Strength, Weight Training, Muscle Building, Strongman & Iron Game Think Tank - Natural Strength

The Noble Heritage... Physical Culture - By Bob Whelan

2010-03-09T10:08:00.009-05:00

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, (May-June 1999)

Joe Aben doing a set of front squats at WST.

The key to building natural strength is dedicated effort, and not just in the gym. Although there are surely vast differences in individual genetics, I know of no one who has not made tremendous gains over the long haul if they truly paid their dues. Many people “micro-manage” their training and worry overly about minor things, but somehow overlook the main issue—consistent dedication. Many assume that they are dedicated when, in fact, they are not. Some assume that they are dedicated just because they avidly read about strength training. But if you were to ask them what they ate yesterday, or how much sleep they got, or how they are actually progressing in their training, you’ll frequently receive only excuses.

Dedication in natural strength training is best defined by the old-time term “Physical Culture.” You don’t hear this term too often anymore because it encompasses a way of life. It’s not an end result, a trophy or a bodypart measurement, but a total lifestyle commitment. It’s about how you live your life “in the dark” when no one is watching you. It’s dedication to a 24-hour day philosophy, not just what you do in the gym. Most of the old-timers had this Physical Culture philosophy. They cared about health as much as strength. Just look at the old magazine titles. Today, it seems to me that most strong men couldn’t care less about health. Steroid use is rampant, and you’ll find many strong men smoking cigarettes and using recreational drugs too. They are no more dedicated to health than the average citizen.

Vic Boff is a good friend of mine, and we sometimes burn up the phone lines for hours. He’s a wealth of knowledge and has endless stories about the old-timers. He personally knew many of them, and was very close with Sig Klein and George Jowett. No one hates steroids more than Vic Boff; and no one hates more than he does what has happened to the Iron Game as a result of steroids.

To build muscle naturally you have to do the hard exercises, be mentally tough, get enough sleep, eat the right foods and avoid the wrong foods, and sweat buckets for years and years. It takes dedication to do it the right way. You have to love it to be able to stick with it for decades; but the long-term rewards make it all worthwhile.

Building muscle on “tuna and baked potatoes” is a lot slower than building it on steroids. Undedicated phonies can build muscle fast on steroids, but they lose it fast and die young too. To me, a true champion lives a dedicated life of Physical Culture in the spirit of our founding fathers. Vic, for example, puts health first and has lived his life as a dedicated Physical Culture disciple. How many of today’s “Mr. Something” drug-using bodybuilding “stars” will be the picture of health, strong, full of energy, and sharp as a tack like Vic when they get into their eighties? Not many, if any.

Almost every month I hear of another former bodybuilding star, or athlete, who is either dying from steroid use, or who recently died prematurely. And yet these are the guys that many of the ignorant and misinformed masses have looked to for training advice. Thank God for Hardgainer and the few other good training magazines that provide truthful information for drug-free trainees.

We have much more information today about health than our forefathers had, and we should be held to higher standards because of it. Some of the old-timers had bad habits, but overall they were dedicated to health based on the information they had available at the time. Most of the (few) unhealthy things they did were done unknowingly. Today there’s no excuse.

I give a two hour Physical Culture orientation to all my regular clients (who are not just visitors), and this is done before any weights are lifted. I stress dedication, commitment to health, as well as strength. I’ve put the basic framework of the orientation into a tongue-in-cheek “Ten Commandments” format—the “Whelan Strength Training Commandments.”

Whelan Strength Training Commandments

1. Thou shalt train for strength, whole-body fitness and health; and do cardiovascular exercise and flexibility training as well as strength training.

2. Thou shalt not smoke, take illegal drugs or abuse legal drugs.

3. Thou shalt not use steroids or assist anyone in obtaining them.

4. Thou shalt be mentally focused and give 100% effort at every training session.

5. Thou shalt strive for progressive resistance, using good form, without excessive rest between sets, and use the fullest (but safe) range of motion possible.

6. Thou shalt primarily focus on the basic compound strength training movements—multi-joint, not isolation—and train the whole body with equal emphasis on pushing and pulling. The training foundation is overhead pushing/pulling, horizontal pushing/pulling, and leg, hip and back pushing/pulling.

7. Thou shalt not seek shortcuts, miracle formulas or gimmicks, but instead stick to basic and sound information concerning training and nutrition, such as Hardgainer, Brawn, Beyond Brawn and The Insider’s Tell-All Handbook on Weight-Training Technique.

8. Thou shalt perform hard progressive strength training, and not toning, shaping, or bodysculpting.

9. Thou shalt not train “bodyparts” but train the whole body (hard) usually about twice every 7-10 days.

10. Thou shalt not rely on mega-hype muscle mags for training or nutritional advice.

All of my clients get a copy of this, and even though it’s in a humorous format, the rules are taken very seriously. I have, for example, expelled people from my facility who lied when they told me that they were non-smokers. I don’t want these types, and usually get rid of them over the phone. I have had many requests for the “WST Commandments,” and so have included them in this article.

Bodyparts training and natural training don’t mix

Most people who train “bodyparts” (not the whole body) confuse “training” with “going to the gym.” They somehow believe that by going into a building called “the gym” they will get bigger and stronger. They rarely talk about intensity or how hard they worked, but instead talk about being in a building. They brag about how long they are “in the gym,” and how often they “go to the gym.” They believe that by training “bodyparts,” and thus spending more time “in the gym,” they will get better results. They are usually unsophisticated beginners who feel more advanced just because they train in a bodyparts format. They don’t realize that bodyparts training has been around for decades and is nothing new.

Guys who “go to the gym” usually spend more time talking (about sports and politics, for example), and socializing at the water fountain, than they do training. That’s why they are there for three hours! They take a ten-minute rest between sets, and usually bench press with several other people. Their bench press workout alone takes 45 minutes. These guys rarely even break a sweat!

It’s almost impossible to train bodyparts without overtraining from “muscle overlap.” You can’t put the major multi-joint exercises into neat, separate categories. The bench press, for example, does not hit just the chest, but front delts and triceps. The machine pullover, termed the “upper-body squat” by Arthur Jones, works almost every muscle in the upper body. What category do you put it in? The truth is that if you train bodyparts 5-6 days per week, you’re either on drugs or are not working hard—you take long rests between sets, and your workout is filled with easy exercises such as triceps kickbacks, cable crossovers, lateral raises, flyes, leg extensions, etc.; and you don’t do squats, deadlifts, chins, rows, military presses, etc.

If you train hard, and are natural, you can’t train bodyparts 5-6 days per week. If you train hard, whole body, you’ll be physically unable to train more than twice every 7-10 days. Anyone who does not believe this can come for a free workout. It would be my pleasure to “convince” him.

“Look of power”

Dr. Ken and others have written articles about “the look of power.” You don’t get the look of power unless you do the heavy compound exercises—the ones which require lots of recovery time for natural guys. Dr. Ken described this well when he stated that people who do bodyparts training look like they are just a “collection of bodyparts” that don’t seem to fit together. When you have the look of power you’re thick and look strong from any angle. Even if you have a raincoat on you still look thick and strong.

The look of power means thickness in the back, traps, glutes, legs, neck and whole body, not just arms and chest. If people only know that you “lift weights” when you have a tank top on, you don’t have the look of power. The look of power can’t be hidden. It has nothing to do with cuts or definition, but size and thickness. If you have the look of power, then no matter what oversize baggy sweatshirt you have on, you’ll still look powerful.

It’s no accident that bodyparts training and drug use grew together and are from the same roots. Most people get innocently sucked into bodyparts training without realizing it. The truth is that “bodyparts routines” are usually “drug routines” (or “wimp routines”) and are not effective for the average drug-free trainee.

I love to get “bodyparts types” to train with me, especially if they have a cocky attitude. If they say things like, “Are you sure that twice a week will be enough?” I go out of my way to change their thinking.

To do this, I’ll have them spend the first workout doing heavy high-rep leg work for twenty minutes—and they usually don’t last even that long. If they do, I keep them going with little rest between sets doing nothing but the hard stuff, to failure; and they finish with the sandbag carry (if they last that long). This is strictly an attitude-adjustment workout, and is only used for “special” people.

When people come in with a really good attitude, and listen, then I start them much slower and pick up the intensity over a period of time, to build up conditioning progressively.

The smart ass types usually last only about twenty minutes of an attitude-adjustment workout, and are then laying on the floor. They are usually amazed at how soaked in sweat they are, and how tired. I then love to ask them, “Do you think we hit your biceps and back enough? Why don’t you come back tomorrow?” They never do, and are usually too sore and tired to think about training for at least three or four days, the way it should be.

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 7 - The Abdominal Muscles - By Alan Calvert

2010-03-06T08:19:00.009-05:00

At the present time the development of the abdominal muscles has become almost a fad with some physical culturists. If you pick up a magazine devoted to exercises you are almost sure to find some pictures showing young men with their bodies bent forward so as to make the muscles in the front of the abdomen stand out in ridges.
Since the muscles along the front of the abdomen are fastened at top to the breast-bone, and at the bottom to the bones of the pelvis, it follows that contraction of these muscles bends the body forward and brings the chest closer to the knees.

I can see the importance of these abdominal muscles, but I think that no man would cultivate them and leave his back-muscles neglected. Eugene Sandow, who "started" so many other things, is responsible for the craze for abdominal development. The muscles on the front of his abdomen were phenomenal; but not a bit more phenomenal than the muscles on his back. Up to the time that he made his debut as a vaudeville performer, it was customary for a professional "Strong Man" to work in a high-necked jersey; and as these men never stripped or did muscle-poses in a lighted cabinet, the people who saw their acts never got a chance to see the remarkable development of the abdominal muscles which many of them possessed.

In a real "Strong Man" the muscles on the front of the abdomen should be plainly visible when the body is held erect. It should not be necessary to bend the body over, as in Fig. 34, in order to make these muscles noticeable. If you look at the picture of Sandow in Fig. 35, you can trace the outline of the abdominal muscles; even though in this pose, he is actually leaning slightly backwards. In his case, these muscles were so noticeable that out of a hundred people who saw him pose, ninety-nine would remember the development of his abdominal muscles, where only one would notice the wonderful cables of muscle along either side of his spine.

