Tag Archives: Wayne Jackson

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

by Thom Van Vleck

Weightlifters are generally liars.  My Uncle Phil once told me that everyone was a liar, it’s just that some do it to a low degree while others to a high degree.  He would often would describe someone as a 5% liar (which was someone that most would feel was really honest) or maybe an 85% liar (which was someone that was full of crap).  Everyone had a number.

Weightlifters lie for lots of reasons but I think the number one reason is ego.  I’ll admit to it myself.  When I was young I would often add 10% to my best lift to inflate my ego.  I would reason that “on a good day” I could make that lift or that I would soon be able to if I kept training so it really wasn’t a lie.

Another reason weightlifters lie is because they are greedy.  They will lie about their workout routines to hide their secrets or to sell workouts.  I bought a leg training manual from a bodybuilder back in the 80s.  He had the best legs out there.  I followed that routine to the “T”.  Only to have him come out years later and admit that it was a fraud.  He was blessed with great genes and his legs didn’t require as much effort to look fantastic.  He said he was afraid nobody would believe him if he told the truth.  He was probably more concerned nobody would buy his training manual!

Weightlifters lie about two things.  Weights and measurements.  How much can you squat?  Oh, 5 plates.  I guess I didn’t ask if those plates were 45’s or 25’s so he could be telling the truth.  I had a high school buddy I would run into every year or so for some time.  Every time he would ask me what I was benching.  By some miracle he would always be benching 5 or 10lbs more.  Finally I asked him to do a bench workout with me (which was really me asking him to prove it or shut up).  He never showed up.  The truth is the numbers I gave him were probably 5 or 10 pounds more than I could actually do.  So we were both liars.  I was just a 5% whereas he was more like 20%.

Measurements are also a topic of exaggeration.  I remember there was a weightlifting historian by the name of David Willoughby.  He would show up with a steel tape and ask to measure strongmen, weightlifters, and body builders.  Most of the time he would get turned down.  When he was allowed the proclaimed measurements usually came up short.  Then the excuses would come.  I don’t recall him once saying he found a measurement that was bigger than stated.

Another measurement is distance.  Like a shot putter or highland gamer.  What’s your best put?  You always round up or you give your personal best from 10 years ago.

My Uncle Phil said that my Uncle Wayne was the only 100% honest weightlifter he knew.  I remember asking my Uncle Wayne about his lifts and never once did he exaggerate.  NOT ONCE.  He would not only give his best lift to the pound he would also tell you when he did it and that he couldn’t do that much now.

It all comes down to ego.  If you have a strong ego you tend to exaggerate less.  Doesn’t matter how strong you are, if you have a weak ego the lying will come!  I notice as I get older I lie less.  Maybe my ego is stronger. Have I mentioned I have 20 inch arms and I can bench 500?!

The Lost Treasure: York Power Rack

By Thom Van Vleck

Not "the" rack, but one like it.  Note how there was maybe 6 inches between the front and back.

Not “the” rack, but one like it. Note how there was maybe 6 inches between the front and back.

When I was a kid, I recall a very specific moment when I “knew” I wanted to be strong.  I was around 13 and had ridden my bike over to my grandparents and at that time the Jackson Weightlifting Club gym was in their barn.  I asked my grandma where my Uncle Wayne was and she said, “He’s out back lifting weights”.  So, I headed out to say hello.  Wayne was a superheavyweight, he was huge and at the time was around 340lbs.  He idolized Paul Anderson and I have to say, was a pretty good replica of Paul.

I liked Wayne, as a small child I would pat his stomach and say, “You sure have a big belly, Uncle Wayne”.  This got laughs from my Dad and my other Uncles, which probable encouraged me to do it pretty often.  My point is that I liked Wayne because he was nice to me, I knew he lifted weights and I knew he was strong and I recalled him winning at weightlifting meets, but I really never looked at him as a strongman.  Wayne was a gentle giant who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

As I walked out to the barn, this image was about to change.  I heard a series of thunderous “thumps”.  As I got closer, I swore I could feel the ground shake with each one…..and as  I got closer, I was SURE the ground was shaking.  Wayne was in a power rack, wearing only his work pants (covered in oil and grease from the garage), leather lifting shoes, and a belt.   He was doing front quarter squats with over 1000lbs.  Wayne loved the Clean & Press, the Olympic lift dropped in 1972, and he felt this exercise helped his foundation when he pressed.  He had an old York 45lb bar loaded with a hodge podge of weights out to the end and two 50lb scale weights wired to the ends and hanging about a foot under the end of the bar.  He was doing sets of ten and with each rep the rack, sitting on a bed of timbers in the dirt floor of the barn, would shake violently and pile drive into the ground, causing the shaking I had felt.  As he did each one, muscles began to appear everywhere on his body.  Kind of like the Hulk, muscles appeared out of nowhere.  Most of all, I noticed the change in his demeanor.  The look of fiery determination, he looked at me, but right past me, with a focus that only champions know. I was impressed.   Wayne had big muscles, he was strong….and he had that determination, that focus, I wanted to be that!

