Look Strong, Be Strong
by Bill Starr
This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an original concept on my part. Bob Hoffman, Peary Rader, Bill Pearl and John Grimek preached the basic idea for many years. They firmly believed that when people add muscle to their frame, they should also enhance their strength. To have huge arms and a massive chest but be weaker than the average man on the street was a shame. And it still is.
I bring up the subject now because there seems to be a trend in weight training that emphasizes size without the corresponding increase in strength. Whenever I go out of town, I visit new gyms. I enjoy checking out the different types of equipment, the layouts and, mostly, the way the members train. Over the past 10 years I’ve rarely seen anyone train heavy or hard. The workouts are so easy a teenage girl could do them without sweating. I do, however, see some big boys strutting around the gyms wearing tank tops and those ugly baggy pants. Usually, they have straps dangling from their wrists indicating that they’re about to lift some weight that’s much too heavy for them to hold without assistance.
I keep a watchful eye on them, for I enjoy seeing feats of strength. I soon learn that they never move anything heavy, and the straps are merely part of the costume. If they do happen to use them at all it’s to strap themselves to the lat machine or the chinning bar. Once I did see a monster of a human do shrugs. He weighed more than 250 and had arms the size of Delaware, but all he used was 225. Nevertheless, he screamed loudly on each rep, causing everyone in the gym to stop what he or she was doing and watch him – which was his intent.
Those pumped-up specimens sincerely believe that they’re admired by the rest of the members and looked upon as supermen by the general public. Wrong. They’re considered freaks – and not good freaks at that. Since they’re not strong and don’t use their muscles for any reason other than to gratify their own egos they’re no more than physical abominations – facades fakes – for muscles equal strength, and if a person doesn’t have sufficient strength to back up those showy muscles, he’s a joke.
The practice of building huge muscles merely for the sake of having huge muscles is more prevalent now than it used to be. Most people who started lifting weights in the ‘50s and ‘60s did so to gain size and strength. It helped them improve their sport of prompted them to display their new physiques on a posing platform. Still, they never sacrificed their health or allowed strength to waver in that quest. Today those considerations take a back seat. In fact, young bodybuilders are more than ready to sacrifice their health to add inches to some bodypart.
There are several reasons for the change in attitude over the past few decades. One is equipment. Before the machine explosion in the ‘70s, those who trained with weights didn’t have much of a choice of equipment. There were power racks, squat racks, flat benches and sometimes an incline bench, plus some barbells and dumbbells. Some gyms might have a lat machine or calf machine, but that was about it. So when people wanted to gain some size or put inches on their arms, chest or legs, the used what was available, which meant they worked with the barbells and dumbbells. Moving the free weights allowed them to work on their attachments much more easily than using the machines, so in the process of getting bigger they automatically got stronger.
That’s no longer the case. Now young men as large as the Hulk spend their entire workouts using a variety of machines. Rarely do I see anyone doing heavy pulling movements off the floor, and the squat rack is almost always used for seated presses or curls, but they’re standing in line to use the pulleys, leg presses and other machines. And when those huge men do use the various machines, they still don’t work them hard, and it’s the same thing with free-weight movements. I’ve watched monsters lie down on the bench and only be able to handle 315 for a few assisted reps. From their size and appearance one would assume they’d be using 405 easily.
The modern propensity for choosing machines rather than free weights has been brought about to a large extent by gym owners and personal trainers. Gym owners don’t like members who lift heavy. They stay in the facility much too long and tie up many of the weights. In addition – and even more alarming – is the fact that they just might influence other members to do the same. They prefer that everyone run through a quick circuit on some machines and get the hell out.
A similar philosophy holds true for many personal trainers, although for slightly different reasons in most cases. Trainers also want to hustle their clients through their workouts rapidly, for time equals money. In addition, one of the main reasons that personal trainers seldom include any heavy strength movements in their routines is that they don’t know how to teach the exercises. Show me a personal trainer who can teach power cleans, power snatches, high pulls or even deadlifts, and you’ll show me a rare exception. They use light weights and token exercises, as their real motive is to avoid injuring their clients or even getting them sore. Getting stronger seldom enters into the picture.
