FIRST BARBELL SET

[0722143772]

FIRST BARBELL SET

[61pwcc]

My first was a cranberry colored plastic DP(Diversified Products) set complete with Bruce Randall Workout booklet. I identified with him right away. Seeing I was in 8th grade/13 at the time, it obviously wasn’t his mass in which I identified. The guy had the tallest Brachioradialis I’d ever seen! The front of the booklet showed him in the middle of a Bicep Curl, his arm was HUGE but his B.radialis must’ve been 4 inches high!
My father gave my sister and I the DNA for a huge B.radialis. I’ve always been called POPEYE because of this.
I still use the weights to this day on my dumbbell exercises.
I think its funny I ever got into lifting seeing no one in my family did or had.

[Thom Van Vleck]

Speaking of Bruce Randall, I have an autographed photo of him in my gym. My Uncle PHil used to run a gym in Colorado and Bruce did a seminar there.

Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder

[61pwcc]

Always wanted to meet him so…. I AM A BIT ENVIOUS. His bulk up pictures showing him @410 lbs doing a 780lb Good Morning was toooooo much!!

[0722143772]

hey thom…………WHATEVER!!!

[Al Myers]

Did I hear someone say TOPPER???? I only know one person who can top this comment of Thom’s regarding Bruce Randell. John McKean, where are you when we need ya??

[John McKean]

Hey Al and guys, My story on big Bruce will be submitted this week! Yes, I got to meet him -he was “retired” then from competition, but in superb condition & giving health/lifting lectures for some barbell company -in his 40s,was in terrific shape & still with 20+ inch arms (and a waist line not much bigger!).During my research for this upcoming story, an amazing feat that Bruce did while as a SHW was a front squat “support” ( off standard squat racks,I believe,actually more range of movement than a hand-n-thigh or hip lift) with a staggering 2,100 pounds !!

[Tom Ryan]

John,

I would have to see the 2,100 to believe it. First, for safety reasons, no one should ever try to do that from squat stands. Furthermore, he would need a heavy bar and at least a bunch of 100 pound plates. How prevalent were heavy bars back then?

I would not recommend that anyone try doing heavy supports with the bar in front because the bar can cut off your circulation and you can end up on the ground! That happened to me the only time I tried doing partial front squats, circa 1964. I was doing partial back squats with 850 for 3 reps then, starting from the bottom, with what would have been an 8-inch movement before the weight scrunched me up. So one day I decided to doing partial front squats, just for variety. Bad decision.

It isn’t good for anyone’s spine to try to support a huge amount of weight while standing, regardless of whether the bar is in front of or behind one’s head. I felt that the partial back squats did help my jerk, but they were also a bit risky relative to my spine, as I could tell that bad things could happen if I got a bit off balance, even though I was inside my power rack.

Tom

[John McKean]

Hi Tom, Well, back in the 50s the pioneers of really heavy training didn’t exactly follow or listen to “safety rules”, and became superhuman from their daring and innovation ! Neither did they have “proper” racks for these awesome lifts ,tho Bruce Randall trained in a big Marine base gym, which looked spartan & rugged from photos that I’ve seen! Not to mention,probably lots of strong spotters& handlers!

The story on Bruce was written by highly respected Peary Radar, mostly via direct quotes from Bruce. His training was confirmed by Marine Chief Petty Officer,Walter Metzler, who supervised all of Randall’s heavy training, right up to his heaviest bodyweight of 403.

Of course, in his “regular” training sessions, Bruce did 1/4 front squats (much more range yet than a “support” -think he was over 6’tall) with 1010 pounds for 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps. He claimed this exercise was terrific for adding thrust to his jerks and heavy push presses!!! I’ll bet!

[Thom Van Vleck]

I saw my Uncle Wayne do sets of ten with 1000lbs on the partial front squat. Of course, he was in a powerrack but I do recall he had to hang a 50lb scale weight on each end of the bar to get it to 1000lbs, let alone 2100. But I will say this, My Uncle Phil met Bruce when he was at his best and he was impressed to say the least.

Topper! Al….I don’t know what you are talkin’ about! HAHAHA

BTW did I mention I’m in the November Powerlifting USA……HAHAHHAHA

Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder

[Tom Ryan]

John,

I admired Peary Rader for the man that he was and for what he and Iron Man stood for, but he was not a reliable source of information since he was somewhat naive and gullible. When someone reported to him that they had made certain lifts in training, he seemed to accept it uncritically and reported it in Iron Man, regardless of how suspect the lifts, diets, or training systems should have seemed. Certainly Bob Simpson’s “purported” presses off the rack fall into that category.