I fooled around with weights, but a couple years later, I began to train with that focus and I used that power rack often.  It was an old York model, with about 4″ to 6″ of space to lift in.  York made at least two racks.  One had more space.  My understanding was this one was an “isometric” rack. It had a chin up bar across the top to stabilize it and had been bolted to old, rough cut, timbers that created a small platform about 3ft wide and 5ft long.  I used that thing a lot since I often trained alone.  I would do old school leg presses, calf raises, squats, bench presses, partial lifts, and isometrics in that rack.  I would use it as squat stands and since it was 8ft tall, for overhead supports.   There seemed to be endless uses for that thing and to be real honest, as stupidly as I trained as a teen, often using weights well beyond my capabilities, it probably saved my life!

I entered the Marine Corps and my Uncle Wayne fell on some hard times.  Upon returning, I also returned to training with him…..and found the power rack gone!  Wayne explained that he needed some cash and since he didn’t use a lot of the equipment, he had sold some stuff.  This included an old York set and some other classic stuff…but hey, he could have no idea how much this stuff would be worth later.  We’ve all been there.  But I was young and being a little older and wiser now…..I feel guilty for how mad I was at him.

I tried to track down that rack, but the guy that had bought it had already sold it to some guy in Centerville, Iowa, about 2 hours away.  He gave me a name, Carson.  I thought maybe someday I’d be up there for some reason and I’d look him up.

Several years went by and I forgot about that rack.  In the meantime, I had one custom built for me that was 8ft tall and had 2ft of width inside, much roomier and a step out that could spot me on squats.  It was a good rack.  Then, the local gym that was owned my Jeff Jacques and where I got to train with John Ware and Glenn Jacobs (AKA Kane of WWE fame) was sold to a guy named “Carson”.  It jogged my memory about that rack and lo and behold, he was from Centerville.

Sometime later, that rack showed up at the gym!  This was great!  I asked him about the rack, but he wasn’t interested in selling it yet and being a college student, I couldn’t make an offer he couldn’t refuse.  Then, a couple years later, the rack was gone!  I asked him about the rack and he said he had loaned it to his brother.  My heart sank and I was wishing I’d come up with that offer.  He said he’d tell his brother of my interest.  Then, several years later, I made an effort to contact his brother to see if he still had that rack.  He still lived in Centerville and he said he had it and since he didn’t really train anymore, he’d sell it!  I made arrangements to go look at it the next time I headed that way.  Some months later, that time came and I went up to check this out.

As we headed to his basement I was excited that I’d see that rack after all these years, it was like finding an old friend. As we went down, we went by a rack that as about 5ft tall and he said, “There it is”.  I looked around and said, “Where”?  He said, “Right here” and patted the short rack.   I was sick to my stomach.  He had cut this rack to pieces and welded all kinds of extra stuff on it, spread it out, opened the top, and basically butchered it to pieces.    He was pretty proud of his work and wanted a premium for his “improvements”.  To be honest, the improvements made it a much more useful rack, but I nicely declined as I wanted it in original condition.  I think he thought I was nuts.  To be honest, I felt a little nuts.  I had went from wanting that rack really badly, to not wanting it at all and wishing I’d never found it again.

It was a long drive home.  It had been a 15 year journey searching for that old rack and just when I thought I had it….it came up short.  Nostalgia, sentimentalism, call it what you will, but I wanted that rack.  It was a part of my history and a part of the Jackson Weightlifting Club history.  But it also made me think.  Victory often comes at the expense of sacrifice and loss, and it becomes sweeter with it.  I recovered other parts of my lost treasure and I’m grateful for that.

The whole experience also made me think about not attaching too much to objects.  The object is NOT the memory, it merely represents the memory.  Whether I have it or not, the memory lives on as long as I choose to remember it.  I remember the lifts done in that rack often and that’s what’s important.

I also have a greater appreciation of the things I have now and the memories I’m making with my own children as they begin their lifting careers.  Maybe they won’t be as sentimental as their old man, but if they are, I hope I can teach them the real treasure is in the memory, not the thing.

The “Dreaded Red X”

by Thom Van Vleck

Nobody was immune to getting the dreaded Red X from Bill. Even Al got one!

Nobody was immune to getting the dreaded Red X from Bill. Even Al got one!

