Tag Archives: Al Myers

Gone Fishin’

by Thom Van Vleck

Our USAWA Secretary Al Myers knows how to relax from the stresses of work and weightlifting. He goes fishing! But by looking at the size of these two big paddlefish he caught this week, it looks like he had to put his training to good use!

I sent Al Myers a message the other day and he said he was on a fishin’ trip.  I said, “AGAIN!”   I often will call Al, and he’ll return my call and say, “Sorry, I was taking my nap”.  I like Al, he’s a good guy.  But he’s also a pretty smart guy.  Al works hard and when it’s time to rest, he rests hard.

Weightlifters are a special breed.  Some might say we were so special we are mentally ill!  We do tend to be pretty obsessive and often that’s a good thing.  But just as often, we don’t know when to back off (I can’t say “quit”….because we don’t like that word!).

Recuperation is more than sleep, it’s rest, it’s feeling rested and ready.  It’s often the lost ingredient in an effective training program.  I work at a medical school and the constantly tell the students…”GET MORE SLEEP”.  Because more sleep, more rest means less mistakes.  A doctor makes a mistake, and people can die.  A weightlifter makes a mistake and an injury can result that, at best, will set us back a few days, at worst, end a career!

But it’s more than just your body that needs sleep.  Sleep is probably most important for you brain.  I would argue that you brain needs sleep more than any other part of your body.  Why?  Well, science hasn’t quite figured that out yet.  But the fact is that the brain does some pretty important things ONLY when it’s asleep.  And your most important training tool is you brain.  If your brain is not fresh and focused, your body won’t be.

I think that every lifting program should also include how you are going to rest and how long.  It should also include the occasional break from lifting altogether.  So, every once in awhile you have to remind yourself to back off a little.  So, get more sleep.  Take a nap.  And go Fishin’.

Why the Deadlift is the BEST LIFT

by Al Myers

This is one of several 700 pound plus deadlifts that I did in powerlifting competitions through the years. This picture is from the 2002 NASA Natural Nationals Powerlifting Championships.

I know – this is a bold statement I just made.  But after years of training experience, I truly believe that the deadlift is the best exercise for building overall body strength and power.   I know there are people who would disagree with me on this  statement, and I’m sure they have their reasons, but let me explain my feelings behind this and then you can give your arguments! 

1.  Argument 1 – The Squat is the KING of LIFTS

Early on I thought the Squat was the KING of LIFTS (and I’m sure others think this as well), and the squat is  by far the best lower body exercise, but other than that the deadlift RULES.  Very little upper body muscles come into play while squatting compared to a deadlift.  The deadlift works EVERY MUSCLE – lower and upper.  A deadlift hits the thighs, hamstrings, lower back, upper back, and even the chest muscles.  Plus it works the forearm and hand muscles.  A squat doesn’t do that!  Just name a lift that works all the muscles like a deadlift does – I bet you can’t name one!

2.  Argument 2 – The Deadlift will make you slow

I know the “deadlift critics” will say that the deadlift will make you slow.  I just don’t believe that.  The “critics” are usually ex-Olympic lifters who favor the Clean & Jerk and Snatch and are poor deadlifters (mainly because they don’t like it and don’t train it).  Now – I’m not saying these two Olympic  lifts are not great lifts (they both make my top five), but for building overall body strength they pale in comparison to the deadlift.  The Olympic lifts are highly technical and unless you are training them exclusively you have a hard time maintaining the proper techique and ability in them.  Add in a little age and decreased flexibility, and both of these lifts are limited by your technique and not by your strength.  And by the way, I have seen several Clean and Jerks that were PAINFULLY SLOW – so don’t use the “explosive” argument with me.  Any exercise can be done in an “explosive manner”.  Just use less weight and increase your speed of execution! 

3.  Argument 3 – I don’t want to hurt my back

The argument of not wanting to hurt your back by AVOIDING the best back exercise known to man does not even make sense to me!  Exercise strengthens the muscles and prevents injury (of course you have to be training correctly, but that’s another issue).   Name one exercise that strengthens the back better than the deadlift??  Lots of money has been invested in machines that make this promise – but where are they now?  They come and go with different manufacturers but the deadlift remains.  That ought to tell you something.

