Tag Archives: JWC

Ultra High Rep Training

by Thom Van Vleck

Albert Beckles: One of the great bodybuilders from the 60's to the 90's who used ultra high rep training.

Albert Beckles: One of the great bodybuilders from the 60’s to the 90’s who used ultra high rep training.

So I was talking training with Al Myers the other night and he asked me if I did a particular exercise.  I said I did.  Then he asked me what kind of weight I used.  I said bodyweight.  He then asked if I didn’t use weight how was it progressive resistance.  Was it reps?  I jokingly said I was up to a 1000 reps.

That got me to thinking about Ultra High reps. Usually strength training falls in the 1 to 10 rep range.  Body building 10 to 20 reps.  But what about high rep training.

My Uncle Phil was a bodybuilder but he had to travel a lot for his job.  Back in the 60’s and 70’s there weren’t many gyms he could find so he developed a routine where he would do 100 reps on bodyweight exercises.  Such as push ups, sit ups, leg raises, etc.  He weighed around 220lbs so doing 100 perfect push ups was a real challenge.  And believe me, he did them strict and non stop.

Bill Clark once wrote about doing something similar.  As a baseball scout he spent much of his time on the road.  He did a “Deck of Cards” workout.  He would shuffle a deck of cards, pick a bodyweight exercise, draw the card and do however many reps the card represented like in black jack.  This would amount to several hundred reps in one workout.

But what about weight training with high reps?

When I was a kid and just starting training I would peruse the weightlifting magazine collection my Uncles and grandfather had.  They went back to the 1930’s.  There was one magazine that had an article by Albert Beckles.  Beckles was a bodybuilder that placed as high as 2nd in the Mr. Olympia and won a pro event at age 61.  He competed at a high level from the 1960s to the 1990s.

This particular article he was pushing single sets of 32 reps.  This seems absurd and to be honest back in the day lifters would lie in articles about training as they wanted to keep their routines secret.  I read later articles on his training and it was more conventional.

But I tried it.  Talk about a pump!  I could see where as a bodybuilder that might be an effective routine to cycle in every once in awhile.  I don’t see how you could maintain that for very long but it might be good to “blow the cob webs out” every once in awhile.  Why 32?  Beckles just said that he originally would do them to failure and 32 was where he would usually end up.

I have a set and rep system I call “Hundred’s”.  I usually use it on calves and forearms that you need higher reps to get anything out of them.  If I use it on another body part it’s usually with an assistance exercise.  But I’ve used this set and reps program on the Bench Press before.  Believe it or not I started with 205 for 30 reps.  By the last set I was barely able to do 135 for 10 reps.

So sets and reps go like this:

First set:  30 reps

Second set: 25 reps

Third set: 20 reps

Fourth set: 15 reps

Fifth set: 10 reps

These total 100 reps.  I usually do them as quickly as I can.  The hump always seems to be the third set.  The final set I usually do slow and deliberately really squeezing the muscle.  What I like about the scheme is I feel confident I can do 5 less reps with each set although by the third set it becomes a real struggle.  I have to admit that 100 is a nice, round number.  I just adjust the weight until 100 reps is all I can do.

Will Ultra High reps build a lot of strength and power?  Probably not but they will build endurance which will in turn help with the lower rep exercises with the added conditioning.  If you try it share your results.

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 Long, Lost Ship Wheels

by Thom Van Vleck

The old "Ship Wheel" Collars compared to later types.

The old “Ship Wheel” Collars compared to later types.

Collars for weights are an interesting topic to me.  The “spin” type collars have been around for a long time.  They have clamps that tighten down with nuts and then they have a “spin” collar that turns into the weight to tighten it down.  Since these came into use there seems to have been a hundred new versions come out.  Kind of like the mouse trap…everyone invents a new one yet the good, old spring snap traps still seem to work the best.

Over the decades the old spin collars seem to have not changed much.  But they have and it’s a change not many would notice and few are left who would remember when they did change.  The short version is that the first collars York made had large ends like the above photo but were even larger than in the photo.  They were red, had brass wing nuts and were made up until WWII.  During, and for a period after, the war there was a shortage of iron.  In 1948 York redesigned the collar as the “nubs” tended to snap off and what you see above on the left is a representation of that redesign.  They made these to some time in the late 50’s (I’ve heard 1958) and then evidently had a back stock that lasted until 1963 as people bought them up to that time.  After that if you ordered collars individually or as part of a set you’d get the version on the right above.

This is a minor issue in the world in general, and even for most of the lifting world.  Maybe a topic for collectors and for those of us who just find some things “cooler” that have some character.  I’m one of those guys.  But here’s the rest of the story.

Way back in the day when my Uncle’s had saved for their first Olympic set they had to drive 180 miles to Kansas City to purchase and pick up the set.  It was a big deal.  They had saved for some time and that set of weights became the core set of many to follow and used by the Jackson Weightlifting Club (JWC) that created a Teenage National Champion, many state champs, too many contests to name, won two team state championships, and has had over 100 members over the years.  That set is in my gym and is still used to this day.  Well, almost.

I have the original bar and the original plated, including the “deep dish” York plates.  I had every part of that set….except the collars.  When I first started lifting in the mid 70s with my Uncle Wayne the JWC had fallen on hard times and the equipment kept in a barn with a dirt floor covered with wooden platforms warped from the damp and the weights being dropped on them.  There was no heat, no air conditioning…..it was pretty spartan and the weights rusted.  I cleaned them up and painted them.

There was a set of Ship Wheel collars but half the nubs were missing.  When they would rust he would bang them loose with another plate and they eventually started to break off.  At some point they got thrown away and I assumed lost forever.  I recalled them being red and I always assumed they were a part of the original set.