As a rule, I can say that most men and boys who take up body-building exercise end up by having a better development on the front of their bodies than on the back of their bodies. This is due to their constant habit of standing in front of a mirror and studying their own development. It is easy for them to see the outline of the muscles on the chest, those on the front of the abdomen and the muscles on the front of the thighs. They see the width of the calves of the legs, and if it seems insufficient, they will do exercises to make the calves wider, forgetting that the important thing is to make the calves deep from front to back. Similarly, they will work hard to make the thighs look wider and never once think of the vitally important muscles on the back of the thigh, which they never see in the mirror. Worst of all, they do far more exercises for the muscles on the breast and on the front of the abdomen, than for the muscles on the back of the body.

I am not trying to discourage the developing of the abdominal muscles, but to make you realize their place and proportion in your whole muscular get-up.

Anyone who has practiced even the simplest kinds of exercise is familiar with the two usual exercises which develop the abdominal muscles. In both exercises you lie flat on the back. In one of them you raise the legs to a perpendicular position; and in the other you keep the legs on the floor by placing a weight across the ankles, and then you bring the body to a perpendicular position. The first exercise, where you raise the legs, seems to develop the lower part of the abdominal muscles; that is, the part in the neighborhood of the groin. In the other exercise, where you raise the body, most of the work is done by the upper fibres, where they attach to the breast-bone. (If a fat man carries most of the surplus flesh around the hips, he should practice raising the legs; but if most of the surplus is on the upper part of the abdomen, he should practice the other variation.) But these two exercises are merely "kindergarten stuff," and they have no place in the training-schedule of the super-strong. They are so easy that men have been known to bring the body to the perpendicular position 2000 times in succession; and almost anyone can, in a few weeks' practice, learn to repeat either movement from 25 to 50 times. Anyone who can do that much, can safely start doing the body-raising movement while holding a weight at the back of the beck, as in Fig. 36. The beginner can start with 10 or 15 lbs., and he will find that he can increase quite rapidly, and that it soon becomes no more trouble to do the exercise with 50 lbs. than it formerly was with 15 lbs. When he gets this far along, he should adopt a more strenuous method. (In some of our cities no candidate is accepted for the police-force unless he can do this exercise with 40 lbs.)

The next step in abdominal development is to sit on a bench or a chair and then lean back and pick up a light bar-bell, rest it on the upper-chest, and bring the body back to a sitting position. Naturally, the feet have to fastened to the floor, and the customary thing is to either put the toes under a strap or else to put the insteps under a heavy bar-bell. This variation should not be attempted until it is easy to use 50 lbs. in the preceding method, and then you should start on the chair with 10 or 15 lbs. When you can make several repetitions with 50 lbs., it is time for you to graduate into Roman-chair or Roman-column work.

Now we are coming to really advanced abdominal exercises. In all the previous variations, where you rest the body, your weight has been supported at the hips and all the bending has been done from the hip-joint. In the Roman-chair and Roman-column work, the support is at the knees, which makes it much more difficult; because, for one thing, the leverage is longer, and for another thing, the work is shared between the abdominal muscles and the muscles of the hips and thighs. Of the two kinds of apparatus, the column is much preferable. If you refer to Fig. 37, you will see that there are rests for the feet, and that most of the athlete's weight is carried by the chains fastened at one end of the post, and at the other end to straps buckled around the upper part of the calves. In a properly arranged Roman-column, when the athlete leans back and throws his weight against the chains, the knee-joint should be but little higher than the ankle-joint. The first exercise in the Roman-column is to learn to get in the sitting position shown in Fig. 38, which, but the way, is much harder than you would think. Then you learn to bend backwards and lower the body until the finger-tips touch the floor, as in Fig. 39. The real work comes in raising the body again to the sitting position, and no one should even attempt the stunt unless the muscles of the abdomen and the groin have been developed and strengthened by the preceding exercises. Since, on your first attempt to use a column, you might find it impossible to bring your body up, you should always have a friend present to rescue you, if necessary, from the head-downward position. During the first week's practise you will gain in strength at a surprising rate; and while the first day you may not be able to bring your body up even once, on the seventh day you will do it many times with the utmost ease. Then is time to start with a light bar-bell; ten or fifteen pounds is enough to begin with. You have to lift it from the floor, hold it against the bend of the hips, and then bring it with you to the sitting position. You can make the work harder either by increasing the weight of the bell or by holding it close to the chin instead of in front of the hips. The further the weight is away from the knees, the more strength it takes to raise the bell and the body. After a month's practise you will suddenly awake to the fact that you have a degree of bodily strength which is entirely new and most pleasing; and you will wonder why it was that you wasted so many weary months trying to get real strength by performing the kindergarten exercises which started this chapter.

Since few Roman-columns are available, many athletes have to resort to the use of the Roman-chair, which is illustrated in Fig. 40. Such chairs have to be of very strong construction. The straps on the seat of the chair hold the athlete's feet firmly in place, and the top of the chair is padded. The back and seat should be inclined as in Fig. 40, and not upright and horizontal as in the ordinary chair. My objection to the chair is that you have to bend the body back farther in order to reach the ground. In the pictures of the Roman-column, you will see that when the body is down it is at right angles to the calves of the legs; and in the pictures of the Roman-chair, the body has to be bent beyond the right angle.

Undoubtedly the idea of the Roman-column occurred to some gymnast or athlete who was familiar with the parallel-bars. It is possible to do Roman-column work on a pair of parallels, providing the bars are not too far apart. All you have to do is to sit sideways, with the insteps under one bar and the bend of your knees over the other bar. Since most parallel-bars are adjustable, both in height and in width, you can fix them so that your legs will stretch across the open space between the bars, and so that when you are hanging head-downwards, your finger-tips just sweep the floor. It is easier to do the work on a Roman-column, because the leg-straps and the foot-rests are padded; but if you can't find a Roman-column or a chair, there is nothing to prevent you trying the column exercises on a pair of parallels.

I'm afraid that some of you will be discouraged when you read this chapter, and that you will decide to give up all idea of getting to be super-strong if it is necessary to do stunts like this. A man who has only average strength is hardly able to imagine what it feels like to be really strong. Let me assure you that a man who has gotten super-strength by practising with weights thinks no more of getting on a Roman-column and doing an exercise three or four times with a 50-lb. bar-bell than you would think of lying flat on the back and raising your legs in the air three or four times in succession. I realize that if you have never tried it, Roman-column work seems at first glance to be a most difficult and dangerous form of exercise; just as the performance of the Kreisler or a Heifetz seems highly difficult and complicated to the man who has never taken a lesson in violin playing. You probably have thought that it would take the strength of a Hercules to do Roman-column work. That is more or less true; but the point is that if you can learn to do it, you will get the strength of a Hercules; and once you have the strength and the corresponding muscular development, you will surprised at how easily you can retain it, and how little work is necessary to keep the body at the highest pitch of condition. Make up your mind to this: If you ever get to be super-strong, you will thereafter have no patience with the "light" exercises which formerly seemed to be all-sufficient. If you can get on a Roman-column and repeat the exercise a few times in the course of one minute, why should you spend a half-hour lying on the floor and raising first the legs and then the body to the perpendicular position? When you get so that you can handle 600 or 800 lbs. in a hand-and-thigh lift, and that five minutes' practice per week keeps your back and leg muscles in fine shape, you will have neither the time nor inclination to bend over and touch your toes 200 or 300 times in succession.

So far as I am aware, there are no records for Roman-column work, because it is not a competitive lift, but is used either as an exhibition stunt or as a developing exercise. When using it as an exercise, you should never push yourself to the limit of your strength, but should always keep a factor of reserve. It is not necessary to repeat the exercise every day, two or three times a week being sufficient to keep the muscles growing in size and strength. Fig. 40 is a sample of the bodily strength which can be created in this method. Few ordinary athletes can hold the body horizontally when the feet are strapped to a Roman-chair. This man can hold his own weight, plus the weight of a 100-lb. man at arms' length. If the other man were resting across the lifter's thighs, the stunt would be easy. In this instance it is hard, because the extra weight is right above the lifter's chest.

Weight Training and Women - By Jim Bryan

2010-02-28T09:23:00.001-05:00

You could also say, “Strength Training or Resistance Training.” I didn’t say “Weight Lifting” because that can be confused with Olympic Lifting and Power Lifting. I’m not talking about either. I’m talking about prudent and productive workouts with some type of progressive resistance. The equipment could be bar bells, dumb bells (free weights), machines, resistance bands, and even some body weight exercises. The fact is resistance training is good for Women. Just as good as it is for Men. The problem is the Myth’s that surround the subject of Women and weights.

1. Weight Training will not give you “Man Muscles.” Men and Women both have “Human Muscle.” Women will not end up looking like a Man……………..Unless they take Body Building Drugs! Ladies, think “Toned.” This may help you understand what working out with weights can do for you.

2. You won’t end up “bigger” with large muscles. If you follow a good diet and exercise with weights you’ll become leaner and smaller. Once again think “Toned.” Think Fat/Big Muscle/smaller.

3. You don’t have to train every day for two hours. A half hour workout done 2 to 4 days a week including cardio work is sufficient. Some of this can be done at home. If you have a nice gym at home, all of it can be done there. Being active can be split between the gym and outdoor choices.

4. You don’t have to eat like a “weirdo.” You can eat regular foods like everybody else. Just be carful of over eating and junk food. Yes, twinkies are junk food. Fruits, vegetables, lean meat, you know the drill.

You’ll need to be consistent. It does take time. In the end you will have more strength, more energy, more endurance, and you’ll feel better. Not to mention you’ll look better. You will also help prevent muscle wasting and osteoporosis. Both are something to be concerned about if you are a woman.

Join a gym and find someone who can help you learn. This could be a “Personal Trainer” or a friend with experience. Just be careful of “gimmicks.” You won’t need to spend a bunch of money on supplements, and you sure don’t need “Fat Burners.” The exercises you do in the gym will be your “Fat Burners.”

