[Tom Ryan]

I am very sad to read this. Yes, John was 75 and would have been 76 near the end of the year. Technically, he didn’t live in Philly but lived outside Philly. John was indeed a USAWA pioneer and was very active in staging competitions, including competitions in the building that housed his carpet business! I knew him well, especially from the 1989-90 academic year that I spent in the Philly area and trained a few times in John’s gym.

John told me after one of those training sessions that his father suffered a lot during the final years of his life. Since John had a stroke a few years ago, as Denny informed us some time ago, his final years obviously weren’t great, either, so at least he is now free of earthly pain and troubles. RIP, John, you were a very giving person in many ways, including once treating my mother and I to dinner at that famous all-you-can-eat place that I believe was/is in Collegeville. You contributed a lot to the USAWA and you will be greatly missed.

[Tom Ryan]

Very sorry to read this. Of course Bill lifted during the early days of the USAWA and I knew him. He was probably my #1 cheerleader, as I would often hear him yell “Let’s go, Tommy” as I was getting ready to lift.

I don’t know how things are in the Pittsburgh area but head-on collisions are becoming almost an epidemic in the Atlanta area as we have been having practically one per day recently resulting from someone driving the wrong way on an interstate or divided highway. In each case the wrong-way driver has died and in some cases so has the driver the person hit. One of the recent victims is a local radio personality but he will survive with only some broken bones.

All of the toxicology results are not in yet, but the information that is available indicates that either a drug or alcohol was involved in each case. Of course it would be hard for a sober person to drive the wrong way on an interstate because the person would see a big red sign that reads “WRONG WAY” when trying to enter at an exit.

I certainly hope that Bill is able to pull through.

[Tom Ryan]

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as I looked over the post above. One thing is obvious, however: this has absolutely nothing to do with the USAWA.

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from bbenzel on June 3, 2012, 16:11[/b]
Thanks for the confidence Al. I haven’t pressed 400 yet, but I think I might start pressing out of a rack some and see how much more I can do without worrying about the clean too. Your motivational methods got me to try an over 200 James Lift so hopefully it works with my pressing.

Yes, the way to improve pressing strength, Bryan, is to do presses off the rack, meaning that the bar is shouldered from squat stands. I also did presses inside a power rack during my prime but free-standing presses should be included in any pressing routine.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

I like the way that Al tried to get out of that one, Jesse. 🙂

We each have an optimum intake level of vitamins and minerals and supplements in general that is needed to maximize our health (and strength). There is no way to reach those levels just from food.

Undoubtedly there have been a few supplements on the market that have been targeted to athletes with claims like “better than steroids”, etc. The manufacturers have obviously hoped that people would be gullible enough to believe such crazy claims. Ultimate Orange was one product that had a lot of hype a few decades ago but was far from being good for a person’s health and was eventually banned by the FDA because it contained ephedra.

There are many other supplements that are not well known or hyped, however, but are effective in helping people maintain good health and combat various ailments. There are supplement manufacturers that have been around for decades and are considered to be very reputable. For them to be carefully scrutinized by any government agency would be akin to the TSA thoroughly checking out a 95 year old woman at an airport as if she were a potential terrorist!

It may be kind to say that Senator Durbin is “misguided”, as a close friend believes that he is being paid by Big Pharma. And she may be right! He apparently doesn’t seem to care about getting facts straight, as is evident by what I cut and pasted below, which is from the Alliance for Natural Health.

When he and any others of his ilk try to impose their will on me and many others like me, they will find that they are dealing with a formidable force, as Durbin may now realize as we responded in large numbers to our U. S. senators, which probably helped soundly defeat Durbin’s amendment. We won that battle but undoubtedly the war will never end!

Tom

———————————————

One of the things we found alarming in this amendment saga was the amount of misinformation in Sen. Durbin’s speech on the Senate floor last Wednesday. As you can see for yourself if you go to the C-SPAN video of the session and, in the Timeline section, scroll down and click on the 05:43:30 segment, you’ll hear Sen. Durbin say, “No one tests dietary supplements….Companies that make these products may test them if they wish, there’s no requirement under law that they test them, and there’s certainly no agency of government that tests dietary supplements….There’s just no testing involved.”

This is completely untrue — supplement companies, by law, must comply with the Dietary Supplement Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMPs) and must conduct testing throughout the production process as well as testing the finished product for quality control. As with the pharmaceutical industry, the burden is on supplement companies to test their own products, because in the end they are liable should FDA choose to take enforcement action against them.

