Training Methodologies of the 1960's by Dr. Ken E. Leistner

Training Methodologies of the 1960’s By Dr. Ken E. Leistner This is the transcript of Dr. Ken Leistner’s Training Methodolo gies of the 1960’s audio lecture. Special thanks to Lauree Draper for permission to include this material in drkenleistner.com

There’s a strong interest in the training methodologies and the bodybuilding and lifting culture of the 60s. That’s something I can speak on, because with a football-related background and with very little training information available in the late 1950s, I embarked on my quest — and it truly was a quest — to become bigger and stronger. The purpose and focus of my training was to become bigger and stronger for the express purpose of playing football…and surviving on the street. Our neighborhood had quite a bit of lifting activity. The area could best be described as a tough, middle-to-lower middle class with pockets of a lot less than that. There were a lot of hardscrabble kids who respected physical strength, power and fighting ability, because that was something that was done on a weekly to daily basis.

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There were gangs in the high school and junior high. We had physical intimidation. Relative to most other areas, we had quite a few lifting-related facilities and guys who lifted. This was very unusual for 1958 and 1959, which was approximate ly the time I began to train with weights. I can say from the age of nine, I was interested in lifting weights. But I had no knowledge, no role models, no equip ment and no facility that I was aware of. I didn’t begin to ac tually train until I was approximately 12. My first barbell was a truck axle, with flywheels from the truck, as well as one or two cars that had been abandoned on an empty lot next to our house. Our home in Point Lookout, New York, which at the time was considered to be the ass-end of Long Beach at the very end of the Long Beach barrier island, was an isolated area that served primarily as a summer community with perhaps 200 to 400 people as full-time winter residents. To do anything, we had to hitchhike into the town of Long Beach, as there was no other way to get there unless we had a car. There were a few of the fellows in Point Lookout and certainly in Long Beach who were muscled, looked good, were tough

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and were highly respected. They all served as role models for me. One of the best-built gentlemen in town was an older fel low who was a full-time year-round resident who, during the warmer months, would stroll or jog on the beach. He was fit, tanned and looked terrific despite being perhaps in his 60s at that time and ancient to my young eyes. We always referred to him as Mr. Siciliano. My father insisted I call him that, even though we were aware his ‘real name’ was Charles Atlas. Yes, I lived about two blocks from the Charles Atlas, who could not have been a nicer guy. Once he realized I was one of the young kids in town who was interested in becoming bigger and stronger, he always had a good word — a word of encouragement — and freely gave instructions on the proper way to do pushups, hand stand pushups, chins and pullups, bodyweight and calisthen ic types of exercises. These were things we could watch him doing on the beach in the mornings, especially during the warm weather. All of these influences, in combination with the first high school football game I viewed in 1957, truly motivated me.

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I was one of those compulsive kids who was very much a loner and who realized that weight training, despite the lack of information and the lack of public acceptance, was some thing that could be a very enjoyable activity. The repetitive nature of the activity intrigued me and didn’t bore me as it did most of the other kids. Once I had my truck axle and flywheels, I began to train on a regular basis, aug mented with a lot of running and walking both on the beach and on the streets. Now prior to the jogging craze of the mid-60s, anytime a young fellow was seen jogging or running on the streets, he’d invariably would be stopped by the police, pulled to the side walk and asked what he was doing. In the first few months, I was told running would be the pri mary exercise necessary to become a good football player. The gentleman who told me this was Eddie Price, who was a racetrack buddy of my father’s, a running back for the New York Giants and a former All-American running back at Tu lane University. Coming from an authority such as he, this was something I pursued with great vigor. I ran constantly.