We have Athletic types in both Women and Men. We also have Non Athletic types. Both will benefit. We also have plenty of excuses for not exercising. If you are serious, you can find a half hour a few times a week. You will be better for it if you do. You can end up looking “toned and fit.” AND younger!

In Defense of the Press Behind the Neck - By Bradley J. Steiner

2010-02-26T07:13:00.003-05:00

PRESS BEHIND NECK

The idea that presses behind the neck are "dangerous" is a new one for me! I have been using this exercise and teaching it since the 1960's, and the only result for myself and others has been . . . GOOD RESULTS!

Of course it is possible to train improperly on the press behind neck, or on any other exercise. That could cause problems. But that does not make the movement per se "dangerous"; it only means that you should learn how to do it properly, and then train correctly on it.

My tips would be:

• Learn how to do the press behind neck correctly
• Use weights that are manageable and that you can exercise with correctly in good form
• DO NOT drop, "jerk", or bounce the weight (your head might suffer!)
• Progress gradually — never hurry and do not "cheat" in order to hoist weights that are too heavy for correct performance
• Stop immediately if pain is felt; pain is not the same thing as "effort", or as the fatigue you ought to experience after working a muscle group properly
• If — for whatever reason — the press behind neck feels awkward for you even after learning its correct performance and trying it with a light and reasonable poundage at first, use another exercise. Maybe regular pressing or dumbell pressing suits your personal physiology better.

I rate the press behind neck as one of the finest BASIC EXERCISES. And I have never known any reason to change this opinion.

2010 University of Florida Strength Clinic * February 26th and 27th

2010-02-25T11:23:00.005-05:00

If you are interested, please contact:

Coach Frank Piraino or strength coach Micky Marotti

Phone: 352-375-4683 (ext. 4940)

E-Mail: frankp@gators.uaa.ufl.edu

John Grimek Was "The Man” - By Bob Whelan

2010-02-21T19:45:00.003-05:00

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, (March-April 1999)

For all of my training life I’ve had the quiet comfort of knowing John Grimek was around to inspire and motivate me. He was my all-time Iron Game hero, a legend of unparalleled achievements, but who was universally described as a “good guy” by everyone who had the honor of meeting him. He was a guy you could really admire, look up to and respect not only for his titles or measurements, but as a man.

His pictures have always been on the walls of my gym even if it happened to be my bedroom or garage. I have several of his pictures on the walls at Whelan Strength Training, from various decades of his life starting with the Mark Berry posters showing John in his early twenties, until several decades later showing his body even more muscular and better, with only his face showing signs of age. For my money, he was the best, a legend—the man! This greatest chapter in Iron Game history came to a close on November 20, 1998 when John C. Grimek passed on at age 88.

Vic Boff summed it up well when he stated, “For over five decades, John C. Grimek has been heralded as the Monarch of Muscledom throughout the world. He was the greatest combination Iron Game athlete—physique star, bodybuilder and strength performer—of all time and certainly the most popular, inspiring millions. He was a major influence in the lives of every top bodybuilder. He was the only bodybuilder in history who was never defeated in a contest. His charisma was so outstanding that everyone in the Iron Game wanted to meet him, shake his hand or get an autograph. His obliging patience was endless.”

Grimek was also the only man to win the Mr. America title twice, and was also a member of the 1936 US Olympic weightlifting team. He won the Mr. Universe in 1948 and the Mr. USA in 1949. He was also an expert swimmer, diver, acrobat and muscle control expert. He was also very strong, and capable of a 400-pound jerk.

John probably did more to advance strength training in academia, teaching and coaching than anyone—especially as a legitimate method for training and preparing athletes. The all-prevalent musclebound myths of the day were largely dispelled and reversed by his awesome demonstrations of flexibility, grace and speed while working with Bob Hoffman and other members of the York Barbell Club. Modern strength and conditioning coaches may not have had a profession if not for John C. Grimek.

I began to train, involuntarily at first, at age 10. I was a good baseball player and was batting around 600 in little league. I just came home from a game and as soon as I got in the door, my father asked me, “How many hits ya get, ya bastard?” He had his usual beer in hand and was in his typical semi-intoxicated state.

“Three!” I proudly replied.
“How many home runs?”

“None,” I replied.

My introduction to training was when my father responded, “You weak son of a bitch. Get on the floor and do pushups.”

I did only three, and he really tore into me for that. I usually managed to make a positive out of most of the negative childhood situations with my father. He made me do pushups every night before bed, and soon I began to love the exercise because I felt stronger, which in turn raised my confidence and self-esteem; and I began hitting some home runs. Soon I was doing 90 pushups in a row.

I put up a chinning bar in the basement and was up to 18 in no time. I made a wrist roller. I walked around constantly squeezing rubber balls to strengthen my wrists because that was what Ted Williams did. I was hooked on training at an early age.

It was during this time that I bought my first copies of Strength and Health and Muscular Development magazines. I was buying baseball cards near a magazine rack and a cover caught my eye. Muscular Development was a new magazine at that time (1964), and John Grimek was the editor. From my first glance of him, I was in awe, but greatly inspired. I always read every word in MD and liked it even more than S&H, because of Grimek’s influence. (I didn’t even know about Iron Man ‘til a few years later.)

I continued to lift cement blocks and copper tubing stored in the cellar, and did pushups, chins, dips between chairs, wrist roller work, situps and other calisthenics until I got my first York 110-pound barbell set for my birthday at age 13.

I was a fanatic and devoured everything related to training I could get my hands on. I was sad when I'd read all the articles in a new issue. I couldn’t wait ‘til the next month so I could ride my bike to the apothecary in Sherborn, Massachusetts, and buy the next issue.

I can remember the smell of the ink in the new issues. I had to hide the magazines because my father thought all the bodybuilders were “musclebound,” but I knew better. My biggest heroes were Bob Hoffman and, especially, John Grimek. I still have a deep affection for and loyalty to the tradition of the York Barbell Company, and tremendous respect for its pivotal role, since the thirties, in the development of the Iron Game. To this day I will only buy York weights.

This background information is important because it should help you to understand the magnitude of the thrill I had in April 1976 when I drove to York, Pennsylvania, and met John Grimek. For an Iron Game/Physical Culture enthusiast, this was the equivalent of a baseball fan meeting Babe Ruth. I’d hoped to meet Bob Hoffman too.

I remember looking at all of Hoffman’s medals and spending an hour or so in the museum section downstairs. I finally got the nerve up to ask if I could meet Bob Hoffman, but was told he was not in that day. I still regret not meeting him. But Grimek was upstairs in his office, and I was told that he would be happy to see me. My heart raced as I walked up a creaky staircase to his office. I sheepishly knocked on the office door and politely referred to him as Mr. Grimek.

Mr. Grimek invited me in and was extremely friendly. I was only 21 at the time and was completely in awe. At first I was surprised because he was well into his sixties at the time, but most of the photos I’d seen of him were not recent. He was in great shape, though, and I could tell that he still trained hard and regularly. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up, and I could see his huge biceps in full glory. He looked at least 20 years younger than most men of his age.

He asked me as many questions about my training, and my life in general, as I asked him. He seemed genuinely interested in me and I was impressed at how approachable and kind-hearted he was. He answered every question I had and was in no rush to have me leave. He signed an autograph for me that I guard with my life and proudly display on a wall of my gym. After asking every possible question I could think of, and spending about 30 minutes in his office, I felt I might start to be a pest. I thanked Mr. Grimek for his time, shook his hand, and let him get back to his work.

Dispelling myths

It wasn’t until fairly recently that the term “musclebound” has finally been put to rest. You may hear it once in a while now, but mainly by ignorant people. Most people today believe that strength training is beneficial. It wasn’t always that way, and as a kid growing up I would always hear about it and be discouraged from lifting. I never believed it was true, mainly because of the hard work and courage of John Grimek and Bob Hoffman, who told me the truth.

On April 4, 1940 Bob Hoffman brought several members of the York Barbell Club, including John Grimek, to Springfield College. Dr. Karpovich, of Springfield College, had been influential in pushing “musclebound” theories throughout academia, and was making most athletic coaches shy away from training with weights. Strength training was being seriously threatened, and John Grimek was instrumental in turning this around. After Grimek was introduced to the panel, the pompous academics sneered at him and seemed to mock him at first, believing he was nothing but a big clumsy oaf with limited movement and “bound” muscles.

Grimek went right up to each of them and said, “Can you do this?” He then proceeded to contort his body into every stretch and bend possible, and reportedly could come close to touching his elbows to the floor while keeping his knees straight! Each of the academics gave a pitiful performance of flexibility when responding to the challenge, to which Grimek replied, something to the effect of, “You’re musclebound, not me!”

Hoffman then had Grimek and others perform all kinds of feats including one-arm chins, handstands, backbends, jumping splits and numerous stretches. After Karpovich had witnessed this, he was stunned. By the time Hoffman and Grimek got through with Karpovich, he changed his position to, “There’s no such thing as musclebound.”

Hoffman went further and challenged any athlete in any sport to compete against his York Barbell Club in any physical test outside of their own specific sport. The challenge was widely publicized. There were no takers, mostly because of the larger-than-life image of Grimek and the fear that he would humiliate any challenger.

Our responsibility

John Grimek was larger than life, much like John Wayne was. John was what the Iron Game and Physical Culture are really all about. He was the essence of how things were and how things should still be. When you think of John Grimek, you think of the glory days of the Iron Game before drugs ruined the honest competition, and the brotherhood.

The “good guys” in the Iron Game today have a sacred duty to carry on the tradition that John Grimek stood for and which Vic Boff and others still represent. Give no respect to steroid users—they are scum. Take down their pictures. Always keep your focus on good health as the primary motivation for your toil, and build muscle the old fashioned away—earn it by hard work and dedication, like John Grimek did.

What about Isolation Exercises? - By Bob Whelan

2010-02-20T08:47:00.003-05:00

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on April 13, 2001

John Hanlon on the Athletic Edge squat macine at WST.