3.  Argument 4 – I’m an athlete and not a powerlifter

I hear this all the time.  Just because the deadlift is one of the competitive powerlifts does not make it a BAD EXERCISE.  Several of  my Highland Game friends seem to think the deadlift is an evil lift and has no benefit to a competitive Highland Athlete.  Instead, they focus on dangerous  lifts like jump squats and lifts on BOSU Balls.  But I will tell you – STRONG IS STRONG, and if you want to be strong, you have to train to be strong.  And NOTHING makes you strong like the deadlift!  This translates to increased ability in ANY strength related sport.  I always loved the Caber Toss in the Highland Games the most, mainly because it directly reflected on who the strongest throwers were.  I always threw in the more advanced classes and at that level everyone was experienced, and everyone knew how to toss the caber.  It was always very apparent who the strongest throwers  were when it got to big cabers, because only the strongest guys turned them. Sure the weaker-strength caber tossers looked “picture perfect” with light sticks, but when things “turned ugly” with the big sticks all the weak throwers could do was make their pfiffers look pretty. Great caber tossers like Mike Smith, Jim “the Big Chief” McGoldrick, Ryan Vierra, and  Harry McDonald were BULL STRONG.  If the deadlift was contested instead of  the caber these same guys would have still been on top.

By now you can tell that I am a little partial to the deadlift!  But my feeling is that if I was given the choice to train only ONE LIFT – it would be the deadlift.   There is just not any other lifting motion as pure as deadlifting.  Men have been picking up things off the ground for years and the deadlift strengthens this basic physical function better than any other lift.  Of course, these are all just my opinions and I welcome anyone to debate these points on the USAWA Discussion Forum.

My Extreme Wrist Roller

by Al Myers

Al Myers finishing a set with 200 pounds on his Extreme Wrist Roller.

I am going to start off this week of stories on grip training by describing one of MY favorite grip exercises!   Don’t worry – I am NOT one of the winning stories as technically I’m not eligible since I’m the one running the contest!  I just want to share an exercise that is the backbone of my grip training.

The Wrist Roller has been around for years.  Everyone has one and everyone has done this exercise at some point in their training history.  Fifty years ago wrist rollers were practically the only grip exercise trained, and where included as part of “packages” in weightlifting equipment sales.  York Barbell would sell equipment packages (back in the 50’s) like this – a 220# set of weights with a bar, a neck harness, a pair of Iron Boots, and a WRIST ROLLER.  It was an important training implement back then, and still is – it’s just most lifters have forgot about it.  I have used several wrist rollers through the years – from a rope on a dowel rod to now what I call My Extreme Wrist Roller.   I am not a grip specialist, but I really enjoy the training exercises for grip.  I do a little grip training every week.  I don’t specialize on any specific type of grip strength – I try to do a little of everything.  Some areas of grip strength I’m stronger at than other areas.  I have a good squeeze grip, an average round bar grip, and not the best pinch grip.  It is interesting how different lifters will have different areas of  grip strengths.

The one thing I really enjoy about the Wrist Roller is that it works not just the grip, but the forearm muscles as well.  Too many grip exercises are, what I call, “hand dependent”.  This means the “lifting capacity” of these grip exercises are more about the size of the hand or the contact area of the fingers.  Bigger hands and longer fingers – more surface adhesion.  Growing bigger hands is not exactly something you can do.  You are pretty much stuck with what you have.  That is why I like forearm training better.  You can ALWAYS increase the size of your forearm muscles or strength of your forearm muscles.  How many “hand dependent” grip exercises do you train that feel easy up to your max, and then you add 5 pounds, and it becomes impossible?  I can think of several – exercises like the Rolling Thunder and any Pinch Grip exercise.   These type of exercises go for me like this – easy, easy, easy, impossible.   And trying a little harder doesn’t help!!  It is still impossible.    The Wrist Roller is not like that.   You can push yourself as hard as you would like.  Sometimes I think I will NEVER get the loaded vertical bar to touch the bottom of the Wrist Roller (which I consider the finish of an attempt), but I keep after it till my forearms are SCREAMING WITH PAIN!  You can accomplish any lift with a Wrist Roller if you want to try hard enough!  That’s my kind of lift.