The situation has gotten so strange that in most gyms people can’t do any strength work even if they want to. Fitness facilities are slowly removing stations where you can do heavy pulls and leg work. A few months ago Jim Moser came from Maui for a visit. He owns several gyms on the island and was at one time a nationally ranked Olympic lifter. He wanted a place to train and to train his son Mistake, and he asked me where he should go. I shook my head, saying “There’s not a place in the country where you can do overhead lifts or pull off the floor.”
That’s the case not only where I live but almost everywhere. My athletes go home for the summer or on holidays and seek out places to train. My program revolves around the big three, which means they squat and do some form of heavy pulling, usually power cleans. They all come back with the same story. The local gym doesn’t have a place in which to do power cleans and in many cases there isn’t even a squat rack available. The topper was that one football player told me the gym owner came running out of his office, screaming at him for doing overhead presses. It was too dangerous, the owner said, and not allowed. Now, that’s really bordering on the insane.
Another reason that the modern crop of young men shuns all forms of heavy strength work is that those who are at the top no longer set an example. When I became interested in strength training the bodybuilders I trained with were of a different breed. If they looked strong you could bet the ranch that they were strong. In 1958 I trained with Vern Weaver, John Grimek and Steve Stanko at the old York Gym on Broad Street. Grimek and Stanko had already won the Mr. America title, and Vern would win it a few years later. I watched them work out for almost two hours, and all they did was heavy strength work – heavy pulls, squats and presses – no curls or triceps pushdowns.
Later, when I worked at York, I often got to train with some of the top bodybuilders in the East. When Val Vasileff and Bill St. John showed up we all knew we were in for a spirited session, for they’d challenge us on every strength exercise. No one wanted to squat with St. John because he could use 500 for full reps, and Val was exceptionally strong on all the shoulder exercises. The same held true for Bob Gajda and Sergio Oliva. I got to train with them when I was in graduate school in Chicago. They not only crushed me on the primary strength movements like squats and high pulls, but they often humbled me on the quick lifts as well.
You may be wondering – why in the hell would bodybuilders of that caliber be doing such involved lifts as snatches and clean and jerks? That’s a good question, for it leads to my next point. Before Joe Weider took over control o bodybuilding in this country it was run by the AAU. Part of the scoring system for the big contests such as the Mr. America or Mr. USA had to do with athletic points. A competitor could gain the necessary athletic points by participating in any sport – martial arts, for example – but in fact very few had extra time for anything other that training at that lever. Since they were doing many of the same exercises as the Olympic lifters anyway, they just won their athletic points by competing in the weightlifting contests.
The practice served a dual purpose. The heavy lifting helped them build more massive physiques and also allowed them to display their muscles in front of the judges. What’s more, their muscles were being used, which helped to highlight them even more. In those days the people who judged the weightlifting competitions also served up the verdicts at the physique shows.
I admit that the idea of athletic points was rather ridiculous, but when Joe got rid of them, he threw out the baby with the bathwater. Bodybuilders gradually stopped doing the quick lifts and heavy overhead presses, and most stopped training with heavy weights altogether. During the ‘70s bodybuilders did have the influence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu, Ken Waller and Dave Draper, but after that the idea of doing heavy barbell work practically disappeared.
Once muscle-enhancing drugs, both legal and illegal, became readily available to the average bodybuilder he no longer had to be as concerned with training diligently or systematically, or bother with moving heavy weights. Any routine worked better just as long as he took enough of the right stuff or combinations of the right stuff. That mindset would allow a 250-pound man to use only 225 pounds on his basic exercises and still pack on muscle. So what if he was really weaker than some of the female lightweights at the gym? He looked huge and that was all that seemed to matter.
I’m often asked if I believe that people can develop a better physique without doing any heavy strength work. I do, but I don’t believe they will develop true quality by using strictly machines, lifting light weights or doing a program that revolves mainly around drug cycles without including some heavy, hard training. If all you seek are some muscles so you look better at the beach, then my message has no meaning for you. I’ve always believed, however, that if people possess a muscular physique, they should be able to back it up. To me, having muscles without strength is like having a magnificent-looking car that’s loaded with chrome and tops out at 60 mph.
