HISTORY OF POWERLIFTING, WEIGHTLIFTING, AND STRENGTH TRAINING NUMBER 98: WORTHY OF A FIGHT? THE GOOD OLD DAYS, PART THREE

Posted by in Dr Ken Leistner on February 1, 2017 Comments off

HISTORY OF POWERLIFTING, WEIGHTLIFTING, AND STRENGTH TRAINING PART 98: WORTHY OF A FIGHT? THE GOOD OLD DAYS, PART THREE
By Dr. Ken

When you’ve been around a “smaller” sport like powerlifting for many decades and you’re an “older person,” two things generally become true: you “know everyone” involved in the sport through those many decades, and in the minds of most, you become a better lifter than you actually were. I’ve been publicly credited of late with the latter when in truth, I was the equivalent of a boxing “ham-and egger” (as an amateur boxer, I was already a “ham-and-egger!”). I can say however that my many travels and involvement in powerlifting in

As good as it got in the 1970s and often many years after that. A very young Dan Martin enjoys the hotel ballroom setting of a major contest, performing in front of perhaps a few hundred fans. It is safe to state that most contests remain at a level no more elevated than this one

numerous capacities has left me with at least a passing acquaintance with most of those who were part of the founding and early history of the sport. I am one of those individuals, as my magazine and internet columns and articles through the past fifty-plus years indicate, that believes that knowing a sport’s history is important. Powerlifting’s struggle for legitimacy, shedding its mantle of “The Hell’s Angel of Organized Lifting Sports” as one top official once uttered to me, and overcoming what should have been Olympic weightlifting’s suffocating influence allows the present generation of competitors and fans to better understand why we are not and never will be an Olympic sport, why we are not and never will be a television draw, and why our contests are still small-potatoes affairs usually left to an audience of family, friends, and training partners. None of the above descriptive statements about our sport are necessarily negative they are, at least in my opinion, just how things are and we should all enjoy it the way it is.

To this point in our reading, we can sum things up easily:

-Until the early 1960s, Olympic weightlifting, not bodybuilding, was the driving force behind the public perception of what “lifting weights” was perceived to be.

-The inroads made by bodybuilding as it moved towards the top of the Iron Sports food chain, were difficult and slow because the general public, athletic coaches, and most athletes viewed the entire activity as a producer of negative physical traits like loss of speed, stiffness, and diminished coordination for any sport or activity. The close association with homosexuals and homosexual behavior, even if this was more perception than truth served as a major cultural black eye.

-The financial backing, even though primarily from York Barbell Company as the only source at times, was directed to Olympic lifting.

-Most trainees and competitors involved in any form of lifting activity performed the same basic barbell and dumbbell exercises and thus, many if not most were “as strong as they looked” and “looked as if they lifted weights.”

-There were many who did not have the flexibility, athletic ability, and/or interest in performing or training the Olympic lifts and wanted another outlet for their competitive desires.

-Thus was born Odd Lift Contests and then, Powerlifting.

My comments in Parts One and Two of this specific article drew a number of correspondences filled with both praise and disagreement. My intent of course has been to indicate the struggle powerlifting has had for any bit of recognition relative to other sports and any of the other lifting related sports. Some complaints came from the perspective that Bob Hoffman and the York Barbell Club did in fact, support or even strongly support powerlifting. There

A long-time friend who was the personification and reflection in the metamorphosis of the lifting sports is Tony Scrivens. Above, an older newspaper clipping noting one of Tony’s bodybuilding victories. Tony, a tremendous athletic specimen, also engaged in boxing, powerlifting, professional wrestling where it was said, “he could deliver standing dropkicks like Curt Hennig, and in one fell swoop snap off a power slam as crisp as toast.” Tony is perhaps best recalled as a Strongman Contest competitor and promoter

can be no argument that Hoffman was for decades, the strongest supporter of Olympic lifting in this nation if not the world. I doubt few spent the fortune he did in promoting and literally paying for the sport’s survival and eventual status as a respected Olympic participating activity. Yes, he made money doing this but without him and York Barbell, there would have been no Olympic weightlifting in the United States or at best, a very truncated version of it. It may be hard to believe for the younger generations that at one time, we were competing for world supremacy. Arguments can go all day and night, and have in past decades, whether he was fair, biased, dictatorial, benevolent, caring, or concerned with the lifters and the sport relative to his commercial interests and gains but there can be no argument; he was the guy, the savior, and the one benefactor that made Olympic weightlifting whatever it was in this nation. By the early to mid-1970s when Bob tired of the recreational drug use of the York lifters, lifters in general, and those of the younger generation that was spawning the pool of eligible lifters and turned his attention and fortune to the sport of softball, Olympic lifting in the United States suffered and did so for decades. Despite many efforts from many individuals, the establishment of a centralized Olympic training center that includes Olympic lifting, and attempts to secure corporate financing, weightlifting is a minor sport, little more than a blip on the worldwide spectrum of participatory and spectator events.