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I was often pulled over by the local police and asked what I was doing. When I explained, “I’m running to become a better football player,” “I’m running for exercise” or “I’m run ning for health,” that usually earned me a crack on the back of thehead. Sometimes I got a punch to the stomach or a wrap with the nightstick across my buttocks or across the front or back of my thighs, and a request to enter the back of the police car at which point I would be driven home. The thought they had, of course, was I had robbed, stolen something, or was running from a crime scene and now needed to be brought home to my parents. Anytime the po lice took us in, a beating would be certainly administered by the parents, who would immediately support the police story. After two or three months of this, it was fully accepted I was the town nut. I was a health food and health-crazed individual who was really involved in strange activities. I ran or walked everywhere. I occasionally rode a bike or hitchhiked, but jog ging became my primary source of transportation. I was very dedicated in my lifting activities. I built a chin and dip station out of pipe my father welded for me and, of course,

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my fixed barbell consisting of the axle and flywheels. I had a smaller axle taken from one of the cars, as well as various gears from gearboxes we had disassembled, and used these as an adjustable barbell. I filled various pails with sand from the beach, which was convenient, or with concrete, and weighted them. I even had a selection of metal pails of various weights that resembled the kettlebells I had seen in Strength and Health, Young Mr. America and Muscle Power magazines, which were all the forerunners to Muscle and Fitness and the various Weider muscle publications that came much later. In retrospect, I had a pretty good variety of resistance that allowed me to progressively become stronger. This really was the start for me. I actually had pretty good results by the time I was around 13. I was very small. I was short and I was thin, but I was all wire. Actually, in conjunction with working in my father’s iron shop and on the back of his truck, I was ex ceptionally strong for my size. I received a phone call a number of years ago from the grand son of my high school football coach, who was entering the fitness business at that time.

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He had a number of training questions, but also said he’d found index cards that belonged to his late grandfather listing each player. He had a collection of a number of years of cards. The cards each had a player’s name, home address, phone number, height, weight and time in the 100-yard dash. He read to me my card, which clearly stated I was 125 pounds in the 10th grade. I was 135 pounds in the 11th grade, and 145 pounds for my senior football season. At about 5’5 ½”, that very much was in keeping with my recollection. I was never big up to that point, but I had been very strong. I augmented the limited information I had regarding training by reading the various muscle magazines. I had no idea I could subscribe to these publications, so I would wait on the date I thought they would be coming to the candy store or the local luncheonette — wait with the owner until the magazines ar rived and asked him to cut open the package that might have the muscle magazine in it. Of course, I couldn’t afford to purchase the magazine, so I would stand there and read it cover to cover. If I didn’t have the time to read it cover to cover, I read and memorized as much as I could.

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I occasionally took notes in a school notebook and then came back the following day to finish the magazine. When I got to the point I could actually buy them, I saved them and more or less memorized every issue. Like most young, enthusiastic trainees, this led to severe over-training, because month to month I tried to incorporate whatever material I gathered in the most recent issue and add — add, not substitute — add it to what I had already been doing. It didn’t take long to realize this method wasn’t going to work, so I began to pick and choose what I thought was the best ex ercises and best approach to training. I picked those exercises I could actually do on my limited amount of equipment and could continuously do. If I didn’t get bigger, I certainly got stronger, and I was very fortunate to be able to do so. In 1962 while in high school, I traveled to Manhattan. I start ed doing that regularly because I was already working on Sat urdays on my father’s truck or in the shop located in Man hattan. I would take time after work to visit Leroy Colbert’s health food store on 84th Street and Broadway. Leroy was a tremendous bodybuilder.

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He was extremely knowledgeable and willing, even eager to share the knowledge he had. It was at Leroy’s in 1962 where I met Dave Draper. One of the nice things about the lifting community in the late 50s, and into the late 60s, was people who trained were more than willing to provide information to whoever asked. The proviso, of course, was you had to figure out who had the information, where they were located and then get yourself to their locations where you would observe. Then, when they were done training, you could ask permission to speak, and ask your questions. There were many excellent bodybuilders in the New York City and Long Island areas. I remember one day looking for Mr. V’s Sport Shop in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Since you’re probably unfamiliar with Brooklyn in the 50s and 60s, the Red Hook section was a very tough area filled with gangs of various ethnicities, a tremendous amount of violence and was considered a poverty-stricken area. However, near the Gowanus Canal, there was a store owned by a gentleman by the name of Jack Meinero, who always ad vertised in the Weider magazines.