Isolation exercises are not "bad" to do and using a few of them can be a good ADDITION to your program. Don't get carried away with them, but a set of thick bar curls added to the program or leg curls AFTER SQUATS ARE DONE is ok.

I believe that the CORE foundation of your program should be the big basic compound exercises. That, however, does not mean that you should NEVER do ANY of the isolation exercises. As long as you are not looking for the easy way out and substituting the isolation exercises for the much harder multi joint lifts, using a few of them in addition to your program can be beneficial.

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 6 - The Sides - By Alan Calvert

2010-02-10T10:44:00.007-05:00

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 06 March 2002

Illustrations are randomly selected from the book (too numerous to post them all) and are not necessarily from the same chapter.

In his book on physical education, Dr. Felix Oswald said, in some parts of England, the title of "the strongest man in the neighborhood" was awarded to the man who could take the heaviest weight on his shoulder and walk with it
the longest distance with the firmest step. That, by the way, is a very fair test of bodily strength. If a man is weak in the back he cannot even get the weight on his shoulder in the first place. If he is weak in the knees (that is, if his leg muscles are weak) his legs will "buckle" at the knees, and he will shamble along after he has carried the weight a very short distance; and
a little after that he will collapse entirely under the weight. A man with strong back and legs must successfully carry a weight which rested on both shoulders; but, unless he had strong sides he wouldn't get very far with the weight on one shoulder, because when you do have a heavy weight on one shoulder the tendency of the weight is to pull you over sideways. With even
a moderately heavy weight on the right shoulder the tendency is to thrust the hips toward the right in order to better balance the weight. When the hips are thus thrust out of thier proper alignment, it becomes impossible to walk
with a firm, even tread. Again, no man can hold a heavy weight on the shoulder unless he has great strength in the trapezius muscle, which lifts, or sustains the shoulder. If the trapezius is weak, the shoulder under the
weight will slump, and the weight will roll off. There is a concrete example of what I mean by bodily strength; and I again want to emphasize the fact that super-strength is immense bodily strength, and not just arm-strength.
If you have ever tried to carry a 200-lb. Box or trunk on the shoulder, it will make you appreciate the bodily strength of a man like Horace Barre, who one put a 1270-lb. bar-bell on one shoulder and walked about fifty feet with it. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

Whelan Strength Training - Now in our 20th Year!

2010-02-05T05:02:00.013-05:00

Above: Bob Whelan doing a set of 9 reps with 360 pounds on the Hammer chest press at WST.

I can't believe how time flies. It seems like yesterday when I left the Federal Government to make my passion my profession in 1990. It was a scary but exciting time in my life. People thought I was crazy to leave a prestegious career with CIA and almost 14 years of Federal service. (Counting my Air Force time.) Don't get me wrong - I loved the Agency and worked with some of the highest quality people in the world, but me and God had other plans for me. I already had a graduate degree and thought I was "done" with school, but I did what I knew I had to do. In my mid thirties I took the "hard road" less travelled, I switched careers and I started graduate school (again), this time at GMU in exercise science. I wanted to be great not just survive in my new business and that meant a degree in the field, not just a phony certification like most personal trainers get.

I had no more money coming in anymore from the government but I had faith and just put an ad in the paper. It was either do this or become homeless. There was no turning back. It was sink or swim. I had no equipment at first and went to peoples homes for about 2 years while going to graduate school and working part time too. It was tough but I made it. It was worth it. I'm so glad I had the guts to follow my dreams and not be a numb robot just to get a pension. I bet on ME and won!

My advice: Don't follow the crowd and have the courage to take a chance on yourself. Follow your dreams and you will make your own "security". Time flies when you are having fun.

Bob Whelan

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence

You’re Not Aging...You’re Youthing! - By Bob Whelan

2010-02-02T11:01:00.008-05:00

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, Vol. 10, No. 4 (January-February 1999)

Art on the Hammer Strength Deadlift machine at WST.

“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” — Satchel Paige
“Getting older is not for sissies.” —Jack Palance

There’s no such thing as the fountain of youth, but strength training is the closest thing to it. Strength training is no longer thought of as only a hobby of youth, but a lifetime endeavor. In fact, it gets even more important as you get older. Cardiovascular training is vital, and everyone should be doing it regularly—at least three times per week—but in addition to strength training. If you only do cardiovascular training you may live to be 90 years old, but you’ll more than likely look and feel old for the last 40 years of your life.

Cardiovascular training gives you the “quantity of life,” but strength training gives you the “quality of life.” Without strength training you’ll probably still struggle to carry your groceries, you could fall and break your hip, and have the same age-related problems of lean muscle tissue loss, bone density loss (osteoporosis), arthritis and lack of strength that other senior citizens have.

Have you ever stood at the end of the marathon race, and watched the runners come in? Even though they are accomplishing a tremendous physical feat, most of them (who don’t lift weights) look like hell. Other than being trim, the older runners look no different that any untrained older person. After they shower, change and put their business suits back on, they will look ordinary, and most people won’t believe that they even completed the race. Cardiovascular training alone will not come close to retarding the aging process. You’ll just end up with a healthy heart in an average body.

Every year, more and more research information is coming in about the benefits of “strength training for life,” and the news is good. In fact, some of the latest research states that strength training is now considered at least as important as cardiovascular training for overall health, with some studies claiming it’s even more important, especially when you get older. A big reason for this is that many people are unable to move much at all when they get older. Strength training liberates them to be able to do cardiovascular exercise and other things in order to lead independent lives.

Most of my clients are in their twenties and thirties, but I’ve some older ones who are dedicated and train very hard. You’ve previously read about “Big Daddy” Joe Bunton, who went from “grey afro” to shaved head, disco to rap, and off the high blood pressure medication. He looks about fifteen years younger than when he started, and is in such good shape that I let him do the sandbag carry at age 47, without fear of him dropping. I also have other older high achievers like him.

Frank Farrow

Frank Farrow is in his early fifties but is tenacious, with great mental focus—sometimes too great. He is one of the best I’ve ever seen, regardless of age, at truly going to muscular failure. Frank seemed to understand the concept right away and took to it like a duck to water . He is the only person for whom I have to end many of the sets because he wants to persist until he ends up looking like a “tortured, vibrating sack of isometrics.” In one of his first workouts with me he was doing shrugs and kept going ‘til the weight totally stopped moving. But he didn’t stop, and was shaking, grimacing, growling, breathing like a steam engine, and dripping with sweat for another 20 seconds doing what looked to be isometrics. I watched with amazement and finally had to make him stop.

When people first call me about training, I don’t sugar coat anything. I lay out my philosophy plain for everyone to see regardless of age. Many people get scared off, but that’s okay because we would probably not be a good match anyway. Training with me is not a democracy, but I don’t turn away anyone who is determined to join the program and follow my instruction. I don’t care if they have trained before, or are beginners. I don’t care about their gender or age. All I require is a philosophical match. If they are willing to work as they have never worked before, are not looking for gimmicks, and want to maximize their natural, genetic potential for muscular development, strength and overall body stamina and fitness, then we will get along great.

Art Brown

Recently, Art Brown called me. Art is 63 years old and was not in great shape. He had never exercised in his life and didn’t know anything about training. All Art knew was that he felt weak, old and unhealthy, and wanted to make some changes. I came on strong with Art but he was not scared off, and had a great attitude. He put his trust completely in my hands. Even though Art is by far my oldest client, I was happy to help him. Frank Farrow used to be my oldest client, but Art jokingly calls Frank “sonny boy” now. I had to start Art slow. I mean s-l-o-w! For the first month I mainly built up Art’s cardiovascular conditioning and overall fitness, doing mostly Stairmaster, ab work, stretching and a very short weight workout. My main goal was just to keep him alive through the one-hour workout.

After a month, Art was able to perform 30 minutes on the Stairmaster fairly easily, so I weaned him into more strength training and gradually let him do the cardio work in his own time. I have to admit that the first few workouts with Art were scary. I made him take long rests between sets for the first month or so, and made sure that he did not breathe too hard. I would tell him, “Breathe deeply, Art, but above all, breathe!” He could only go down one hole on the Tru-Squat, with no weight, and used many other machines with a very light weight to start with.

Art has now been training for about three months and has doubled his strength on most exercises, and now goes to the bottom on the Tru-Squat for 10 reps. He has greatly increased his range of motion in many exercises. He noticeably suffered from arthritis when he started, but now the arthritis does not bother him. He acts and feels ten years younger already!

The main motivation for Art to train was his work. He works in the National Science Foundation, a branch of the US Government. He specializes in polar operations, and spent the first twenty years of his career going to the North Pole area and Greenland, and he’s spent around the last twenty years making trips to the South Pole area (Antarctica). The last few trips have been rough and he has literally almost been blown away (or frozen) a few times, and he has barely passed the physical required. Art is one of just a few men who have gone to both the North and South Pole. He’s making another Antarctica trip soon, and recently passed his physical with flying colors. His doctors were amazed, and told him his physical data had not looked this good in over ten years.

Vic Boff and Joe Marino

Vic and Joe are friends of mine, and are in phenomenal shape for their ages. Vic is in his eighties and is one of the all-time legends in physical culture. He still trains regularly and hard, and looks and acts twenty years younger than his age. Vic does not let age slow him down at all. Joe Marino is in his sixties and trains as hard as ever. Joe competed in a lot of major bodybuilding contests in the fifties, winning several titles. Joe is very fit and still as enthusiastic and dedicated to his training as ever. He puts most younger guys to shame. Vic and Joe have an abundance of energy and enthusiasm, and an endless supply of physical culture stories from the glory days long past when there were no such things as steroids. Vic was a good friend of both George Jowett and Sig Klein, and Joe was a long-time training partner and still a close friend of Marvin Elder.

Vic and Joe visited me recently, at Whelan Strength Training, and we had a great time. The three of us, together with my girlfriend, Sue, had dinner later, and talked so much that it was like going back in time.