After a few sets with this Extreme Wrist Roller, your forearm will be PUMPED!

I like to do progressive loads with my Extreme Wrist Roller.  I will usually start with a couple 45’s and then add weight as I add sets.  I try to do 4-5 sets total in about 15 minutes.  As I said, I’m not a grip specialist and usually do my grip training at the end of a regular workout.   I only “train grip” with the time I have left over.   But I’ll tell ya – 15 minutes on my Extreme Wrist Roller and you will know it!  Your forearms will be “blood engorged” and cramping from the exertion.  At times I can hardly close my hands when I’m done.   I made this Extreme Wrist Roller several years ago.  I was getting tired of those silly “rope on a stick” wrist rollers because I felt my shoulders were limiting me in how much I could wrist roll, because of the way you had to hold your arms out in front of you during the exercise.  With my Extreme Wrist Roller, the wrist roller is supported by the cage and it takes all of the shoulders out of it, and places all of the stress of the exercise where you want it – on your forearms.  The roller has a two inch knurled handle.  Your grip will not fail before your forearm muscles give out.   A side benefit is that the knurled handle will shave off all of your hand calluses by the time you are finished.  After you get the VB to the top – the exercise is not over.  You then need to lower it under control.  Sometimes this seems like the hardest part.

Now I hope you won’t forget about wrist roller training.

Big MISTAKE!

by Thom Van Vleck

Thom Van Vleck overhead pressing with one hand a 110 pound anvil. By looking at this picture it is easy to imagine the consequences if something "goes wrong" and the anvil slips out of Thom's open grip and falls on Thom's head. My advice is to always train a new lift before attempting max poundages and leave crazy strongman stunts like this to the professionals. (photo and caption courtesy of the webmaster Al Myers)

In this article I will detail what I see as the biggest mistakes I see new guys make as they enter into the world of the USAWA.  Others might have an opinion and I”m not saying that I am right about this being “the” biggest mistake….but I think everyone would agree this can be a problem.

I entered my first “odd lift” meet 30 years ago, and since then I have been to many USAWA meets as well as all kinds of strongman, highland games, powerlifting and Olympic lifting meets.  I have also done over 200 strongman performances.  During that time I have seen guys witness a lift or feat of strength for the first time and say, “Can I try that”.  They then try something they have never done before and go 100% in the effort.  That, in my opinion, is a BIG MISTAKE!  Sure, most of the time you’ll be OK, but it’s that one time that will end a season, or worse, a lifting career.

Recently, a friend of mine was in a strongman contest that included a steel bar bend.  He sent me a video of his effort….that resulted in a  muscle tear that he is now getting surgery for.  He was trying to bend it behind his neck and dropped his elbows and ended up in a a position like someone trying to close a “pec deck” machine.  Having bent literally hundreds of steel bars in various shapes, I cringed as soon as I saw it and soon enough he dropped the bar and winced in pain!  He had never bent a steel bar before and had no plan on how he was going to bend it.  I bend them all the time in our strongman shows and practiced this many times before ever doing it in front of a crowd or a contest where the pressure is on to go all out.

The nature of the USAWA makes it the “worst” for this kind of mistake.  Other sports have a much more limited “range” of lifts which means they get practiced much more often.  You can’t train hundreds of lifts, you can only have a strategy to train all around strength.  I know Al Myers often trains one pressing movement, one pulling type movement, and one squat type, constantly mixing the specific lifts up.  I also know Al will train a particular lift until he knows exactly how to do it and exactly how much he can expect to do on it before he enters a meet.   I’m not sure if he was always a smart lifter, or if he became one as a result of many injuries (that’s how I got smart), or both.  But I do know Al is a smart lifter who knows exactly what his ranges are come contest day.  He not only knows this for safety reasons, but for strategy as well!