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I was determined to get over there just to see what was going on. Jack was supposed to be an expert in the Weider training methods. He always had ads that included Larry Cianchet ta — later known as Larry Powers — and Freddy Ortiz and some of the other New York area greats. I was walking toward the address I had, and across the street, I saw what turned out to be Larry Powers wearing a T-shirt and thought to myself, ’This guy has to be going to Mr. V’s Sport Shop.’ I literally followed him to the store and probably got him a little bit nervous because he kept looking over his shoulder to see who was following him. In that neighborhood, you had to be aware of whoever was following you. I went into the shop and asked a ton of questions. I got to meet Larry. I got to meet Freddy Ortiz. I got to meet a very young Tommy Aybar and a couple of other guys who later es tablished themselves as solid, nationally known bodybuilders from the New York City area.

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I probably went there five, six, seven or eight weekends in a row and I literally sat in a corner. I watched and I observed. I learned what they did. I heard about Mid-City Gym, so I went there and introduced myself to the owner. The owner, of course, was Tom Minichiello. I just wanted to watch and see what was going on. Also at that time in approximately 1961 or ’62, I got to see some of the lifters as well as bodybuilders because Mid City accommodated some of the Olympic lifting guys. Ike Berger, one of the all-time greats, was there. I believe he was split ting his time between California and New York. I saw Dave Sheppard and some of the other great lifters. That broadened my horizons and made me realize one could really get very strong and well built. Another fellow I met observing there was a young Olympic lifter, a bit older than me, who was in attendance at New York University. I was told he was one of the best shot putters in the country and may have held high school records. This was Gary Gubner who, like me, was seeking informa tion, although he already seemed to be stronger than most of the guys at the gym. 99Again, this was typical.

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You had to find out who was doing something, go and watch, and then ask your questions. There was no Internet. There wasn’t a great deal of communication through the mail. You had to go and get the information yourself. For me, this ex tended to traveling down to York, Pennsylvania. I hitchhiked to York Barbell a number of times. Later with much hilarity, in a story I’d written about a few times in a number of publications, my later training partner Jack Lawrence and I traveled to York in a blizzard with no windshield wipers. We purchased a power rack we literally threw across the hood of the car in a blizzard so we could stay inside to watch the lifting. Only later did we try to secure it to the roof and then drive the five hours back to New York with a more or less secured rack on the roof. There was great value in being motivated enough to seek out information. If you were motivated to travel and get the in formation from people you didn’t know, nor had been intro duced to and who were certainly intimidating to watch — al though 99% of them couldn’t have been nicer once you made

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their acquaintance — then it was information you valued. You truly applied it. If you went to all of that trouble to get the information, you were going to use it. If it didn’t work for you, you’d find out firsthand. To me, that’s still the best way to get usable, useful and functional information. Going back to Leroy Colbert’s health food store, there were a number of bodybuilders who just sort of hung out there on Saturdays. Dave Draper was one of them. I remember sitting in the back of the store. Leroy and Jackie, his wife at the time, who was Rock Stonewall’s sister, would be in front, serving the customers, and then came back and were nice enough to answer our questions. One or all of us would run out to a local deli to get these six foot hero sandwiches and a quart of milk. I should say one foot hero sandwiches, although Dave was capable of eating a six-foot hero. We essentially spent a couple of hours eating and drinking milk, which was very standard in those days, listening to Le roy and whoever else was there who had a contest-winning experience…and just learn.

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This provided the basis for my strength training education. Everything I did after that followed much the same learning procedure. When Nautilus became popular — something new and very mysterious in 1970 — there came a time a number of years later, though not too many years later, when I was considered to be one of the original guys in the second wave of original Nautilus guys. Not only did I go down to Florida, ask questions and sleep in my van in the parking lot of the factory, I got a job in the factory. I got a job working for Arthur Jones, doing demolition in his new home. I got to live in that house as I worked on it and had free access to Arthur. I became a tractor-trailer driver for Nautilus, and wound up working in the prototype shop, and in the machine shop for seven years. After moving back to the New York area, I would be called upon to do special projects for Arthur. It was a matter of get ting firsthand experience, going to where the information was, learning as much as possible and applying what I felt would work for me.

