Back To The Rack, Part One

Readers have been asking me to write about power rack training as taught by Dr. John Ziegler. I'd been pondering the subject for some time but couldn't figure out how to cram all the pertinent information into one article. Then I decided I didn't have to: I should cover the deceptively simple training method over a period of several months, dealing with critical points and bringing in side issues related to the over all rack-training story.

One reason I wanted to do a series on the power rack is that we can’t afford to lose this valuable form of strength training. Still, only a handful of people fully understand the system laid down by Doc Ziegler and know how to incorporate it into their overall program. They were the ones who worked directly with Ziegler and are the only ones I can consider to be authorities: Bill St. John, Bill March, Dick Smith, Louis Reicke, Tommy Suggs, Joe Puleo, Tony Garcy and yours truly. Bob Bednarski, Homer Brannum, Vern Weaver, Dr. John Gourgott, Grimek and Stanko have moved on to that big weight room in the sky. If I've overlooked someone, I apologize.

I didn't put Bob Hoffman on the list, though, for good reason. He never grasped Ziegler’s concept and couldn't actually put an athlete through a power rack workout. What he did grasp , however, was the economic potential of Ziegler’s brainchild, and he made the most of it.

My point? Well, there just aren't that many of us left who had the opportunity to learn from the man who invented it how effective power rack training was for gaining strength. As I'm the only one of the lot currently on a strength-training beat, I feel obligated to pass along the beneficial information that seems to have fallen in my lap. Which is fine with me.

Before I go into the specifics of training that you can do in a power rack, though, I want to give you a picture of how the concept revolutionized what went on in the weight room in the early 60s. It was then that power rack training became a essential part of the routines that gave competitive weightlifters, bodybuilders and others who lifted an edge in their chosen sports. I also want to talk about what jerked rack training from the forefront and pushed it into disfavor- so much so that by the end of the decade only a few athletes still used Ziegler's program.

We have to put the principal players on the boards because without them there would be no story. It was a period of the most dramatic change in American weightlifting history, and it all happened because of Doc Ziegler’s creative genius. I plan to give credit where it’s due, fix blame accordingly and clear up some misconceptions about what actually went on at the York barbell club. I've always felt that what happened during those few short years was a fascinating tale and I hope you'll agree.

Power racks as we know them today didn't exist until the 60s. Some of the old-time strongmen like Paul Anderson and Bob Peoples trained on racks, but they were homemade rigs used primarily for supporting heavy weights. Sid Henry, an engineer by profession, designed one for the Dallas Y weight room that was the most ingenious I ever used. We lifted in a tiny space next to a squash court, and when Sid determined that the staircase squat rack was taking up too much room, he built one that served a similar purpose but could also be used for exercises besides squatting.

Sid's rack consisted of two four-by-fours set on a 45 degree slant against the wall. He drilled holes every four inches and offset them so that they wouldn't split the wood. Into the holes he inserted metal pegs that he could move up and down the sturdy supports. It was extremely functional. You could do a variety of exercises- flat bench presses, inclines, overhead presses, jerks, squats and shrugs. For front or back squats, Hoffman's York barbell Company was the dominant manufacturer of weight-training equipment in the world, and it began selling thousands of well-built power racks. According to him the rack was necessary for anyone doing the new, advanced form of strength training.

That was lie number one, at least on that particular subject. Having a York rack wasn't necessary at all, and lots of people figured that out rather quickly. It was pretty easy to build one using two-by-fours and drilling holes in the wood where you wanted them. You didn't need an Olympic bar or any weights in order to do the system, just a straight metal bar or length of pipe. For example, I built one in the Marion YMCA weight room all by myself. It might have been the ugliest power rack in the country, but it got the job done. Trust me: if I could build one, so could anyone else with half the effort.

Fueled by Hoffman’s success stories in Strength and Health, York's house organ, the isometric craze swept across the country like wild fire. The only thing I can compare it with is the running and jogging phenomenon that occurred in the late 70s. Colleges, high schools, YMCAs and other institutions involved in sports loved the idea. Isometrics were easy to learn, simple to do and best of all extremely safe. No free weights cluttered the area, spotters weren't needed, and the entire workout could be completed in as little as 10 minutes- even less if you were in a hurry. An administrator’s dream.

I was a student at Southern Methodist University when isometric training took off. The athletic department there had resisted every attempt Sid Henry, an alumnus, and I made to install a weight room for the football team, but they eagerly joined the isometric movement. Ten racks were built out of two-by-fours under the stadium. The entire football squad would zip through a workout after regular practice sessions. At night, when I didn't lift at the Dallas Y, I'd climb the security fence and do an isometric circuit in the dark.