My roots in the USAWA go way back.  My first meet was a 1979 “Odd Lift” meet put on by the founder of the USAWA, Bill Clark.  But before that my Uncles and their friends often lifted in Clark’s meets going back to the fifties. Clark founded the USAWA but he actually didn’t start the “Odd Lifts”.  That goes back to Ed Zercher, Sr who was a great lifter in the 30’s and after.  But even before Ed was in his first contest he had a buddy in his old neighborhood in St. Louis named John Wille. In the 1920’s they hung out in the same neighborhood and they did acrobatics, lifting whatever was available, and made make shift weights out of scrap metal.

Today we look to the internet.  The USAWA has a great website.  Al Myers does a lot of work to keep this thing going and having regular updates.  But for 50 years it was “Ol’ Clark”.  Bill was old school in an old school way that made a lot of old school stuff seem new!  He never touched a computer.  For 50 years he put out old fashioned newsletters.  For you young guys, that means he typed up the newsletter on a typewriter, then he copied the news letter (on a Mimeograph and later a copy machine), and he would put them in envelopes, actually lick the stamps (because they didn’t just stick on like they do now) and mail them to your actual mailbox (not the “mailbox” that your e-mail comes to).

I remember looking through all the old newsletters my Uncles had.  Reading about the lifts, the lifters, the meets and random thoughts (and sometimes rants) that Clark would have about steroids, improper judging, or whatever he thought was undermining the integrity of the sport.  If you sent him a letter, be careful, he’d put it in the newsletter!

He operated all this on a shoe string budget and his own sweat. He probably spent a lot of his own money.  But he did ask donations.  You could get the newsletter if you sent him even just a few bucks to pay for the stamps!  He would also include in almost every newsletter a little rant about “bucking up” and make jokes about not being a deadbeat.

He would have a list of people that gave money.  He would even put how much they gave.  I think to give credit to those who gave more than their fair share because they loved the sport.  Those that gave often really valued the information and back then there was no internet and finding out much of anything about weightlifting was about impossible).  He also would “Red X” the guys who hadn’t “paid up” for some time.  He would put what he called the “Dreaded Red X” on the front of your newsletter.  It kind of reminded me how teachers would mark up your papers with red ink when you got something wrong.  The funny part was he would often keep sending guys newsletters for a long time.  Especially so if he knew someone was on hard times.  Like my Uncle Wayne.  Clark could be really nice that way.

In some ways I think Ol’ Clark got vilified a bit for his “Red X” and other things he did when he would call out guys for not following established rules. He sometimes had a way of making a remark about it the next time you would see him to let you know his displeasure….one might even call it a snide remark.

But you know what.  Now that I’m older.  Now that I’ve been in the position of running organizations that get by on shoe string budgets and I’ve put in long hours to run highland games, strongman contests, lifting meets as well as three different weightlifting clubs (Jackson Weightlifting Club, Truman State Irondogs, and the A.T. Still University Osteoblasters) as well as other Church and community organizations that ONLY happen because the people involved reach in their pockets and pull out some cash that includes more than a few drops of sweat…..I get it.

That bring me to present day.  When Ol’ Clark ran that newsletter you saw the stamp.  You knew it cost money.  You knew the paper, the ink, the copies, and all that went into it cost money so I think it was easier to see how much all of it cost.  Well, now Al Myers stepped in and took it over some 8 years ago.  He created a website, then got a better one, and did a lot of work to keep it going and at what cost.  I bet a lot more than the stamps Ol’ Clark used.  At the least, I would say both men work (worked) equally hard.

So what can you do?  Send him a few hundred bucks!  Well, that would be nice but I think the best thing we could do as an organization is support the guys that make it happen.  Not just Al, but our officers, judges, etc.  We do this by following the rules, getting meet results to Al in a timely manner, make sure our meets are as legit as we can, write a good story for the meet results for the website, maybe send Al a good story or anecdote for the website (like how people would send Clark a letter) and he’d put in on the website.  Buy Al a beer, slap him on the back….heck, I bet a thanks would go a long way.

Otherwise, people like Bill and Al get burned out.  They love a sport and after awhile they feel unappreciated and frustrated and next thing you know…..well, let’s just try and do our part and keep the USAWA great.  It’s only as great as the people who run it and the people who are a part of it AND appreciate it!

Tommy Kono: A True All-Rounder

Kono_VanVleck

 

by Thom Van Vleck

When I was a kid I had my Uncle Wayne who was a “Paul Anderson Fan”.  He was all about strength and nothing about aesthetics.  Function first, looks second.  And Function was Olympic lifting!  My other Uncle, Phil, was much more at aesthetics but he also liked strength and he was a Bill Pearl fan.  The one guy they could both agree on was Tommy Kono!

Anyone that is involved in strength sports should know by now that Tommy recently passed away at the age of 85 after one of the most storied careers in strength history.  I did a story on Tommy a few years back and I’m going to say a few things here but you would need to large book to really do Tommy justice!