A short time before Anderson’s kidney surgery, Rader reported in Iron Man that Anderson was doing well. I had just seen Anderson about the time that issue came out and Anderson was in awful shape. Indeed, he later stated that he would have soon died (within 2 weeks I think he guessed) without the surgery. So I wrote a note to Rader to inform him that what he had said wasn’t true. He replied and said something like “I guess I wasn’t well aware of Anderson’s condition” and stated that he planned to later call Anderson in Minneapolis, a few days after his surgery.

I truly believe that a book of moderate size could be compiled from all of the false claims made by and for weightlifters. I don’t believe Randall could shoulder
2100 pounds anymore than I believe that Simpson could press 502 off the rack, or whatever silly number he claimed.

There is a prominent weightlifter from the past whom I hear from occasionally, so I will let him be anonymous. 🙂 (He recently contacted me to ask if I could locate one of his long lost relatives since I have a reputation for being able to locate people using Internet resources. Indeed, I have helped him in that way in the past and this time I was also able to help him, as I did find the person.) He has stated on a forum that in his prime he would back out of squat stands with over 1,400 pounds and do partial squats with it, but there is a prominent weightlifting historian who doesn’t believe he could have walked with that much weight. No comment from me here, although I do have an opinion. 🙂

Many of us are well aware of the impromptu reverse pressing contest between Karl Norberg and John Grimek on December 21, 1940, which Grimek won by doing 280 to Norberg’s 270. (Norberg was 47, almost 48, at the time.) Indeed, Grimek’s 280 was featured in Gord Venables’ “Incredible but True” section in S&H in June, 1941.

Well, that didn’t happen, as Terpak later “confessed” that the weights they were pressing were actually in the 220-240 range, as discussed, for example, by John Fair
at the end of this article http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/IGH/IGH0504/IGH0504w.pdf and recently discussed on the GoHeavy forum. Admittedly, I had not questioned the 270 and 280 and surely that must also be true of many others in the Iron Game.

In a way that makes me feel “better”, relatively speaking, because I did a reverse press off the rack with 201 and 202 when I was either 46 or 47, so I wasn’t too far behind Norberg at the same age, although I didn’t reverse clean the weight, which of course does make a difference.

I’m afraid that the well-worn expression “I could write a book”, which was actually a tune in the 1940 musical Pal Joey (how many of you knew that? 🙂 I didn’t) does apply to the fact that Hoffman, Grimek, Anderson and undoubtedly a long list of others have tried to pull the wool over the public’s eyes for a very long period of time.

Tom

[61pwcc]

I’ve always thought that of all people Grimek, Hepburn, Anderson, Eder, Sipes, Aherns, Randall, Hackenshmidt etc wouldn’t need to inflate what they could lift. Jeff Everson claims that each time he talked to Anderson his numbers changed to be just a little bit ahead of everyone else. Man if I was Paul Anderson I wouldn’t need to inflate my weights just my weight. Is that the only issue at hand??
I just came into a huge collection of Physical Culture mags from the 1940-1980’s. Some hardcovers from the late 1800’s were given to me as well. Sometimes I think the publisher had a (big) hand in it. Leafing through Muscle Power from the 60’s I appreciate the Olympic lifting articles but its obvious J.W. overstated claims that he took credit. Of course the athlete wants the exposure and who can it hurt??
I don’t inflate what I’ve done cuz’ even accounting for inflation, it still ain’t much!!HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!

[John McKean]

Tom,I think you sometimes get influenced by those grumpy old curmudgeons on the historical weightlifting sites, who delight in discrediting EVERY big lift of yesteryear,except,of course, their OWN lifts which were done in a garage,unseen by anyone! Sure lifting has always had more than its share of scams ,but I tend to go with the late ,great Peary Rader and give credit to what is witnessed by reasonable people.For that matter, some of the GREAT lifts & tremendous All-Rounders that I’ve seen in our USAWA and were properly judged for these records, will in the future probably be dissed completely by THAT group of historians!

As to Bruce Randall, my take on him from much reading and anecdotes through the years is that he was always sort of outside the mainstream of the iron game, and did things on his own, never caring whether people believed his strength feats or not.In the Iron Man story that he basically authored for Peary Rader’s approval he simply states “these are the lifts,sets and poundages I used, I don’t lay claim to anything.” In other words,no axe to grind at all, and very little ego involved.

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from memck487@aol.com on November 16, 2011, 06:30[/b]
Tom,I think you sometimes get influenced by those grumpy old curmudgeons on the historical weightlifting sites, who delight in discrediting EVERY big lift of yesteryear,except,of course, their OWN lifts which were done in a garage,unseen by anyone! Sure lifting has always had more than its share of scams ,but I tend to go with the late ,great Peary Rader and give credit to what is witnessed by reasonable people. For that matter, some of the GREAT lifts & tremendous All-Rounders that I’ve seen in our USAWA and were properly judged for these records, will in the future probably be dissed completely by THAT group of historians!