One reason we are so concerned about legislation like Sen. Durbin’s is that it is clearly intended to put us on a slippery slope toward a supplement pre-approval system—similar to the system being used by the European Union, where only those vitamins and minerals on the approved list may be used in food supplements, and only in very limited amounts. For example, if a supplement contains more beta carotene than is present in half a large carrot, it is banned. A regulatory framework like the EU’s is exactly what Sen. Durbin wants.

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from tgoetsch on May 24, 2012, 23:27[/b]
Thanks for the input, Tom and Jesse!

You are quite welcome, Troy, and note from my amended post the sound defeat of Durbin’s amendment.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from tgoetsch on May 24, 2012, 13:25[/b]
A supplement company I follow on Facebook recently posted this article (for obvious reasons):

http://www.anh-usa.org/disastrous-durbin-anti-supplement-amendment-just-offered-help-stop-it/.

Polarizing and biased language aside, what are your thoughts on the regulation of supplement manufacturers? Should “big-government” step away and focus its resources elsewhere, allowing consumers to choose for themselves what to put in their bodies? Or is this a step in the right direction of more regulation of supplement manufacturers, keeping them more accountable for and honest about what they produce? This is a topic that really interests me to discuss with people!

I know about this because I am on the e-mail list of ANH-USA and I have e-mailed my two Georgia senators, using the form letter that ANH-USA provided. I have also e-mailed Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and Tom Harkin of Iowa at their websites, as they are staunch supporters of supplements and Hatch’s support has been there for decades.

It is certainly true that some junk supplements for strength athletes have been on the market in the past few decades (e.g., Yohimbe bark), but this is a very small percentage of all nutritional supplements, which, in general, are quite beneficial.

There has long been a movement to suppress supplement manufacturers, if not put them out of business. The FDA has been trying to do this since the 1960s and Bob Hoffman had a Washington lobbyist, Trudy Engel, on his payroll to protect his interests during the 1970s.

I take a bunch of supplements of various types and have taken supplements since the early 1960s. I, quite frankly, become irate when I read in the media that “Vitamin E is potentially harmful” and no one should take it, etc., when I know that such statements are based on the results of flawed studies, as I follow this field rather closely. For example, the oft-quoted SELECT study used synthetic Vitamin E in the form of alpha tocopherol (only), whereas anyone who has any knowledge of Vitamin E knows that it is potentially dangerous to take such a form of Vitamin E because alpha tocopherol can deplete important gamma tocopherol from the body. Therefore, any study involving Vitamin E should use natural Vitamin E in the form of mixed tocopherols.

There is a doctor who has a column in the Atlanta paper and several months ago in his column he advised someone to not take Vitamin E. I wrote him a two-page letter to explain to him why he was giving poor advice, and when he did not respond to me, I e-mailed the editors of the paper to register a complaint against him. (And the “public editor” acknowledged my complaint.)

Sometimes I contact people who have been quoted with negative comments about supplements and they will inform me that they were misquoted. Others simply ignore me.

I don’t think it is any secret that drug companies want to take over the vitamin market and charge prices like the prices for drugs. And of course people who are in positions of influence can be bought. Not very many years ago there was a prominent biostatistician, Nathan Mantel, who was paid by the tobacco industry to say that secondhand smoke was not harmful. Well, ‘ole Nathan figured that he had a good thing going so he upped his asking price considerably for future statements, but the tobacco industry balked at paying what he wanted. You can read about some of these shenanigans here http://junkscience.org/news3/pioneer.html As this article stated “They’re not scientists; they’re prostitutes”.

I don’t know what Senator Durbin’s intentions are but his state hasn’t exactly been a sterling example of honesty in government, as four of its governors since 1961 have been sentenced to prison.

Fortunately, Senator Durbin’s anti-supplement amendment was soundly defeated yesterday by a vote of 77-20. http://www.anh-usa.org/durbin-amendment-defeated/

I’m sure the people on the other side of the fence won’t give up, however, although they are up against a powerful force in the sheer number of U.S. citizens who use supplements, and the almost 90,000 ANH-USA readers who bombarded members of Congress with e-mails in less than 24 hours. Even though this battle was won, the war undoubtedly is not over, so I encourage all of you to become familiar with these issues because our health and freedom of choice are likely to continue to be at stake.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Yes, Steve, John V. did some impressive lifting as he aged. Jimmy Malloy was one of the top Olympic lifters in the Masters program when the USAWA got started, and he then became a very good USAWA lifter.

I first saw John when we competed in the National Masters in Olympic lifting in 1986. He was 49 then and even though he failed with a 3rd attempt 198 snatch, I later learned that his attempt was with only 17 pounds less than his PR snatch! Similarly, he told me that he equaled his PR 600 squat when he was 47. Of course we don’t all age at the age rate but John was unusual in being at or close to his PRs when he was in his late 40s.