Some contend that Hoffman and the York crowd, what was his crowd of AAU/lifting officials and administrators, did not try to hold back powerlifting, that Bob was vocally and financially supportive. The contention upholds the notion that Hoffman and York worked “

behind the scenes” to contribute in a positive way and that Odd Lift and Powerlifting Contest results were reported in York magazines from the early formation of the sport. For those of us who lived the history, I would disagree. There were those at York and part of the American Athletic Union (AAU) lifting administration that did in fact like powerlifting, saw it as an alternative lifting sport, and if nothing else, provided a viable commercial opportunity to expand the sales of nutritional supplements and lifting related equipment. In some areas of the country, including the New York City region, Odd Lift Contests and “our guys versus your guys in these five lifts” type of competitions were prevalent into the mid-1960s in part because Olympic lifting did not allow powerlifting to get much traction. While York gets credit for eventually producing squat racks and benches that were of safer and more appropriate construction for actual powerlifting, the development of a stronger, stiffer barbell and thin-line plates to accommodate the larger loads powerlifters were subjecting the equipment to, 100 pound plates to make loading more efficient, and of course promoting some of the early national and world level meets, there will always be argument if this was done because there was a supportive belief in the activity or instead done for very obvious commercial reasons. There was always and will remain, the belief that Hoffman’s attitude was “encouraging any lifting activity makes for one more potential Olympic lifter,” thus there will always be a division in those that believe that

Joe Weider of course was to bodybuilding, what Hoffman was to Olympic lifting, at least as a general statement. Joe did in fact put his resources almost solely into the “body end” of things and turned from near bankruptcy to a vise-like and very profitable control of the sport. He certainly managed to have the California powerlifting scene linked to the Weider name thanks primarily to the clever writing of Dick Tyler but it would be difficult to state that Weider was a true supporter. His “world championship” as described in Part Two last month, was no more than attempt to fill a void and of course, make money. When control of amateur sports was taken from the AAU, one of the disadvantages of not having a strong leadership or leadership group, and not having a consistent source of financial support, was a decades long battle for control of powerlifting that led to the establishment of numerous organizations. Each chose to tout its own perspective which may have included drug use, anti-drug use, drug testing, anti-drug testing, strict judging in accordance with the existing rules, judging that often did not come close to satisfying the rules so that lifters knew they would set personal and/or larger scoped records in specific contests, and almost everything and anything else one could think of. Are things “better” now? Do lifters train and compete for financial gain, corporate sponsorship, free supplements and attire, or widespread adulation? Have we been forced to endure and persevere in the gym for our own satisfaction? We are not big time, won’t be, and really should we be?

Joe Weider aligned himself with the original Westside Barbell Club and prominently featured articles about the training methodology and contest performancesof George Frenn, Len Ingro, Bill Thurber, and the rest of Bill West’s garage crew. Needless to add, bodybuilding remained the “be-all and end-all” for the Weider empire, not powerlifting

Joe Weider of course was to bodybuilding, what Hoffman was to Olympic lifting, at least as a general statement. Joe did in fact put his resources almost solely into the “body end” of things and turned from near bankruptcy to a vise-like and very profitable control of the sport. He certainly managed to have the California powerlifting scene linked to the Weider name thanks primarily to the clever writing of Dick Tyler but it would be difficult to state that Weider was a true supporter. His “world championship” as described in Part Two last month, was no more than attempt to fill a void and of course, make money. When control of amateur sports was taken from the AAU, one of the disadvantages of not having a strong leadership or leadership group, and not having a consistent source of financial support, was a decades long battle for control of powerlifting that led to the establishment of numerous organizations. Each chose to tout its own perspective which may have included drug use, anti-drug use, drug testing, anti-drug testing, strict judging in accordance with the existing rules, judging that often did not come close to satisfying the rules so that lifters knew they would set personal and/or larger scoped records in specific contests, and almost everything and anything else one could think of. Are things “better” now? Do lifters train and compete for financial gain, corporate sponsorship, free supplements and attire, or widespread adulation? Have we been forced to endure and persevere in the gym for our own satisfaction? We are not big time, won’t be, and really should we be? powerlifting was pushed forward or held back during its first ten years of struggling existence.