Tommy is famous for living in Hawaii but he was actually born in Sacramento, California and was relocated to the Tule Lake Internment Camp as a teenager during WWII due to the fear people had against those of Japaneses decent.  While this was a miserable experience in some ways it was the best thing to happen to Tommy.  During his stay the desert air helped clear up his asthma which had made him sickly.  He also got involved in weight training which obviously changed his whole life.

In 1950 Tommy was drafted into the army.  They realized his Olympic potential and gave him the opportunity to train.  Tommy worked hard and this all began to pay off in 1952 when he won the gold medal in Olympic lifting in Helsinki, Finland.  This was followed by dozens of World and National records and titles.  He was again Olympic champion in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics (when Paul Anderson famously won his gold) and the won Silver in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.  He kicked in 6 world championships and 3 Pan Am Golds to boot.  So he had the functional strength my Uncle Wayne appreciated.

Tommy also was a champion bodybuilder.  I don’t mean he looked good and did well against the best of the day.  I mean he was a 4 time Mr. Universe!  This was in the same years he was competing as a lifter as well.  So he had the aesthetics my Uncle Phil appreciated.

Tommy was also just as great a coach as lifter.  He coached three separate nations in three different Olympics.  He was elected to numerous Hall’s of Fame but what I recall that was most striking was being named “Weightlifter of the Century”.  Tommy deserved this and here’s why.

While other lifters may have won more world titles or broke more records there there three factors that made him the best.  First, he was undefeated from 1952 to 1960 on the world stage.  Second, his 26 world records were an amazing accomplishment.  Third, these were set almost equally in the three lifts contested in the day.  He was the best at all of them and not a specialist.  Fourth, and maybe most amazing, was he competed and set records in 4 different weight classes.

Maybe most important of all was Tommy was just a great person.  My Uncles met him in the 60’s while he was still lifting.  They told me he was a happy guy who offered advice and really listened to them when they asked him questions and gave them well thought out answers.  I found this out for myself in 2009 when I met him at the Arnold Fit Expo.  I stopped him in the hallway and introduced myself.  He stopped, talked at length, and made me fell like I was a good friend.  He was famous for helping others and never asking for a dime in return.

So I say Tommy all-rounder because he was the best at all the lifts, the best physique, the best coach, the best photographer of his era, and one of the best authors!  He also was just a great human being who would have been a great friend to have even if he had never picked up a weight in his lift.  So here’s to Tommy Kono.  The best!

 

Variations on the Press

by Thom Van Vleck

I have written about the Press several times before.  My Uncle Wayne Jackson loved doing the Olympic Clean and Press.  As a matter of fact, when they dropped the lift Wayne never competed again in an Olympic lifting contest.  He eventually did 370lbs out of the rack.  I also saw him strict press 330lbs out of the rack.

So wait a minute, you say.  I thought you said he pressed 370?  Well, he did.  Here’s the thing.  The way I was taught there were three variations of the Press.  This is not to be confused with the USAWA rules for pressing movements.  I am listing these to make a point regarding training, not setting a record.

1.  The Push Press.  With the weight racked on the collar bone and you would then dip with knees and hips and then extend to drive the weight overhead while finishing pressing out with only the shoulders and arms with no recovery (rebending the knees or it was then a push jerk). A very quick movement that might slow down at the finish.

2.  The Strict Press.  You held the weight racked on the collar bone and with NO knee bend or drive with anything other than the shoulders and arms you would press the weight overhead.  A very slow and methodical movement if you are using near max weights.

3.  The Olympic Press. Similar to the Push press but with no knee bend.  However, hip drive would be employed to get a “heave” off the chest after sinking with the weight once it was across the collar bone.  Of course the reason the Olympic press was dropped was it started out as a strict press then the rules were relaxed to the point it became more of a push press and impossible to judge.  My Uncle became so proficient at the sinking or “slumping” and the hip drive he actually could Olympic Press as much as he could Push Press!

Over the years I have used all three in my training.  I think most people have used the Push press and the strict press but not many have used the Olympic Press.  I would guess most would simply say that Olympic press was a cheating press or a poor push press and not see any additional value in the Olympic press.

It is my opinion that the Olympic press helps develop hip drive.  It makes you really focus on engaging the hips and I think that’s really important not only in weightlifting but in many athletic events as well.  Mastering that small range of motion can add to a power clean, to a fast baseball pitch, and maybe most importantly to throwing events such as the shot put, discus, highland games and others.

Be sure and focus on the hip drive!  When I’m done training these I can really feel the fatigue in my hips.  A “pro tip” from my Uncle Wayne was he said when he would get set to press he would focus on flexing his glutes hard.

Give it a try and see what you think.  Let me know!

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