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In a sense, that art — that procedure— is something that has been completely lost in the last couple of generations. People now look on the Internet, maybe send an email. They get in formation. I don’t think it’s valued as much. I don’t think it’s applied with patience. I remember when we owned the Iron Island Gym. Guys would come in and we gave them routines. They’d use it for three weeks and say it didn’t work, or guys would train for six months and when they didn’t win the New York State Power lifting Championship, so they decided to do something else. That’s not how it was in the 60s. We got the information sometimes through an arduous jour ney. We were patient. We applied the knowledge. We really found out if it worked for us. After meeting Dave and seeing him a number of times at Le roy’s store, I became a fan because he was in the magazines, which gave him instant credibility. He was big. He was strong. He certainly was something I would have aspired to be had I been interested in physique contests. I wasn’t, but I did aspire to be very big and very strong like Dave.

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Dave moved to California after working in the Weider ware house in Union City, New Jersey, and, of course, became the Dave Draper we all know and love. For those who are won dering, yes, he was quiet and shy. He was just as nice, polite and considerate back in 1962 as he was when spoken to last week. When my training partner Jack and I first traveled to California, it was once again to see what was going on, to see where the information was. We went to get the information, and then we’d apply the information. As an aside, we were there to visit Bill Pearl, with whom Jack had a long-distance mail correspondence relationship. Bill had invited Jack out, so we just picked up and went. Within a 24-hour period, we discussed it and we threw what we owned in the car. In 54 hours, we were in Los Angeles, which in retrospect is rather amazing in an old clunker, espe cially having been arrested on the way out, which took about three hours. But we banged it out and settled in at Pearl’s gym, where we were told to go get other information. One of the places we went was Weider’s Store in Santa Moni ca. Dave Draper was the one who was sitting behind the desk in the store that fronted the warehouse.

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We rekindled the old relationship, although I’m not sure he remembered me and he certainly didn’t remember me as well as I remembered him. He had already won the Mr. America contest and a number of other major titles. It had been a couple of years since we had seen each other, but he could not have been nicer and gave us great training information. He explained his training had been at the Dungeon, which was another place that was really fascinating. For those of you who have seen Dick Tyler’s 1961 film, Proj ect Power, quite a bit of it was filmed in the Dungeon, which was the basement of an old hotel. It was dark, damp, dank and dingy. Guys would sit on reinforced milk crates while pressing 150 or 180-pound dumbbells. They had wooden planks set up across cinder blocks, and guys would bench 500 lying on that. It was a testament to making do with what you had, very much like I had with my truck axle and flywheels, and then pro gressing to the point of national prominence through moti vation and hard work. It didn’t take fancy equipment. It didn’t take very much equipment at all.

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Most of the guys, and this included Olympic lifters and odd-implement lifters, which later progressed to the sport of powerlifting — Olympic lifters, bodybuilders and powerlift ers — everyone trained more or less around a foundation of the same basic exercises. Everybody did overhead pressing and bench pressing. The Olympic lifters specialized and did more low-repetition pressing. The bodybuilders did higher repetitions. The pow erlifters overhead pressed to augment their bench pressing. Everybody benched, including the Olympic lifters. No one worried about having tight shoulders or anything like that. This was just seen as another exercise one needed to do. Everybody benchpressed; bodybuilders perhaps with higher repetitions and more sets. Powerlifters specialized more on triples and singles. Olympic lifters also spent a lot of time doing bench presses. Everyone squatted. Almost everyone did front squats. Front squats were not the exclusive province of Olympic lifters then. The powerlifters did them to augment regular squats. The bodybuilders did them to provide direct work for the quadri ceps. Many of the bodybuilders did a ton of front squats and

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minimal back squatting after they’d achieved a certain mini mal amount of muscular size in the thighs. Continuing right down the list, everyone did rows. Everyone did cleans. Everyone did deadlifts. There were a number of basic exercises — 10 or 12 basics — everybody did if they were interested in being bigger and stronger. The bodybuilders would diet, doing more repetitions and more sets prior to contests. The powerlifters would focus pri marily on the squat, bench press and deadlift. They did lower repetitions heading toward a contest. The Olympic lifters did the Olympic lifts, of course, but con tinued to squat, front squat, row, shrug and again do the ba sics prior to their contests. Because of that, most of the fellows who were consistent in their lifting all looked really good as long as their fat percent age wasn’t too high, and all of them had great, basic overall levels of strength. Of course, this is another concept that has flown out the win dow.