How often have you seen someone make a lift they have never tried before, say, “that was easy”, then say, “Throw on a couple 45’s” and then be buried by it!  It’s the nature of many of these lifts.  At best, it’s embarrassing, at worst, you get seriously hurt.  My point is that you NEVER want to go right to a maximal effort the first time.  The USAWA is full of fun, new, exciting….and dangerous….lifts.  But they are only dangerous when you don’t know what you are doing!   Take the time to learn the lift, warm up plenty, practice the lift before the meet, and pick your poundages wisely!  Live to lift another day!  Listen to the old timers….they are still lifting for a reason!

My Grandfather Clyde Myers

by Al Myers

My Grandfather Clyde Myers deadlifting 100 pounds at the 2006 USAWA National Championships. He is the oldest lifter (at age 90) to have EVER competed at the USAWA Nationals.

Yesterdays lead in question of  “who was the oldest USAWA member to ever compete in an USAWA National Championships?”  brings me to a story I would like to tell.  Actually, this is a story I have wanted to tell for a long time but just now am ready to tell it.   This lifter was none other than my Grandfather Clyde Myers. Gramps competed at the 2006 USAWA National Championships at the age of 90.  I was the promoter of this meet, and he really wanted to compete to show his support to me and our organization.  Grandpa was not a lifetime weightlifter,  but his years of manual labor as a farmer built his strength beyond that of “normal people” his age.  He was very active up till his death at age 92, on August 5th, 2008.  He was born on September 30th, 1915.   The last 8 years of his life he lived with me and my family.  Grandpa was always a very active man, and seemed to always be in great physical shape.  Now living with me, he started to take interest in my weight training.  Nearly every week he would spend time in the gym with me, and often he would do some light weight training.  He began to love exercise.  I know he would have been a great weightlifter if he would have had the opportunity to lift when he was younger.  But in his day the notion of physical exertion for the “fun of it” or for “health reasons” was looked down upon by those in the farming community.  Farming was so physically exhausting at that time it was felt you should be saving your strength for the work at hand, and use it for something beneficial, like providing a living for your family.    I remember as a kid when I first started weight training Grandpa didn’t understand why I would be wasting my time picking up a barbell when all I really needed to do was go out in the plowed field with him and pick up rocks all day!  That was the way he was brought up.  It wasn’t until he retired and was living with me till he discovered what  “physical culture” really meant.  His days of hard farm work was behind him and he soon realized that exercise was the “spice of life” and that if he spent his days doing some light weight training and exercise he felt better.

Clyde Myers with his World Record 2-Hand Pinch Grip of 66 pounds at the 2006 Dino Gym Record Day.

Grandpa Clyde usually did my record day every year, and joined the USAWA because of it.   He liked the idea of breaking or setting records and since he was in an age group where it is slightly easier (not too many records in the 85 and 90 age brackets) to get a record,  it was a sure thing he was going to “come away” with a few.  He especially liked the grip lifts because he could lift weights in these lifts comparable to younger age groups.  His best USAWA records are a 66# Pinch Grip, 118# Right Hand 2″ bar Vertical Bar Deadlift, and 134# 2 bar 2″ Vertical Bar Deadlift.   All of these records were set in the 90-94 age grouping, 80-85 kilogram classes.  He also was very proud of his grip strength in the Hand Dynamometer.  A Hand Dynamometer is a hand held device that measures your grip strength in pounds and kilograms.  Dale Harder has made this device well known in his books as he keeps track of ranking lists with it.  In one on his latest books, Strength and Speed published in 2009, he lists Clyde Myers as the best of ALL-TIME in the One Hand Dynamometer with a grip reading of 42 kilograms for someone over 90 years of age.  He also holds the ALL-TIME World Record in the One-Hand Partial Deadlift for a lifter over the age of 90, with a fine lift of 205 pounds.  In this lift, a chain and handle is attached to a bar and the bar is only lifted an inch or so off the floor.  This record is also included in Harder’s book.  His 66# Pinch Grip is also listed as a World Record for lifters over 90.  It is interesting to note that the 80 plus age group Pinch Grip World Record is held by the famous Australian Strongman Harry White, with a lift of 72 pounds.  I witnessed this lift of Grandpa’s as I judged it at one of my record days and I can tell you it was a sub-maximal effort.  He had never done a Pinch Grip before and I loaded it up for him thinking it would be “about right” for him and he did it easily.  He didn’t try anymore. In fact, he only took that one attempt and it was the World Record!!   When his records came out in Dale’s listings, he was very proud of it and made me make a photocopy of it so he could show his friends!