Then I made a trip to visit one of the original members, Wayne Gardner.  When he left the club in late 60’s he had taken a York set that he had shared with the club.  He was selling some stuff as he is no longer able to lift heavy.  I saw those collars and immediately asked for them.  He shot me a more than fair price and I was pretty happy to have a set of those collars that was just like the collars that came with that original set.

I was about to get an even bigger surprise.

As I asked Gardner about them he told me the story.  When he left the club he took his set but he had bought this set used in 1957 from a doctor in Kansas City who he thought had bought it prior to WWII.  That was where those red collars had come from.  He said he was mad that the other guys had broken his collars so they let him take the collars from that FIRST SET!  And here they were!

I don’t have to tell you how special a moment this was for me.  After all these years to have the original collars that belonged on that first York Olympic set.  I felt very blessed.  They were soon home and I loaded up the old bar with all the old weights and slide those collars on.  It had been at least 45 years since that set had been loaded as it was the day they bought it.

Of course, I had to lift it!  A fitting end….and you can bet I won’t be using another plate to knock these collars loose if they lock up!

The Husafell Stone

Thom Van Vleck by Pastor Snorri's goat pens in Iceland

Thom Van Vleck by Pastor Snorri’s goat pens in Iceland

By Thom Van Vleck

I recently took a trip to Iceland for a Highland Games competition.  While there I went to take a try at the Husafell Stone.  The Husafell Stone is a lifting stone of 409lbs located near Husafell, Iceland.  I think it’s history is well recorded in other better articles and most strength fans know of it so I wanted to focus on my day with the Husafell Stone.

I had been in Iceland for nearly two weeks.  I had competed in the Masters World Championships of Highland Games in Hafnarfjordur, Iceland for two days and then circled the entire island.  I had saved the Husafell for the last day so if I did try and lift it and I got hurt then it wouldn’t ruin the entire vacation!  Most of all I just wanted to visit an stone that I had heard and read about for the past 25 years that has been lifted by some of the greatest strength athletes of all time.

So that last day Michelle and I drove up a valley called Reykholtsdalur.  It is a valley sparsely populated now but historically a very significant area.  As we went along we stopped at various places and visited ancient settlements and new ones that span a 1000 years of Iceland history.  As we drove East houses became more and more sparse and the country more rugged.  I had an image in my mind of mountains and a distant glacier with a mountain stream nearby with waterfalls. I pictured very few trees and lots and lots of rocks.  The final location of the stone did not disappoint.  It didn’t hurt that we had great weather.  It was about 60 degrees and sunny.

One of the three Challenges is to set the stone on a corner of the pen.

One of the three Challenges is to set the stone on a corner of the pen.

As we pulled up I immediately saw the goat pens where the stone was located.  I parked nearby and stepped outside.  Michelle walked with me to the pens and even though there were no shortage of huge rocks lying around I immediately knew which one was the pen slab!

As I stopped and looked at it lying on the ground I could see traces of lifting chalk and maybe a little tacky.  On the ground it was not that imposing. It is basalt and basalt is a very dense stone which means it’s heavier than it looks!  It is a triangular, flat stone and very dark, almost black.  As I turned it on it’s side I found out how heavy it really was!

Michelle took some photos while I warmed up.  I lifted some smaller stones for practice.  I put on one of my oldest Jackson Weightlifting Club shirts. I also slipped on my trusty old belt that I’ve had for almost 30 years.  I was not as apprehensive as I thought I would be. I think I’m at an age where I feel comfortable with what I’ve done.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like to lose a battle.  I just felt a comfortable confidence.  I was honestly just happy to be there!

Michelle and I by Dettifoss. It's the largest waterfall in Iceland and in all of Europe!

Michelle and I by Dettifoss. It’s the largest waterfall in Iceland and in all of Europe!

I went about the various challenges.  There were a few hikers that went by as there is a trail that heads up the nearby stream.  One came over to see what I was doing and watched a bit.  I felt a little embarrassed to be honest.  It was like a private moment.  Kind of like trying a personal best in the gym verses a lift in competitions with witnesses.  There’s a part of me that wanted this to be just me and the stone.

I spent a solid 2 hours there.  I met a lot of failure in the process.  Trying to figure out hand holds, dealing with some fatigue after 12 days on the road and going on hikes, and getting my 53 year old body to do what I wanted it to do.  In the end I felt successful.  Though I’m sure some might feel I didn’t do it “legit”.  I would compare any lifting I did to a “continental” versus a “clean”.  I was just happy to be there!

Iceland!

Iceland!

There was a moment I was just leaning against the pens and looking down the valley.  I had an unobstructed view.  Over my right shoulder were mountains, over my left was a distant glacier, to my left was the ravine filled with waterfalls that fed the nearby stream.  To my right was Husafell and the forest of evergreens that obscured it.  Directly in front of me was Pastor Snorri’s farm and a small Church.  It was very quiet.  The sun felt warm and the air crisp.  The only drawback was a few midges that felt it important to let you know they were there.  It was a good day to be alive.

Michelle and I walked over to the nearby Lutheran Church.  It was a small, stone Church with a small cemetery filled with birch trees stunted by the harshness of Iceland.  The Church was surprisingly open and we were able to go inside.  You could tell it was still an active Church.  The baptismal font, the communion cup, and the alter were roughly carved out of native stone.  It was a beautiful, simple place that made me feel as close to God as the most amazing Churches I’ve visited and believe me, I’ve been to some amazing pieces of architecture.

Finally it came time to go.  I was not sad.  I felt like my trip was a success and part of me would carry the moment with me forever.  So it’s not like I’ll ever really leave.  Lifting has given me and excuse to travel to some amazing places but I think the best  thing of all is it has fed my earthly spirit.    The next day my forearms were bruised and my back was stiff.  It felt great!

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!

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