It’s never too late to start

Dr. William Evans, Chief of the Human Physiology Laboratory at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston has spent a lifetime studying aging and the benefits of strength training. In a USA Today interview, Dr. Evans states, “There is nothing like a lifetime of physical activity to help prevent a whole host of chronic diseases. Starting early on is important...but it’s never too late to begin. Our oldest subject is 101 years old. He’s been lifting weights for four years. He’s probably as strong as a typical man who is forty years his junior but who doesn’t exercise...Much of the loss of muscle with age is preventable...We can make a 70-year-old man stronger than he has ever been in his life. We can bring back strength and aerobic capacity. We can make people thinner and reduce their bodyfat levels.”

Personally, I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been. It’s really true that you don’t lose strength for decades longer than previously thought. It just takes more thought and discipline to maintain conditioning and avoid injury. I now need a longer warmup and more stretching, and more rest and recovery than I used to. But once I’m warmed up, especially my elbows, I can lift more than ever. I also need less food and more cardiovascular work than I used to. I used to be able to eat anything and everything, but now, if I’m not careful and disciplined, I can gain bodyfat very easily.

Everyone needs to make adjustments as they get older, but the basic philosophy remains the same. The rewards are great, as strength training, probably more than anything, helps keep you young. Strength training, just like brushing your teeth, should be a lifetime activity.

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 5 - Harness and Platform Lifting - By Alan Calvert

2010-01-31T15:02:00.004-05:00

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 28 February 2002

Illustrations are randomly selected from the book (too numerous to post them all) and are not necessarily from the same chapter.

There are so few who ever get a chance to practice this branch of lifting that it seems hardly worth while to describe it. However, it may help you to master the whole subject of super-strength if you learn the principles of back lifting. First comes the ordinary "back" or "platform lift," where the athlete gets under the weight and lifts it on his flat back. There are a few photographs available, but you may be able to get an idea by looking at Fig. 30. This shows the Canadian, Wilfred Cabana, performing a back-lift with 3652 lbs. It is customary to place the weights on a platform which is rested on two trestles (or wooden horses), and these trestles must be so high that in order to get under the platform the athlete need bend his legs only a trifle at the knees. The body is at right angles to the legs, and the hands are supported on a strong stool, or low wooden horse, the arms slightly bent. The athlete raises the weight by simultaneously straightening the arms and the legs; but most of the work is done by the legs and, therefore, platform lifting is really more of a leg lift or a "hip-lift" than it is a true back lift. So far as I know the record in the back lift is held by the late Louis Cyr, who managed to raise about 4125 lbs. There are several other lifters who have raised in the neighborhood of 4000 lbs. Most men who use adjustable bar-bells for the purpose of developing their legs and back are able to make good records in the back-lift. In writing about the present crop of bar-bell lifters in Canada, Mr. Geo. Jowett says that DeCarie can do 3640 lbs. in the back lift; Cabana has done 3652, and that an amateur, by the name of La Vallee, did 400 lbs. on the first attempt. Another man, named La Tour, did 3214 lbs., and little Marineau, who weighs only 142 lbs., has raised 2809 lbs. on his back. Every one of the men just mentioned is a bar-bell lifter as well as a "back-lifter." In Canada, lifting clubs are equipped with the proper apparatus for "back" and "harness" lifting; whereas in this country it is hard to find a club which has a "back-lifting" platform. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

Champions Have the Will to Succeed - By Bob Whelan

2010-01-19T09:18:00.003-05:00

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, Vol. 10, No. 3 (November-December 1998)

A few months ago I got a phone call from Matt Brzycki, strength and conditioning coach at Princeton University. Matt wanted me to train one of his athletes of the summer. Jamie Sullivan is from suburban Maryland, right outside Washington, DC, and needed some hard training to stay in top shape for when he returns to Princeton in September. I was more than happy to accommodate Jamie.

Jamie is a member of the Princeton lacrosse team. Princeton University is the current (and three-time) NCAA national champion in lacrosse. Princeton is to lacrosse what Notre Dame and Penn State are to football. Jamie plays lacrosse year round. Success seems to follow him, as his summer league team won the championship in its league.

More than a few times, Jamie had a summer league game on the same day he had a brutal workout with me. Jamie did not want an easier workout though. I hammered him and pulled no punches. We did everything including the sandbag carry, even on game days. He was still able to play all out even after being hammered earlier in the day. Oh to be young!

A summer of preparation

Jamie focused resolutely on his main goal—to be ready and stronger for Princeton in the fall. Jamie only needs to be told things once. He listens, is polite, and works very hard. I tell him what to do, and he does it. I told him to buy motivational books and tapes, and he did it. I told him to eat a big breakfast, lunch and dinner, three snacks (e.g., a can or two of tuna, turkey or chicken per snack), 5-9 servings of fruit and vegetables per day, and drink up to a half gallon of skim milk per day. He didn’t make excuses about why he couldn’t do it. He did it.

Jamie has to be a bright kid to go to Princeton, and it shows. I gave him a copy of Brawn and a few other books to read, and he read them all in just a few days. I quizzed him on the material just to make sure he really read it, and he had! I gave him the same two-hour orientation that I give all my “regular” clients. He was extremely attentive and took notes even though I gave him several pages of handouts that covered the material. I could tell right away that Jamie would get good results because of his excellent attitude.

Jamie followed the same training program I outlined in the last issue, with one exception. In early August we started doing one-legged deadlifts on the Hammer Deadlift machine, instead of using two legs. Hammer Strength recently made a conversation piece to install on the back of the machine that allows you to place the non-lifting leg there to keep your balance. It’s even harder than the regular two-legged deadlift. In fact, some of my clients hate it even more than the Tru-Squat! The first use of the one-legged deadlift can produce glute and hamstrings soreness that lasts a week. Dr. Ken and Drew Israel got their conversion pieces a few weeks earlier, and just raved about them. They told me, “Bob, you have to get this!” They were not exaggerating. My clients don’t seem to appreciate my talking to Dr. Ken, because he’s always giving me ideas to make their workouts even harder!

Crucial details and the will to succeed

Most champions have the willingness to adhere strictly to crucial details like not partying too much, cutting down on or eliminating alcohol, getting enough sleep, maintaining a positive attitude, and especially keeping quality nutrition a top priority. This is why Jamie has gained 16 pounds of muscle and a lot of strength over the summer. He has gone from 158 pounds to 174 while keeping his bodyfat at around 12%. Jamie has the desire and will to succeed, which are the qualities that make a true champion.

The cause of failure for many people is that they don’t pay attention to vital details that can make all the difference. A huge factor in the success or failure of young college athletes is alcohol. Many of these athletes will do everything right except this part, and then wonder why they are not making the gains that they should. For these youngsters, if they are drinking and out late more than once a week, they can forget about getting good results and getting into top shape. Older trainees, and all hard gainers, can’t afford even one very late night each week if they are serious about gaining well. Young and gifted athletes can break some of the rules and get away with it. Hard gainers can’t. Alcohol abuse will ruin recovery ability, and ruin chances of getting bodyfat down. Alcohol use is the Achilles heel of many training programs, and the missing link in the success of many people. Coaches need to give this a lot more attention.

A large percentage of my current clients are athletes. A few are professional, but most are college athletes, with some in high school. They are my favorite clients to train because they are usually already hungry to improve, and have very specific goals. Non-athletes can learn from the behavior of disciplined athletes. Though non-athletes usually do not have the youth and natural talent of the athletes, they can still learn from them.

Pervis Ellison is back for a second summer of high-intensity training. He had a great first half of the season last year. He was named a captain by coach Pitino, and the Boston media was raving about his physical improvement. He seemed to be on the way to the comeback of the year when he suffered another bad injury during a basketball game. Hopefully Pervis will have better luck this year.

I also have a third Masimini as a client. The “boys” have a sister named Thande, who is 6-4 and 200 pounds! She plays professional basketball. Her two brothers escorted her in for a few workouts and encouraged me to train her real hard while they watched. She is currently playing for a team in France.

The high school athletes are especially fun to train because they are so eager to learn. They are easy to motivate and usually can be trained extremely hard right off the bat. They pay attention to the important details and don’t fluff anything off, especially with their parents paying for the training. The key thing, however, is that they have the will to succeed and are determined to get results come hell or high water. This makes my job a lot easier. Anyone can have this will to achieve, regardless of age or responsiveness to training.

The discipline to do what it takes, in and out of the gym, is what’s needed to get maximum results. There will be plateaus, sticking points and frustration, of course. It’s like that for everyone, though some people suffer more than others.

It’s the special will to succeed that separates the achievers from the underachievers. The achievers are more than willing to put out the effort that it takes to get results. Their minds are positive and they refuse to accept failure. They have positive self talk which is extremely important. When they have a disappointing set in terms of the number of reps performed, they don’t whine and say negative things about themselves, or what a bad day they are having. They just believe they will be stronger next time and go to the next machine with the “eye of the tiger” and their mental focus unchanged. They channel their anger into a better performance on the next set, and do not waste energy in a negative manner.

One of my goals as coach is to channel anger and frustration in a positive way. Anger and frustration are great sources of energy. Learning how to channel this energy positively is vital for maximizing your potential.

I can tell by the noise my clients make while they train whether or not they are using positive or negative energy. If they sound angry and vicious when they train—like a wild lion roaring—I know they are in the proper mind set. But if they make a whining, moaning sort of sound, I know they are in a negative mode. Some highly focused and motivated people train without making much noise, as noted by Dr. Ken in issue #55, but the noise they make is still the “right” type.

When someone is in negative mode, I usually immediately end the set and give him/her a lecture on the spot about how the mind must be in gear to train, or else it’s better to go home and not even bother. You need all the energy you can muster when training hard. You can’t train productively if your mind is in negative mode.

Many of my non-athlete clients don’t have this proper mental attitude right away. I stay hard on them and don’t smile or act friendly to them until they have developed the proper mental attitude. It is usually someone’s lack of positive expectations and selling themselves short at the start of training that is the biggest obstacle for me to overcome. Once they start to think properly, then at least they are giving themselves the chance to get results. If they have a negative attitude, however, they have no chance.