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One of the disappointing things in powerlifting, and I think a lot of the uninitiated don’t realize it, is the top guys are very strong in the three specific competitive lifts and in three spe cific planes of motion. But, many of them are not particularly strong at doing anything else. It might be difficult to comprehend that someone could weigh 181 pounds, benchpress over 450, squat over 700 and deadlift 700, and not be that strong. But many of them aren’t, other than within the parameters of the competitive lifts. A lot of the Olympic lifters, especially with the elimination of the overhead press movement, are tremendously athletic and very strong within the context of doing snatches, clean and jerks, and all the assistant exercises they use on a regular basis to enhance those competitive lifts. A lot of the bodybuilders, unfortunately, aren’t very strong at all. Some certainly are, but many are not because they don’t train the basic exercises. They don’t train multi-joint movements that essentially force the body to become strong if done in a progressive, consistent manner.

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In the 60s, most of the powerlifters who were of reasonable body weight, meaning under 250, and most of the bodybuild ers were quite strong and looked quite good. They looked fit and muscular. One look at the pages of the old magazines confirms that. Again, this is a concept that has been lost. Most of the body builders from the 60s also looked athletic when you saw them in person. The contorted bodybuilding poses do not appeal to the public — male or female — and even in the past very often obscure the fact that when walking on the beach, athletic field or on the street, most of the bodybuilders who were either advanced at a competitive level or less than a competitive level looked like athletes. They looked like very well- developed individu als with good movement skills and good gait patterns. In looking at the modern collection of bodybuilders, one would think they have suffered from dread diseases over a lengthy period of time that cause some sort of ongoing mus cle spasm or palsy.

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Of course, the sense of athleticism is a concept that just no longer exists. It isn’t in the consciousness of the bodybuilding public. As far as the lifters are concerned, a sense of athleticism isn’t in their consciousness either. They’re interested in the numbers. They’re interested in hav ing a big squat, a big bench and a big deadlift. Nothing else really matters. Health doesn’t matter either. This is one of the things from the 60s where we began to see a deterioration of an adherence to practices that promoted good health. Even with guys who were early steroid users — and early drug users because the recreational drugs became a very ma jor part of the bodybuilding culture — there was a continuing awareness one needed to follow what was called the physical cultural lifestyle that included proper eating, proper rest and proper living or, for lack of a better term, proper living pat terns. One of the things everybody did who was either involved in bodybuilding, powerlifting or Olympic lifting was to eat a diet

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that was high in protein, moderate-to-low in carbohydrates and moderate- to-low in fat intake, other than what you got in conjunction with your protein intake. Specifically, if you ate a lot of meat, you had a certain percent age of fat in the diet. Aside from that, guys just didn’t eat a lot of junk food for the most part. It wasn’t part of the physical cultural lifestyle. Again, that’s something that has been lost through the de cades and generations. Now, if you can maintain three drugs through severe diets for the kind of muscularity you’re seek ing, you’ll eat anything. That includes all of the things that were on the forbidden list in the 60s. The forbidden list included things that weren’t healthy, like white sugar, white flour products and a lot of processed foods. There was an emphasis on eating natural foods and unpro cessed foods, what we then called organic foods, even in the period of time when Dannon yogurt, which was made in the New York City area, where it was a health food and could only be obtained in select health food stores.

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Yogurt was not sold in supermarkets and was considered foreign and exotic. We understood we ate yogurt and wheat germ, but didn’t eat cake, pie and cookies. It was a different type of mindset — one, in retrospect, I think left many of those engaged in lifting activities a lot healthier than they are today. If you talk to any competitive bodybuild er or powerlifter, for example, a diet is something used to reg ulate body weight or something manipulated in order to be as muscular as possible at contest time. However, the concept of health, if it exists at all, is secondary to the point where it’s hardly on the list. This was a key fea ture, especially in the 50s and at least to the mid-60s, of any body who lifted weights. I can tell you, if you were in the New York City area, on the subway or walking down the street and you had any degree of muscularity — and I keep saying men because women just weren’t engaged in the activity at that time and weren’t much until the mid-to-late 70s — and you saw or if you were seen by another person who was at all muscular or well developed, you would be stopped and asked if you lifted weights. We rec ognized a fellow trainee or a fellow lifter and would engage in conversation about training.