[Tom Ryan]

You did make a rather general statement, John. This was when you did your one-arm dumbbell deadlift of 264, as you pointed out that is still possible to make good deadlifts at your (our) age, but not overhead presses.

Trust me, I may no longer have the size of an elephant, but I still have the memory of one. More or less. 🙂

[Tom Ryan]

Thanks for the update, Denny, sad though it is. I also knew John very well during the early years of the USAWA and trained with him a few times at his (company) gym in Collegeville, and also competed in a meet or two there during the 1989-90 academic year that I spent in the Philadelphia area.

John was indeed very giving of his time and energies during that era and was one of the movers and shakers in the USAWA.

Right before I left the area, my mother wanted to go with me to visit one of my aunts on my father’s side of the family, whom neither of us had seen in many years. So my mother flew up from Atlanta and then rode back with me as I drove back through Atlanta on my way to Texas. Unfortunately, my mother and I discovered that my aunt, who lived just outside Philadelphia, was having Alzheimer’s symptoms, but we still had a nice visit with her.

I gave John two 100-pound plates that I had for use in his gym as I couldn’t get much use out of them since I didn’t have a 2-inch bar. So I guess as more a less a going away present, he took my mother and I along with his wife Jean to an all-you-can-eat place in or just outside Collegeville. It was the most impressive eating establishment of that type I have ever seen! It was named Hog’s Breath Inn, which I think may be a chain. The food was in barrels, believe it or not, and there was a huge amount of it as that was a very popular place. I don’t know if the place still exists (maybe Denny knows), but if it does exist, look for it if you are ever in that area as I am sure you would be as impressed as I was.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Happy Birthday, LaVerne.

[Tom Ryan]

Minor corrections, fellows. It is the “Good” brothers: Bill, Walter, and Harry. Also, there are two “b’s” in “dumbbell”.

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

[b]Quote from dinoman on April 9, 2012, 10:08[/b]
Tom, Have you seen pictures of Apollon in his latter days? I agree he may have only weighed 260 in his prime, but he surely was pushing 300 pounds in his latter years.

I greatly admire Joe Roarks research in trying to disprove mythical stories of old time strongmen. Several he has gathered enough information to make one wonder if some of the stories are indeed true. The problem now is the abscence of first hand witnesses as anyone who seen the performances are long dead.

I put all reported strength stories of old time strongman in that catagory – as just interesting stories and nothing more. Strength claims only fall into 2 catagories for me – official meet performances that are true and interesting stories that have mystical qualities that may be true or untrue. None the less, I find these stories very interesting in a folk tale type of way, but take them all with a “grain of salt” in being actual truths. Al

PS That one handed snatch of Apollons with the thick bar is another “story” in my mind. Willoughby reported it as a “near snatch” as Apollon only got it to the height of his head.

Al,

I have seen various photos of Apollon so I may have seen one or two when he was quite heavy, but I can’t recall any specific photos. Willoughby gave his weight as 264 on pages 204 and 208 in listing certain strength feats of Apollon. The one-hand snatch you are referring to is when Apollon had an encounter with Marx, as described by Willoughby on page 180. Willoughby stated that Apollon refused to dip when he did a one-hand snatch, suggesting that Apollon practically thought that was cheating. 🙂
Obviously it would be difficult to do a stiff-legged snatch with any amount of weight when one is about 6-3. 🙂 And of course we don’t know if the weight simply slipped out of his hand because of the thick handle or was it also just too heavy for him to snatch to arms length.

The weight of that thick-handled barbell that Marx lifted just above his knees was 102.5 kilos = 225.97 pounds. Joe referred to a thick-handled barbell weighing 225 that Bienkowski couldn’t lift off the floor but Apollon one-hand snatched, so these may have been two different events.

Of course there is indeed a lot of uncertainty surrounding lifts made 100 or more years ago and some professional strongmen did engage in constant and deliberate deception. And folklore also gets in the way. Someone on the GoHeavy forum recently asked about Angus MacAskill and gave a link to his Wikipedia entry, which obviously contains some serious fiction, including the statement that Angus shouldered an anchor weighing well over 2,000 pounds and walked with it. According to Willoughby, the weight of the anchor was actually 600 pounds. Just a “slight” difference. 🙂

Tom

[Tom Ryan]

Excellent!

[Tom Ryan]

I noted that Joe did not mention “deadlift” in his reply, Al. 🙂

[Author]

Posts