Age is only a number

I am 44 years old, but am told by many people that I look and act at least ten years younger. This can make things interesting. Frequently, new non-athlete clients only in their mid to late thirties come in with a negative attitude and say things like, “When I was your age I could train hard and do squats and deadlifts, but you’ve got to remember that I’m 37 years old!” I usually get a good laugh and tell them that they are “still in puberty,” or “you still need acne medicine.”

The first thing I do is change their outlook and attitude about training, or encourage them to train somewhere else. I believe that there are two types of age: chronological age that you can’t do anything about but which is only a number, and biological age that you can do something about. I keep telling the older guys that by training they are “youthing,” not aging.

Keep your expectations realistically high and don’t sell yourself short. Of course it may take a while to build up your conditioning and strength safely, but what matters most is that you make a start and believe in improvement. The mind—through having positive expectations and a positive attitude—is by far the most important factor determining training success. Pay close attention to major factors such as alcohol use, sleep and nutrition that could be your Achilles heel. It is, however, the lack of a positive attitude that is usually responsible for not paying attention to the crucial details. With the right attitude you will get all the details in good order.

Training Strategies - By Bob Whelan

2010-01-06T08:22:00.006-05:00

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, Vol. 10, No. 2 (September-October 1998)

It takes most people about three weeks of working out at Whelan Strength Training before they are able to complete my one-hour planned workout. Some take longer, and some such as young well-conditioned athletes will come along a lot quicker.

Once they have completed the initial conditioning phase and are able to perform the planned work, my number one goal as coach is to get them through it every time. I would be hurting their training if I flattened them before all the training at any given workout was done. Knocking someone out early in a workout is easy—the human body can only take so much. Any coach can do that, but a good coach tries to get each trainee through the entire workout. That’s the hard part. If a trainee goes down, I want him or her back up in a few minutes, to finish. I really want my charges to stay on their feet till the end of each workout. I want to push them to the edge of the cliff, but not over it till the work is all done. If they stay down after the last planned set, that’s okay because they have finished the work.

Achieving this requires different techniques for different people. Some need an extra minute of rest at a few points during the workout. Some need positive strokes, and some need a kick in the ass. Some like or need a lot of shouting, and some don’t. Some need a goal drilled into their head. They need a target because they have trouble thinking in terms of “going to failure.” I usually give such trainees a high number that would be hard to reach, so they will go to failure. But they need a number, just like a “smart bomb” needs a chimney and not just a building.

Other people don’t want to know the weight on the bar or have any knowledge of their previous best performances for reps, because this puts pressure on them. I lie a lot to these people. I’ll tell them the wrong weight (usually that it’s lighter) or don’t tell them the weight or reps until they are done. I frequently give them wrong information on purpose so they won’t know what to expect. My goal with them is to take the pressure off. Some people respond well to pressure and some don’t. It’s the coach’s job to learn what motivates each athlete. The coach should still push to get the best out of each trainee, but use a different mental technique in doing so, when necessary.

Exercise sequence

Exercise sequence is a big factor in the success of many of my clients. Many people cannot do justice to the rest of their workout if they do legs first. Do not get hung up on absolute rules such as “always work larger muscles first.” That is just a general guideline. There are other less popular theories of exercise sequence such as pre-exhaustion, which is usually the opposite of working the largest muscles first. And there is the bodybuilding philosophy of work out the weakest body part first, or working first the parts of the physique that need the most improvement, in order to bring about symmetry. Exercise sequence varies from individual to individual and boils down to performance strategy.

You’ll usually do better at what you do first or at the beginning of a workout, but you don’t want to do anything first that greatly alters (or ends) the rest of the workout. The philosophy of working the largest muscles first is good in theory and in practice for many people, but for some it’s a disaster. When training for “general fitness” it’s easy to train the larger muscles first, but for really intensive training a few hard sets of deadlifts or squats could mean lights out for many trainees—workout over!

This is especially true when doing multiple sets. Remember that many “larger muscles first” advocates (who train in a high-intensity fashion) usually do just one set to failure per exercise. Single set training to failure is tough, but two or three sets to failure for a lower-body exercise is suicidal for many people if done at the beginning of a workout. If you do multiple sets and feel impaired after doing legs first in a workout, try doing legs at the end of your workout. Your upper body will thank you for it.

You are also supposed to enjoy your training. If you like to do legs first, fine. But if it’s agony for you and impairs the rest of your workout, don’t do it.

My number one goal as a coach is to get my charges through the planned workout. I don’t want them to do just squats and be done. I also don’t want them to be impaired to the point that they are weak in upper-body exercises because they are so wiped out. I’ve found that upper-body exercises don’t affect the lower-body exercises nearly as much as vice versa. Many if not most of my charges do their squats, deadlifts and leg presses after everything else is done. That way, if they go down and are KOed, it’s the end of the workout and everything else has already been done, so nothing gets sacrificed.

Alternate push and pull

A rule that I follow is using an equal number of pushing and pulling exercises at each workout. I usually perform a pushing and a pulling exercise for the horizontal and vertical planes for the upper body at each workout, and rotate the leg press, deadlift and Tru-Squat. (This may, however, be too much for some people. You may respond better to training the horizontal and vertical planes just once a week each.) For some advanced trainees I employ the Hammer Deadlift and Leg Press at the same workout, e.g., see Thursday’s workout (on page 21).

It’s a good idea to alternate the pushing and pulling exercises so there is built-in recovery between exercises even though you are not actually resting. You’ll lose too much strength if you do multiple pushing or pulling exercises back to back, e.g., overhead press followed by the bench press. I usually have my charges perform three exercises in a row with no rest between sets, and then have them take a minute off. If there is a leg exercise in the group (squat, leg press or deadlift) it will be put last in the group of three exercises. If there are two leg exercises in the same workout, a longer rest is allowed after the leg exercise in the first grouping.

Change-of-pace days

I’m a big believer in employing a “strategic” change-of-pace day once in a while. Mixing up your training is helpful and makes exercise fun. It’s also plain smart. When you establish certain traditions on certain days of the month or year you really look forward to those special days, and get motivated. Motivation is the key to training success. The main three change-of-pace days I use are fifties day (several to-failure sets per exercise that add up to 50 reps, e.g., 15, 12, 10, 7, 6), breakdown day (e.g., to failure, strip off weight, more reps to failure, and then another cut in poundage and a final string of reps), and slow-cadence day.

Motivation is also developed by the sandbag and farmer’s walk. In my experience people will “kill” themselves just to get their name put on the bag. I’ve had people drive five hours to Washington, DC, just to try to get their name put on the bag, or to try the “walk of doom” around the block in downtown DC with 100-pound dumbbells.

When you mix it up, remember that this strategy is still part of the overall plan, so it’s not haphazard. I’ll go two or three weeks and have a planned change of pace day. These days incorporate the same exercises that would have been done on that day, but performed in a different manner to usual—usually fifties day, breakdown fashion, or very slow cadence. Because this is planned, I’ll check back to the last day the same special workout was performed, and provide goals (or lie about the poundages) for those who need it.

Example core program

Monday
1. Horizontal Tru-Press (bench press): 3 x 8
2. Hammer Iso-Lateral Row: 3 x 8
3. Hammer Shrug: 3 x 15
4. Nautilus Power Plus Military Press: 3 x 8
5. Hammer Pulldown: 3 x 8
6. Tru-Squat: 2 x 20

Thursday
1. Hammer Chest Press (incline press): 3 x 8
2. Hammer Pullover: 3 x 10
3. Hammer Deadlift: 2 x 10
3-4 minutes rest after the deadlift
4. Hammer Seated Dip: 3 x 10
5. Dumbbell Curl: 3 x 8
6. Hammer Leg Press: 2 x 20

On change-of-pace days we usually don’t perform shrugs or curls.

Warmup sets are additional to the sets listed above. For both core workouts, “finishers,” which include the sandbag carry, farmer’s walk and grip work, are performed at the end of each session, time and energy permitting.

Do not use change-of-pace days too often. Stay the course for at least two or three weeks on your core workouts before you inject a change-of-pace session. If you are over forty, or a beginner, think twice about fifties days. They should be reserved for young athletes and trainees in very good shape who enjoy this sort of grueling challenge. But even for them, fifties days or other types of extreme high-rep work should not be performed more than once a month. Some people, however, should never do this sort of training because it’s too grueling for them.

I would not make changes to the overall core plan (i.e., core workouts interspersed with a change-of-pace session every few weeks) for at least 3-4 months. Give it time to work and time for you to learn from it. Forget the micro-cycle nonsense. Keep good records—write down everything and learn from your records. After 3-4 months, try some changes. Try different exercises, rep ranges or even speed of motion if you are so inclined. Don’t be afraid to experiment sensibly. Do not always do 20-rep squats for a while. Train for 3-4 months using one rep range and then 3-4 months using another rep range. Find what works best for you. Enjoy your training and train smarter as well as harder.

Mental training

As I’ve mentioned in other articles, I strongly encourage my clients to read motivational/positive thinking books, and listen to motivational cassette tapes. The world is largely negative. The more positive reinforcement, the better. Learning how to think like a champion will have a big impact on your training and life in general. I especially recommend The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. Order it from a bookstore. You can get motivational tapes from Nightingale Conant, 7300 North Lehigh Avenue, Niles, IL 60714, USA. I especially recommend The Psychology of Winning by Dennis Waitley, but anything from Zig Zigler, Norman Vincent Peale, Og Mandino, Tony Robbins or Robert Schuller is also very good.

Nutritional strategy

Beware of “nutritionists” (who are not registered dieticians) and personal trainers who give nutritional advice. Never take the advice of minimum-wage clerks who work in health food stores. Consult only a registered dietician. One of the most respected RDs in the world is Nancy Clark. She is the nutritional consultant to the Boston Red Sox and Boston Celtics. She offers seminars, books and various helpful nutritional flyers that are the real deal, not the latest hype. Write to Nancy Clark, Sports Medicine Brookline, 830 Boylston Street #205, Brookline, MA 02167, USA.

