History

1970s Powerlifters photo set, from the invaluable Bruce Klemens.

The Soul is Greater than the World - training clip

The Best of the Best

Bruce Klemens: All time greats lift sequences.

Pressing

Schemansky

Gallery.

Simmons

The Repetition Method.

"In the 1970s, the great Olympic lifter Vasili Alexeyev used a variation of the repetition method for part of his training, sometimes doing power cleans non-stop for 2-3 minutes. He would do various hybrid exercises: front squat and push press, squats with the bar on his hack and drop squats, etc. The bar weight was light but would work every muscle cell. He would do a warmup by throwing a 220 pound barbell over his head backward 100 times. Then after practicing the snatch for over 2 hours, he would spend an hour in the pool, lifting his legs hundreds of times to strengthen his abdomen. Then he would leap merely 1000 times, He would use many exercises to gain great strength arid to raise his work capacity, and of course his total."

265kg at 91kg

The Records

If you've ever wondered about the best lifts ever, here's a list.

Five Things I Learned from Doug Hepburn

Great advice from a strongman legend

by Charles Poliquin

Long before anabolic steroids became a common shortcut in the Iron Game, there were several amazing athletes who achieved Herculean levels of maximal strength. Their formula for success contained the optimal mix of principle-based training, sound nutrition, adequate recovery and a drive to improve. One such athlete was Doug Ivan Hepburn.

Hepburn was born in Vancouver, Canada, on September 16, 1926. Born with a clubfoot and cross-eyed, Hepburn took up weight training when he was 15 and overcame his disabilities to become incredibly strong - by age 18 he could squat 340 pounds, bench press 260 and curl 140. Many strength historians argue that at his peak Hepburn was the strongest man in the world. Here's why.

When bodybuilders were sportsman, too...

Tommy Kono

Bill March

Child's Play

Alexeyev breathed deeply as he gazed upon the room. He said, "I have done it with my own hands. I have a talent for carpentry. I have clever hands--I have what peasants used to call 'hands of gold.' I have laid the bricks in much of the courtyard walls. I have cleaned stones for my garden. I have built stools and tables here. I have built this room." At the rear of the building is a gazebo that Alexeyev also built with his golden hands. It contains a Ping-Pong table and a chinning bar. Asked if he used the chinning bar in his training, he looked surprised and scoffed, "Nvet. It is for the children, but even they are too wise to use it."

Classic Complexes

My conviction that Alexeyev's priceless experience will not be lost was strengthened when I saw that at the end of 1976 he conducted a trial get-together at the Podolsk sports base to train the young heavyweiahts. I won't try to describe in depth Alexevev's method (he has written about it in his dissertation as a science degree candidate) but I'll explain the reason for its great effectiveness.

Usually the athletes lift barbells and then immediately drop them. This takes several seconds. According to Alexeyev's method, the sportsman finds himself under the weight for a period of two or three minutes. The entire organism must sustain this prolonged effort, as the athlete completes several consecutive exercises without letting go of the equipment. The weight of the barbell is relatively light, but the varied work with it affects every muscle cell.

By the end of the two-week session, all Alexeyev's students had increased their bodyweights as a result of muscle growth and at the same time they'd increased their abilities. Here is what Sultan Rachmanov said: "At first I trained in mv own way. I didn't believe that Alexeyev's advice would help me. Now I believe ... My shoulders, my back, everything is filling up with strength. There is this to consider. Not everything will come my way, but I'll take the most important! (At the USSR championships in Karaganda, Rachmanov, who up until then had not been a 400 man, became the third prize winner with the distin- guished sum of 420 kilograms. In the fall this athlete took the USSR record in the snatch. And who is to know, perhaps he will be the successor to the glory of the hero of the Munich and Montreal Olympic Games!)

Each of Alexeyev's students noted that thanks to this unusual system of working they have acquired a good amount of self-confidence in their own strength. Yes, and I too have noticed with what incredible ease the athletes picked up the 160-kilo barbell in the snatch at the end of the training session.

The 1976 annual Heavy Athletics ran a detailed article which Alexeyev called "The Experience of My Training.' In this first scientific publication of the strongest athlete, the author refutes some unsound (although they've existed for ten years) methodological concepts about how to develop strength in athletes of the heavyweight class.

He writes: "In the first years I trained according to the accepted methods. But then, from 1966, I decided to significantly increase the size of my training weight. This immediately brought results. By the end of 1967, I had gained 32.5 kilograms in my triple sum total and by the end of 1968--42.5 kilograms. For athletes of the superheavyweight class, the average rate of growth had by this time significantly increased."

Vasili includes a great variety of exercises in his training. "Besides exercises in the-· snatch, jerk, or press, pull and squats, I have used many other exercises with the barbell and weights. Bends with the barbell on the shoulders; bends with the barbell on the shoulders while Iving on the 'horse' bracing one's hips, with the legs secured; jumps with the barbell on your shoulders; press on crossbars with weights; bending and unbending the arms in the elbow joints; squats on one leg; throwing the bar upward and behind; and other exercises. In addition, in the first year of the time span analyzed, these exercises consisted of, on the average, 360 lifts in the preparatory period and 158 lifts during the competition period. In the second year, correspondingly 841 and 506 lifts, and in the third 880 lifts a month."


From The Science of Winning.

Yuri Zakharevich - 210kg at 110kg Snatch (1988)

Undoubtedly one of the greatest lifts ever.

Photo Fun Dec 08 - 206kg Snatch

True Look of Power

Hey, even with my low bodyweight, I was a world champion. You can call it any complex you want, but it just look more appealing to have a guy with a beautiful figure on the platform, than some dude with a huge belly. I do feel more kinship with Schwarzenegger than with the shapeless Paul Anderson, the classics of American weightlifting. - Pisarenko

Kolecki - Robbed of Gold in Beijing

Top Snatches from the Supers

If you aren't able to see all the videos from the games online, this link has some of the top snatches from the Supers' A session.

OLYMPICS

If you haven't been watching the lifting, catch up here.

Interview with Kendrick Ferris

Here's talking with America's highest ranked weightlifter at Three White Lights.

10 Big Squats

Some all time impressive lifts.