'd do seated incline french press with a 120lb. globe dumbbell. The weight wasn't that impressive, but it looked cool. All of these were at 185-190 lbs.
None of these would merit an article in this blog (I love these articles!) but they were done honestly and with no chemical help. Plus, the upside of closing in on 70 is that I don't have to push for PRs anymore, I can just work out for fun and to keep the old bones and joints limber. Also, not to brag, but I benched 215 with my grandson spotting me a couple of days ago.
Never give up! Never surrender!
Commendable squatting records!
DeleteExcept for about three years after I'd injured a hip so had substituted leg presses followed by front squats for back squats, I've made squatting THE bedrock of my 53+ years of workouts, I've never "skipped a leg day". I still advise young guys, "If you do nothing else, do barbell squats." I realize that, strictly for hypertrophy, leg presses accomplish as well as squats; but for overall physical benefits, especially for guys using weight training for fitness or improving for sports, as well as what someone can do practicably in a home gym, squats seem the best choice. A pair of squat stands and a barbell is all that's needed.
I, same as you, have adjusted my training since passing age 60. Now approaching 69, I swapped my former 6-8 rep sets for 20, 30, even higher rep sets, often partials as high as 100 reps. The high reps enable me to ease the strain on my lower back (I destroyed cartilage in a lumbar facet joint due to a job-incurred injury twenty-five years ago, and too-heavy squatting is too painful now) plus seems to keep me moderately cardio fit.
Ironically, my dedication and emphasis on heavy, progressive squatting failed to translate to even moderately muscled quads. With my tiny 7.875 ankles (heck, guys like Grimek had 8" WRISTS!), small knees, and short quad, hamstring, and calf muscle bellies (I even early-on bought a plate-loaded standing calf machine from Ed Jubinville in Holyoke, MA, for my home gym, in dogged equally-consistent determination to build calves), my legs are not merely small but cartoonishly small. People have always been amazed at how relatively strong I am in the legs, after seeing them and wondering, "Do you even lift, bro'?" Genetics, genetics, genetics!
Steiner was one of my important influences, definitely. Having learned the 12 to 20 sets per bodypart twice-or-thrice per week ideas from Weider's magazines (and initially being unaware those programs were often pre-contest, not year-round, as well as possible for most only with anabolic steroids) , but then experiencing my inability to maintain never mind gain on that much volume, by my third year of training I'd figured out by myself to scale back volume. Then reading Steiner and, later, Mentzer's initial "Heavy Duty" advice confirmed that less volume was better for my capabilities.
Yeah, keep pushing. To me, that's the advantage of enjoying iron. We can adjust and adapt it to our capabilities as we age. We can't do what we could at age 25, 35, 45, even 55 - - but we can still do something. Myself, I don't intend to willingly go out as a couch potato - - my wife and kids figure, they'll find my cold body one day on my outdoor concrete squatting pad, having cranked out that final rep, LOL.
Over the course of his decades long career, Norbert at 181 cm (5 ft 11 in) built his physique from 90 to 121 kg (198 to 267 lb).
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