It should be noted that you don’t have to do strength training year-round in order to achieve the benefits. Those top bodybuilders I mentioned earlier didn’t do heavy weight work for 12 months. They cycled it into their training year. After three or four months of pure strength work they switched to a totally different routine that featured higher reps, faster sets and lighter weights in order to refine and define the muscle produced during the strength phase.
Most beginners don’t fully understand that unless they do some form of strength work, they aren’t going to form the foundation from which they can eventually build the arms, chest and legs they desire. It’s just not possible to do on just machines using light weights. I wish it were. It’s much easier to sit down on a machine and knock out some reps than it is to struggle and sweat through a heavy squat workout, but the simple truth is THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS. You get out of training only what you put into it. In other words, if you want strong legs, you have to squat and sweat. Period.
The same idea holds for developing a thick, awesome back. A bodybuilder recently approached me and asked what exercises he could do for his back. He needed something bad, for he was as flat as an old woman. “What are you doing now?” I asked. “I’m doing lat pulls on the machine, bentover rows with a dumbbell and pulls on that machine where you lie on your belly and pull the bar to your chest,” he said.
“My female athletes do a harder program than that,” I replied, laughing. “If you’re really interested in getting some quality muscle on your back start doing heavy high pulls off the floor, deadlifts, bentover rows with a barbell and some shrugs. Then, if you have any energy left, and you shouldn’t, you can do extra things on the machines and pulleys. Those exercises are useful, but only as auxiliary exercises. To build powerful back muscles you have to hammer them with heavy weights. Strong muscles look good!”
I never saw him again.
That, I think, is really the bottom line. Most people who train are basically lazy. Deep down they understand the reasoning behind doing heavy weight work but they find a million and one excuses for not doing it. At the same time, most don’t mind doing four or five heavy movements for their upper bodies. They’ll gladly do bench presses, inclines and then countless sets of flyes, declines and seated presses, all in the same session. Ask them to do a similar routine for their legs or back and they cringe. Why? Upper-body exercises are easier to do than heavy leg and back work. The problem is, most people who have overdeveloped their upper body and allowed their legs to suffer are not admired or considered strong, except by their training mates who follow the same stupid routine. Then again, some people don’t mine being laughingstocks, as long as someone notices them.
Often, when I suggest to people that they should include some strength work in their routine, they counter that the exercises I suggest are dangerous. That notion came about due to the influence of our old friends, gym owners and personal trainers. The truth of the matter is that deadlifts, full squats, good mornings, high pulls, snatches, cleans, shrugs, overhead presses, jerks, etc., etc., are perfectly safe if they’re learned correctly. And there’s the rub.
The irony is that the most potentially dangerous exercise of all is the bench press, but no on – and I mean no one – eliminates that movement from his or her program. In the 10 years I’ve been at Hopkins only one athlete out of the 200 I train each year hurt himself squatting, and that was due to pure stupidity on his part. During the same period I’ve had dozens of athletes hurt their shoulders or pecs doing benches – always due to some bad habit they picked up in high school. Bad habits are hard to break. My point is that any exercise can be dangerous if you use faulty form, but if you do it properly, it’s safe – and that includes all the large-muscle movements like deadlifts and squats.
It’s important that everyone who uses any form of resistance training include some strength exercises in his or her routine. Strength is an underlying factor in all physical activities. Before infants can take their first step they must have the necessary strength. Before you can dream of putting 200 pounds over your head, you must first learn how to handle 100 pounds. Strength is, rather obviously, the cornerstone of any athletic activity, but it’s also the basis for gaining muscle size. You’ll never climb higher in any physical endeavor than your strength foundation lets you.
Some people like to specialize on strength work for several months out of the year while others find it more agreeable to do it throughout the year, using perhaps one heavy movement for a certain bodypart for a time, then switching to another for the sake of variety. It’s been my experience that once people do some strength work they really enjoy it. That’s because they can feel and see the results of their efforts in the gym – and they also know that when they look as if they lift weights, they can back up the image with pure strength.
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