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It was almost a cult activity that attracted relatively few people. This meant a typical Mr. Olympia gathering and the Olympia contests were the epitome of the bodybuilding community coming together. If there were 5,000 people at the Brooklyn Academy of Mu sic, 3,000 of them were locals from the New York City and Long Island area and we knew 2,000 of them. We knew them personally, knew them on sight. We knew their training part ners, or knew them through others in the lifting community. This is another concept — the concept of the lifting commu nity and bodybuilding community— that’s very much been lost. With the emphasis on youth, looking good, and anti-ag ing so you can maintain a youthful appearance and perfor mance, you don’t have that sense of community where there weren’t a lot of people involved in what we were doing. There weren’t a lot of people who had the interest we had. We knew a lot of people didn’t approve of it and we felt a certain kinship with those we recognized as having a similar value system. That sense of community is long gone. It made for an exciting and always interesting approach to our training because everything was new.

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Everything was bringing results that we’d have to look to rec ognize. We couldn’t depend on others to give us the informa tion on the Internet. Again, other people’s information should not dictate your information, primarily because their results will not be your results. What they’ve learned will not be what you learn from engag ing in the same activity. These are all things we older guys complain about anyway — applied not only to the lifting sports, but life in general. Going out and seeking empirical information differs great ly now from what it used to be. To me, there’s a real loss — there’s a real sense of loss. The we had to track down infor mation built a sense of community and a sense of sharing we just no longer have. I can remember meeting guys like Joe Abbenda, who won the America and the Universe in the early 60s. He’s a guy who became an attorney and still practices. He’s a great advocate in the defense and support of young people and young people in need. Joe built his physique training in the attic of his mother’s house. Training in the attic, the ceiling was too low for him to

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do overhead presses, so he had to do them on his knees. He did them with enormous weights — cleaning on his knees, and pressing on his knees. When you try to tell this to people, of course, they’re incredulous and don’t believe it. There were guys like Joe, who essentially ascended to the heights of the sport. Joe influenced Dennis Tinerino to train. Tom Sansone was the guy Joe looked up to. When we first met guys like this, they were enthusiastic. They all had a tree, sort a family of trainees they had influenced. Then the second group would come and have their influence. The community literally spread out that way. I can remem ber days training at Tony Pandolfo’s storefront gym in Valley Stream by the Queens border. Tony’s cousin would come in with Steve Michalik, and Michalik would come in with Chris Dickerson. Chris would come in with Boyer Coe, who was visiting. Bob Galluchi, who lived in Connecticut, would come down be cause he wanted to train with Boyer. We’d have six or seven current, future or former Mr. Americas training in one spot, just for an afternoon of fun and training. This is what they did.

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They exchanged information, talked about training and talk ed about the things they ate. This is something we just don’t see any longer. Guys seem to think it’s a lot easier or better to go to an Internet forum where people talk about stuff that isn’t true. It’s made up to glorify them. In the older days, we really got to see what worked and what didn’t. If there is any sense of loss for me in the iron sports, this is probably the greatest one. In my garage, for example, there are always big, strong guys training. There are a lot of guys who visit. There are professional football players who come over. It’s really unusual when other guys just show up, or leave a phone message and ask, “Is there any way I can ask a ques tion? Can I come over and watch?” It’s just not done anymore. I’m not sure why not, other than it’s just not the way informa tion is gathered. That entire learning process, which is what I’m really stress ing, is a process that ultimately leads to the greatest gains,

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self-discovery, and degree of learning about yourself and what works in this very specific area of weight training. It’s something I’d love to see return, but in the age of quick information, I don’t think it will. I hope this little introduction to the 60’s and my introduction to training is helpful to some. I hope it’s useful.

Dr. Ken

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