Dinner after the 2nd CCSC in Jan 98

2010-01-01T09:54:00.004-05:00

"Watching Drew Israel eat is like listening to Pavarotti sing." - Fred Cantor

The "Capital City Strength Clinic Gang" at Morton's Steak House in Washington, DC after the 2nd CCSC in Jan 98. Drew just inhaled about 50 ounces of steak, a basket of bread, and any side order left on the table! Watch your hands if they are on the table, (they might get a fork stuck in them!) L to R: Andrea Rippe, Drew Israel, Rene Jarrett, Victor Peck, Bob Whelan, Jan Dellinger and Jay Spaid.

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 4 - The Legs - By Alan Calvert

2009-12-31T09:47:00.007-05:00

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 21 February 2002

Illustrations are randomly selected from the book (too numerous to post them all) and are not necessarily from the same chapter.

The man who exercises in his own room with a pair of light dumbbells, who uses a pair of pulley-weights, or swings a pair of wooden Indian clubs, rarely gets even acquainted with the immense power which is lying dormant in his back and legs. As I said before, mere bending movements will never develop the back or waist muscles to their full size; neither will the ordinary leg-exercises produce a really powerful pair of lower limbs. A bar-bell so heavy that you could not possibly raise it by the strength of the unassisted arm muscles, is a mere plaything for the leg muscles. Take, for example, the lifter mentioned in the story which opens the first chapter. This man could take a 220-lb. bar-bell in both hands, raise it from the floor to the shoulders and, without leaning backwards, slowly press the bar-bell to arms' length above the head. In this lift, which is called the "military press," the work of elevating the bell is done by the extensor muscles of the arms and the muscles on the points of the shoulders. I once saw this same man lie flat on his back and hold on the soles of his up-raised feet, a plank bearing twelve men; a total weight of more than 1600 lbs. After he had the weight securely balanced, he would allow his legs to bend slightly at the knees, thus lowering the plank three or four inches, and then would push the weight up again by the sheer strength of his leg muscles. *** CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE ***

A good Physical Culture History Book by (and about) Dr. Frederick Tilney

2009-12-29T12:27:00.012-05:00

Dr. Frederick Tilney is one of the most under appreciated figures in physical culture & iron game history. He was a ghost writer and "the brains" behind many of the most famous icons of the first half of the 20th century. This book contains a lot of interesting biographical/ historical info.- Bob Whelan

Two good Benarr Macfadden books

2009-12-29T10:15:00.008-05:00

I recently discovered this book (below) about the legendary Benarr Macfadden. He was truly an American icon, a physical culture giant and one of the most famous people of the early 20th century. (Charles Atlas and Earl Liederman were some of his early pupils) Most people today have never heard of him which is unbelievable but true. He was a complex character. A mix of physical culture genius and pioneer, multi-millionaire businessman, publisher, self-marketer (and a little bit of a whack-job too!) A very interesting historical read. - Bob Whelan

...another good book on Benarr Macfadden that I bought years ago is below:

Interview with Jack LaLanne Legendary Fitness Expert, Health Pioneer, Diet and Nutrition Innovator Interview by Dennis Hughes, Share Guide Publisher

2009-12-27T09:45:00.003-05:00

Click HERE for the interview.

Christmas Invitation

2009-12-24T09:45:00.002-05:00

Everyone invited...CLICK HERE:

Merry Christmas!

Skill development in football: an open and shut case - By Ken Mannie

2009-12-19T08:55:00.004-05:00

Ken Mannie is the Head Strength/Conditioning Coach at Michigan State University. email: mannie@ath.msu.edu

Skill development remains the most critical physical element in coaching. A strong, well-conditioned athlete with a poor skill level is akin to a high-performance race car with flat tires.

Nobody is going to disagree with that observation. The problem lies in determining the best way to achieve the optimum level of skill. And that has to begin with a clear understanding of the different classification of skills and the steps involved in their teaching progression.

Every athletic skill is actually a motor skill, which can be defined as a properly executed voluntary body or limb movement. Unfortunately, the terms skill and ability are often used interchangeably.

Motor abilities (i.e., static and dynamic balance, response time, speed of limb movement, eye-hand/foot coordination, etc.) can be viewed as the fundamental components of motor skill development, but are not skills by definition. Most motor-behavior researchers maintain that abilities are determined more by genetics than by experience.

SKILL DEVELOPMENT STAGES

Skills, on the other hand, are learned over time in three specific and progressive stages:

The cognitive stage:

This is the beginning stage of skill learning, one in which the learner has many unanswered questions: What stance should I use? What are my steps on a lead, trap, or pass block? What position should my hands be in when catching a ball at various heights? What techniques should I use in man-to-man pass coverage?

As you can see, this stage is marked by numerous errors, variability in performance, and a great deal of needed quality repetition.

During this stage, the learner requires specific information to help him make correct adjustments. You will know that the athlete is still in this stage when he professes an awareness of "doing something wrong," but has no idea of how to correct it.

The associative stage:

As the athlete enters this stage, he knows many of the basic mechanics of the skill. His mistakes are fewer, less serious, and, more importantly, he is capable of recognizing many of his errors and is aware of how to take the proper steps to correct them. The goal now is to refine the skill.

It is paramount for the coach to continue to provide the athlete with useful, specific information and constructive feedback throughout this stage.

The autonomous stage:

This final stage of learning is realized only after much practice, quality repetition, and experience with the specific task. The skill has now become habitual or automatic. Obviously, this stage is not achieved overnight; it may take years, depending on the complexity of the skill.

The athlete is now able to recognize his errors and is cognizant of the process needed to correct them. Optimal performance is impossible until the athlete is operating in the autonomous mode.

Mistakes will still be made, even when this level of learning has been achieved. However, the individual will be able to tell the coach what he did wrong, why he did it, what should have been done, and describe the proper techniques for doing it.

As a coach, the only way to truly discern whether the athlete has achieved this higher level of learning is by quizzing him rather than lecturing him.

Questions like, "What did you see?" or "Why did you make that decision?" and "What should have been done in that situation?" will give the coach a better handle on where the player is in the learning progression. It will also motivate the player to learn by challenging his recall capabilities.

CLOSED SKILL VS OPEN SKILLS

Sport skills can be placed on a continuum having "closed" and "open" categories.

Closed skills are at the low end of the continuum and take place under fixed, unchanging environmental conditions. They are predictable and have clearly defined beginning and ending points.

Feedback plays a minor role once the skill is initiated, and the skills are usually "self-paced" in the sense that the performer begins movement when he is ready. Bowling, golf, archery, and competitive weight-lifting are consummate closed-skill sports.

Closed skills can also be an integral part of more complex activities (e.g., the free throw in basketball, the center/QB exchange in football, etc.), even though most of the skills in these sports involve much more detail. Open skills, which are at the high end of the continuum, usually take place under the conditions of a temporarily or spatially changing environment. Decisions and adjustments have to be made while "on the run."

An example of this would be an offensive lineman having to man-block a defender with an initial lead step and is subsequently forced to adjust on the second or third step due to an angle move.

A more intricate example would involve a quarterback on a pass play called at the LOS. The pre-snap alignment of the defense will dictate a certain play call. However, once the ball is snapped, the defensive secondary may rotate to a different coverage or a blitz may occur. The receivers must now change their patterns and the QB must now adjust his primary/secondary receiver progression. All of this must be done while on the run in a few short seconds.

A major difference between closed and open skills is the reliance on feedback in the decision-making process. It may be visual feedback, as in the QB example, or it may involve another cue. Defensive linemen, for instance, are taught to utilize both visual cues and "pressure" cues (i.e., the type, angle, and direction of the block they are facing). These are known as "forced-pace" skills and are extremely complex due to the fact that the athlete must make quick decisions and get his body to react with precision in a very short period of time.

Due to the variability, dependence on feedback, and the mental pressure to make quick decisions under duress, it is evident that open skills require a higher level of learning than closed skills.

PRACTICE: PART OR WHOLE?

A common problem of coaches is whether to teach the skill as a whole and allow the athlete to get a better feel for the flow and timing of all of the elements involved, or practice the skill in parts in order to emphasize each important detail.

Before making this decision, the coach must analyze both the complexity and organizational requirements of the skill. Complexity refers to how many parts or components are involved in the skill along with the information-processing demands it carries.

The act of throwing a ball is rather low on the complexity scale. However, the example of the QB adjusting the pattern progression due to a post-snap coverage change-up and throwing on the run is highly complex.

The organizational requirements refer to how the components of a skill are interrelated. If the parts of the skill are rather independent, it would be considered low in organization.

Researchers tell us that if a skill is low in complexity and high in organization, practice as a whole is a better choice. In other words a simple skill with highly related component parts can be most efficiently learned through the whole practice approach.

If the skill is high in complexity and low in organization, the part method would be the better choice. This would involve a skill that has many components, but these components are independent.

What if the skill ranks high in both complexity and organization? A progressive-part method would be a wise choice in this case - organizing all of the parts in the order in which they occur in performing the skill, then progressively linking these parts one by one.

In other words, after part one is learned, part two is practiced independently. Then parts one and two are practiced together. Part three is then practiced independently before being combined with parts one two, and so on.

Example of highly effective progressive-part teaching: Teaching pass protection (their most difficult assignment(to offensive linemen. From the stance, pass set, timing of the punch, reactions to various types of pass-rush techniques, etc., this skill ranks very high in both complexity and organization.

BE SPECIFIC

Once you have decided on your teaching approach, remember to remain true to the principle of specificity. The encoding principle of specificity states that the more the practice context resembles the test (game) context, the better the performance will be.

Simply put, whether you use part, whole, or progressive-part in your teaching approach, be sure to maintain the element of exactness - teach them what you expect to be repeated under game conditions.

Suggested Reading

R. Magill, Motor Learning: Concepts and Applications, 4th edition, by, Wm. C. Brown, publishers, Madison, WI, 1993

Commando-Tough Intensity - By Bob Whelan

2009-12-18T18:19:00.002-05:00

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, Vol. 10, No. 1 (July-August 1998)

Saturday is my favorite day to go to work. I have a great line up of hard-working athletes coming in. Athletes are my favorite clients to train because I can let out all stops and pull no punches. On Saturdays it’s like a conveyor belt bringing in guys who pay me to level them! One after the other they keep coming in and keep getting laid out. We usually do sandbag on Saturday, too, as people are not in a hurry like they usually are on other days. I can also sleep late and have a big brunch. I’m usually up at 5am each day during the week and work a morning and evening shift. On Saturday I work one non-stop shift, from noon to 7pm.