As to Bruce Randall, my take on him from much reading and anecdotes through the years is that he was always sort of outside the mainstream of the iron game, and did things on his own, never caring whether people believed his strength feats or not.In the Iron Man story that he basically authored for Peary Rader’s approval he simply states “these are the lifts,sets and poundages I used, I don’t lay claim to anything.” In other words,no axe to grind at all, and very little ego involved.

No, John, those “grumpy old curmudgeons” like John Fair (see http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/IGH/IGH0701/IGH0701d.pdf) are simply seeking the truth. Forty years ago I contributed to the Paul Anderson Youth Home and I was proud to display a PAYH bumper sticker on my car, especially when his sister happened to park behind me at a supermarket one day and saw it. I was not happy to learn that there is no evidence that certain lifts that Anderson claimed, especially his 6,270 back lift, ever happened.

The simple truth is that Anderson was not very good at telling the truth. I had corresponded with him for a few years before I finally met him in the Fall of 1972 at his shopping center exhibition. This was before his planned “postal contest” with Jon Cole to determine who was the “World’s Strongest Man”. I asked Paul if he was getting ready for his contest with Cole. He replied that the contest was off because Cole didn’t want to do the Olympic lifts. In retrospect, that made no sense whatsoever because Cole had just competed in the Senior Nationals in Olympic lifting a few months earlier! Anderson claimed that he never used steroids. Jim Witt was convinced that he did use steroids and someone I know who saw Anderson frequently during the 1960s, is also certain that Anderson used steroids. (I can’t mention his name because he is still alive and may not care to be quoted.)

John Grimek had a very active imagination regarding some of his accomplishments and then there were the phony weights that Hoffman is known to have used in many of his exhibitions.

And I could go on and on and mention Archie Vanderpool, Stout Jackson, etc. As I said, it would be a very long list.

Tom

[John McKean]

Fortunately not many lifters (or anybody else) bothered to read that “truthseeker’s”(whoever he actually is) book of accusations and speculations! I found it boring & poorly written, in its pitiful attempt to discredit much of a very exciting era of American weightlifting. I feel it is a huge injustice to downplay the achievements of any legendary lifter based on the rantings of this insignificant, trivial piece of trash.

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from memck487@aol.com on November 16, 2011, 20:25[/b]
Fortunately not many lifters (or anybody else) bothered to read that “truthseeker’s”(whoever he actually is) book of accusations and speculations! I found it boring & poorly written, in its pitiful attempt to discredit much of a very exciting era of American weightlifting. I feel it is a huge injustice to downplay the achievements of any legendary lifter based on the rantings of this insignificant, trivial piece of trash.

I assume that you are referring to Fair’s book, Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell, which I read several years ago. Opinions of the book vary, as can be seen by reading the Amazon reviews. I found the book to be interesting but some Iron Game people do consider the book to be too negative. Inaccuracies have also been mentioned, which are inevitable when the author, a retired history professor, must rely heavily on interviews. I’ve met John Fair but I don’t really know him. He does have stature as an Iron Game historian and has written many articles for Iron Game History.

[Thom Van Vleck]

I have talked and corresponded with John Fair. I think Tom’s assessment is pretty accurate. He gathers information from others and writes it up in a well written report that is then only as accurate as the information he was given. Kind of the old joke of you can’t make good chicken salad with chicken….uh….”crap”.

Our sport is one that is so very quantifiable it s both a blessing and a curse. People can talk about Gale Sayers scoring 6 touchdowns in one game but how “lucky” did he get and all the variables from one play to the next make measuring touchdowns head to head a totally qualitative process. However, you can measure a Clean & Jerk across time and place because theoretically 500lbs is 500lbs regardless…..or is it!

Then there is the steroid issue….if I even hint to my Uncles that Paul Anderson took steroids they threaten to kick my…uhh….rear. One of my Uncles idolized Bill Pearl and for years I got to here him tell me how Bill didn’t use steroids. Then when Bill himself admitted to using them, my Uncle then said that it made no difference and in his mind he would have still been just a big and muscular. Do I doubt that? Maybe. But the point is a 500lb C&J done one steroids is not the same as one done without. But how do we know this, how do we quantify it. I used to lift with John Ware and while I disagreed with his steroid use at least he never claimed otherwise and he told me not to measure myself against him because I never used drugs and that would not be fair.

But what I will say is that this winter I have made it a mission to put 300lbs overhead for what may be one last time. At 47 I don’t know how many of those I have left and my right should is getting pretty beat up by the Highland Games. I will know for sure that if I do, it will be comparable to when I did it the last time about 10 years ago. And that’s all I can know for sure.

Thom Van Vleck
Jackson Weightlifting Club
Highland Games athlete and sometimes All-Rounder

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