I was quite surprised when he said he wanted to enter the Nationals I was hosting.  I didn’t pressure him at all to do it.  Besides my little record days, this was the only official meet he ever entered.   Several of the lifts in this meet were very difficult – lifts like the Steinborn and the one arm Snatch.  I was a little worried that he wouldn’t be able to EVEN do the lifts!  But he surprised me and won Best Lifter for the over 90 age group (uncontested of course) and received a nice plaque for his efforts.  Again, this made him feel very good about what he had done, and it was well deserving, because he did what no one else has ever done, and that is competing in a difficult National Championships in the USAWA over the age of 90.  Others may eventually do it, but he will always be the first.

Grandpa in front of the Dino Gym Sign, which he drew and painted.

Most people don’t know this outside of the Dino Gym, but my Grandfather was a self-taught artist and was the one who drew the Dino Gym Logo.  I told him what I wanted and he went to work.  It was done entirely free hand and his first copy was the one we used!  It was perfect from the start.  The Dino Gym contains the original sign which he created.  When I first had T-Shirts made with the Dino Gym Logo on them he was amazed.  It was the first time (and only time) that one of his drawings was on a shirt!  That means alot to me now, and I often wonder how he would feel if he knew how many lifters are wearing the Dino Gym Shirts around today.

My Grandfather was very eccentric in lots of ways (I know I am too – so that’s where it probably came from!).   He was also an inventor and craftsman and built lots of interesting and unique things in his life. As he got interested in physical exercise he decided to “invent” an exercise device that catered to the elderly.  Most older people can’t do the exercises (like riding a stationary bike or walking on a treadmill) that younger people can do.  Grandpa designed and built a very interesting seated machine that allowed a combination of cardiovascular training, flexibility training and resistance training all  at the same time.  He “marketed” it to the local nursing homes and sold several of them.  I’m sure some are still in use today helping elderly patients in physical rehabilitation.  He picked a novel name for it – as he called it “The Exerciser”!  He considered himself the testimony of it and would always do the demonstrations himself when selling a unit.  How can anyone argue with the sales pitch when a 90 year old is making it look easy and appears in great shape???   He trained on it three times per day – every day.  The Exerciser kept getting more complex as he kept adding new parts to it to do different movements.  (I’m sure this story explains a little about myself for those that have seen my Dino Gym).  Grandpa always wanted to get a patent on it but never took the time to make that happen, as he was too busy thinking of the NEXT thing he wanted to build.  This was just one of the many original things that he built in his lifetime.

My Grandfather Clyde Myers was also an outdoors man, and loved to spend his free time fishing. We spent several hours together on the bank of a pond with our hooks baited waiting for a big catch. He is the reason I am also an outdoor sportsman.

Grandpa died the day I got back from the 2008 USAWA Nationals in Columbus, Ohio.  I was very worried about leaving as I knew he was in bad shape and might not last until I got back.  The day before I left he assured me that he would be alright until I got back, and for me to go “give it my all” at the meet.   He was always very supportive of my lifting efforts and would listen to all the details of the meets.  Well, the day I got back he passed in his sleep.  He was one of the most influential men in my life, and helped shape me into the man I am today.  There is not a day that passes that I don’t think of him and miss him, but I know his heart was with The Lord and I will see him again.

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