I arrived an hour early and set up the plates on the machines, filled the water bottles and loaded the sandbags. I went over each client’s training records and logged the day’s planned workout for each client, wrote down poundages, etc., so that when we are in the heat of battle I won’t have to waste time looking for poundages, etc.

I had the Masimini brothers, Themba and Mpumi (pronounced “Timba” and “Poomie”) coming in back to back, followed by Melvin Tuten and Joe Bunton. Themba, 22, is 6’4’’ and 270 pounds. He’s a recent graduate of Howard University where he played tight end for four years on the football team. He was one of the final cuts of the Baltimore Ravens last summer. He’s training to make the NFL this year and has been invited to try out by three teams. Themba jokingly calls Mpumi his “little” brother when he really means his younger brother. Mpumi is 20 and a junior at Howard. He’s an offensive tackle on the football team, and is 6’4’’ and 315 pounds. Some little brother! And some genetics!

Themba is a friend of Melvin Tuten. Big Melvin had to twist Themba’s arm to get him to train with me. Melvin even paid for Themba’s first workout, and wanted me to hammer him. Melvin had been telling Themba about his training and how Themba should sign up. Themba was skeptical, as many people are, when he heard about training “only two hours a week” with weights. He probably thought it was not enough and that it wasn’t tough. Melvin paid to give Themba the “experience.” After his first workout Themba totally changed his mind. Then he paid for his brother’s first workout, and came to watch me hammer Mpumi. Mpumi, too, has changed his way of thinking. The experience of a brutal workout will change an opinion a lot faster and better than trying to explain it. If you haven’t been through it, you just don’t understand.

The workouts

Brutal strength-training workouts burn a lot of calories. You can’t train when you are out of fuel, and your body can’t compensate for poor fuel. All my clients have a 300-400 calorie high-carbohydrate snack about two hours before training. Themba had a bowl of pasta at 11am and arrived at around 1pm. He was breathing steam and ready to kick some ass! I put him on the Stairmaster for five minutes to “pre-heat” his muscles and elevate his core body temperature. Then he did a series of twenty-second static hold stretches, and a series of warmup sets with the machines to be used.

Many of my clients are friends, and come in to watch workouts and root their friends on. Big Melvin just came in with Mpumi, and shouted encouragement to Themba over the blasting cadence tape.

Themba started off with the Hammer Chest Press and went to failure, doing 9 reps with 270 pounds. I quickly pulled off two 45-pound plates and Themba immediately went to failure again, with 180 pounds. When he hit failure I stripped off two more 45s and he went to failure again, this time with a ten-second static hold at the end of the set. Then we moved to pullovers.

Themba went to failure on the Hammer Pullover machine with 180 pounds, holding the crossbar on his waist for a “one-one thousand hold” at the bottom of each rep. The pullover is an exercise in which good form plays a huge part in determining effectiveness. I used to allow clients to just touch their waists with the crossbar, and it looked like they were drilling for oil. I only recently bought this machine and am still learning about the best way to use it. After speaking with Dr. Ken about it, I decided to insist on the dead stop pause with the crossbar against the user’s waist, and to make this possible I decreased everyone’s poundages by about 50 pounds. This stricter form makes a huge difference for hitting the lats and not just the rear delts. Themba was using about 240 pounds when he was “drilling for oil,” now he’s howling with just 180! After Themba went to failure with 180 I broke down the machine twice, and added a ten-second static hold.

Next was the dumbbell curl with 2-inch diameter handles. He went to failure with 50-pound dumbbells and I added a few forced reps at the end of the set. He was now dripping in sweat and the droplets were raining on the floor. After a short rest it was over to the Nautilus Power Plus Military Press with 180 pounds. After hitting failure at 11 reps I broke it down to 135 and he went to failure again. I then switched the machine from isolateral to bilateral mode, and gave him some forced reps and a ten-second static hold.

The Tru-Squat was next, everyone’s favorite! Themba eked out 23 reps with 190 pounds and had to go down on one knee and then lay on the floor for a few minutes after the set. He was drenched in sweat and breathing like a steam engine. After another rest and some water, he felt okay and was anxious to finish.

The final challenge of the day was the farmer’s walk around the block with 100-pound dumbbells. Melvin, Mpumi and myself served as escorts, guiding Themba through the congested streets. We cleared the streets ahead of Themba. It took about twenty minutes to get him around the block as Themba had to put the dumbbells down about fifteen times to make it. His shoulders, lats, forearms and hands were just destroyed! He was “stress free” when he completed the walk—so wiped out that he could not feel any discomfort, or have any worries.

Melvin and Mpumi went through workouts similar to Themba’s. Today was “breakdown day” but we don’t do breakdowns all the time. It’s just something we do once in a while.

Hard training at 47 years young

Everyone talks about training hard, but the definition of hard will depend on the person. Hard for a beginner in his forties will not be the same as hard for an athlete in his twenties. I see a wide variety of people at Whelan Strength Training. Most of the people I train are in their twenties and thirties, but I also have some in their forties and fifties. I also have several women who train using the same principles of progression and intensity as the men.

One of my hardest workers is 47 years young—“Big Daddy” Joe Bunton. Joe is not an athlete but I almost view him as one because he trains extremely hard. Joe has transformed himself in the last two years. When Joe first came to me he was living in the seventies. He was overweight, on medication for high blood pressure, was listening to 20-year-old disco music, and had a Don-King-like “grey Afro.” Joe works at a cemetery and sees funerals every day. One of the reasons why he started training was because he didn’t want to be a “customer” at the cemetery any time soon.

Joe is now a lot stronger and a lot leaner. He’s off the medication, shaved his head, and listens to rap music! I keep telling Joe that he’s not aging. He’s youthing!

Joe was quiet and almost timid when he started training. Finally, after a few weeks of trying to get Joe excited, I asked him what got him really mad. Joe mentioned several things, most of them related to racial issues. For the next several weeks I would yell those thing at him whenever Joe did leg presses, deadlifts or Tru-Squats. But after each workout Joe used to thank me for getting him so charged up. He got so excited that he made the weights look light. His poundages shot way up. I now no longer have to yell at him to get him charged up. His mind is trained. Now he’s the most focused, ferocious, loudest client I have!

Joe even does the sandbag carry and is almost at the point of mastering 175 pounds at “sandbag alley.” If someone is way out of shape, or over 40, we don’t even think about the sandbag until the person has spent several months training with me, and has proven him/herself. I trained Joe for several months before he tried it, but now Joe trains harder than most young guys.

Consistency is the key. Keep strength training regularly, and keep doing your cardiovascular training. Enjoy your training, and look forward to your workouts. Training hard should be enjoyed. If you truly enjoy training, you will reap your just share of rewards.

Your Holiday Shopping Place

2009-12-13T10:13:00.004-05:00

In these tough times, every little bit helps. Please support NaturalStrength.com and consider buying some of your Christmas gifts from our new and updated online store.

If its been awhile, please take another look. Our new store is automated and run by Amazon. Every product is the same price that you would get at Amazon.com but we have the products targeted for our readers and we get a small piece of the profit.

We now have strength equipment from New York Barbell Co (TDS), Under Armour training gear, and tons of cool stuff.

Thanks for your support.

Super Strength - Chapter 3 - Some Lifting Records - By Alan Calvert

2009-12-12T16:12:00.007-05:00

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 15 February 2002

Illustrations are randomly selected from the book (too numerous to post them all) and are not necessarily from the same chapter.

When I first became interested in bar-bells I collected a lot of data about weight-lifting records. There was a time when I could tell you the world's record in almost any lift you could mention. I could tell you the records for the best men in the different nations at the same lift. I knew the name of the man who made the record, when he made it, exactly how many pounds he lifted, and which other men had come closest to equaling his record. As I grow older I find that I care less and less about records and more and more about body-building. It seems to me to be much more important to help a man to get a finely proportioned body, great muscular and organic vigor, and a higher degree of development, than to set him at record-making. *** CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE ***

The Development of Physical Power - Health & Strength Magazine - April 1906

2009-12-11T06:24:00.008-05:00

Reprinted with permission of The Iron Master - Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 21 July 1999

From Health & Strength Magazine - April 1906 Published courtesy of Malcolm Whyatt. Copies sent by Graham Noble. First hand information about Arthur Saxon's first published book.

The library of books dealing with the various branches of Physical Culture, and with matters of Health and Strength, generally, grows appreciably in volume. Some few of these works have probably been recognized as being partially liable to the accusation of having been issued more or less as "catch-pennies." But I think it will be conceded that no single branch of the world's affairs has been so ably catered for in the matter of literature. The vast majority of books issued have been from the pens of authors admirably qualified to preach, since they have given ample proof that they have, before they began sermonizing, thoroughly practiced the gospel which they later on sought to spread among their fellow-men. *** CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE ***

CONFESSIONS OF A MAG SWAPPER - By: David Gentle

2009-12-10T12:15:00.005-05:00

Reprinted with permission of The Iron Master - Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 20 July 1999

Oh Well, it made you look for a moment, Which is all I am asking of you. Now I will pose a question. Don't you think that if you are going to spend so much time and effort in your life training with weights, that you owe it to the guys that have been before, to learn something of the history of your chosen recreation? Most kids who follow football can give you masses of information about players and football statistics off the top of their heads. With regret, bodybuilders are often so self-centered that apart from their own immediate problems, they know little or nothing about the pioneers of the Iron Game. A friend of mine, who on most subjects is as thick as two short planks, is an expert on history and can reel off the dates of any King or Queen of England you care to name, with a heap of other information included. The reason he knows so much is because he is a collector of coins or a numismatist. My suggestion to you is to become a collector of items relating to muscle building and strength. Become a muscle mag swapper, a biceps book buyer and a lover of strength lore. *** CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE ***