In the summer of 1963, I spent 6 weeks in Venice, California, training at the outdoor “Muscle Beach” area. It was fantastic and I got to meet and watch many well-known bodybuilders and strength athletes. One guy really stood out. He was the most massive man I’ve ever seen and two or three times a week he would come walking down the beach with a quilt, with a cutout for his head, over his shoulders. He was friendly and usually had a smile on his face. His favorite exercise was the incline barbell press.
Who was the best-looking couple (man and woman) at Venice that summer? I only saw them twice (they weren’t regulars), but they were both lean, muscular, and tan.
Back in the mid-70’s, the Strength and Conditioning Coach from West Point spoke to us coaches at a few football clinics. Briefly, he said “1 set, 2 seconds up, four seconds down, between 8-12 reps to failure. The entire workout will take from 12 to 15 minutes.” We were all flabbergasted to say the least, having only known two to three hour bodybuilding sessions as the only form of weight training. Talk about resistance, I don’t think any of us were convinced!
The strength coach’s name was Dan Riley. He went to Penn State and did well. Then, he was hired by the Washington Redskins and they won the Super Bowl several times.
Dan Riley also wrote many books on strength training.
Yes, Dan Riley, thank you. Looking back, I obviously didn’t understand the difference between volume and intensity. I remember pressing him after a seminar about how it could not be possible to build muscle and get stronger after only 1 set, and in order to appease me, he said, “OK, two.”
I was not aware he went to Penn State, but I did know they followed the same guidelines through the 80’s. A former player of mine was on a football scholarship there and became huge. When I asked him what the routine was, he hilariously demonstrated how he couldn’t even move his arms to get a drink of water; the workouts were that intense.
thats awesome