The York Barbell Company had a monopoly on commercial power racks for many years, and Hoffman was smart enough to take full advantage of the situation. He offered a wide selection, the big seller being the Super Power Rack. I think every YMCA in the country bought at least one. Made of tube steel, they were stout puppies; you can still find them in home gyms and older lifting facilities. The supports were eight feet high with 550 holes in them. Attachments held the device to the wall, and flanges and four pins secured it to the floor. It cost $99.95- a mere pittance today, but it was the Kennedy era, and a hundred bucks was a great deal of money (roughly the weekly wage for most Americans).

A 310-pound Olympic set cost $129.50, which made the Super Power Rack a major investment. Realizing that, Hoffman offered two cheaper wooden versions. The two-by-four model could be had for $39.95, and the one made from four-by-fours was $49.95. Hoffman discontinued the wooden racks early on, however, when he figured out that customers were using them to make copies. He replaced them with a smaller metal model that he called the Portable Power Rack. It would have been difficult to duplicate unless you had access to a metal shop.

The Portable Power Rack sold for half the price of the Super Power Rack and was made with lighter metal. Much shorter than the big guy, and with its own platform, it was ideal for anyone who trained where there was a low ceiling, such as a basement or a apartment. York also marketed a truly portable apparatus, the Strength Builder. That consisted of two 18-inch metal bars and a length of chain that you could attach to the bars at different intervals so you could do a wide range of isometric movements, it was only $5.95.

Hoffman teased Strength and Health readers with bits of data on how to do the new isometric system, but he never revealed the details of the entire program. The 34-page manual on the subject was available for 5 dollars.

The thing was, once you figured out how to do an isometric exercise, you really didn't need any equipment to do some body parts. All you needed was a immovable object against which you could pull or push for the designated length of time, and you were in business. A low doorway served as the top press position and a car bumper as an isometric pull.

In 1961 an American Olympic weightlifting team toured Europe and Russia, lifting in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Paris and London. Sid Henry was the heavyweight, and he told me that some of the lifters tried doing isometric pulls on the ancient plumbing pipes in the Russian hotel, ripping them completely out of the wall. That ended the team's isometric training for the duration of the trip.

The emergence of isometric training put Hoffman, the self-proclaimed father of American weightlifting, in hog heaven. He'd hit the motherlode, and the vein seemed to grow wider and deeper each month.

You may be wondering how a former oil-burner salesman with no formal education or background in kinesiology or applied anatomy could possibly come up with such an original training system. The answer is simple: He didn't. Hoffman was capitalizing on what Ziegler had found in his research.

Unlike Hoffman, Ziegler was a man of science. A surgeon and general practitioner in Olney, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., he specialized in physical rehabilitation. His interests in that field of medicine came from being severely wounded in World War II while serving with the marines in the Pacific. He carried metal plates in his head and leg for the rest of his life. Weight training had helped him rebuild his body, and he retained a fondness for that activity and for athletes who lifted weights. He believed that Olympic lifters were the strongest men in the world, so it was only natural for him to be interested in what was going on at the York Barbell Club, just 90 miles from Olney.

Hoffman and Ziegler hit it off right away. They were both big men, over 6'4" and weighing close to 300 pounds. Ziegler had the more assertive personality, which would eventually lead to conflict. Hoffman had to be the center of attention at all functions, and Ziegler often overshadowed him- no small feat and one that Hoffman didn't appreciate. In the beginning, though, that wasn't a problem. Ziegler liked the idea of being associated with the York weightlifters and bodybuilders, and Hoffman liked the idea of having a M.D. as part of the York organization. Hoffman wrote articles using the name Dr. D.A. Downing, figuring the medical title would add credibility to his messages. Dr. Downing was his dentist.

In 1954, Ziegler traveled as team physician with the U.S. Olympic team to the World Championships in Vienna. What he learned there set in motion events that ultimately changed strength training, bodybuilding and competitive sports forever. The event was a pivotal moment for him because the American coaches and lifters didn't like the Russians and avoided fraternizing with them. Ziegler, on the other hand, was very gregarious and loved to party and happily joined the Russians for their nightly revelries. The Russians took to him right away, impressed by his size, friendly demeanor and intellect. Mostly thought, they admired his ability to drink as much vodka as they could. His capacity for mass quantities of alcohol was amazing.

During the drinking bouts in the wee hours of the morning the Russians' tongues began to loosen. Ziegler learned that they were experimenting with strength-enhancing drugs and a form of exercise that made athletes exert pressure against a barbell in a fixed position.

Back home, Ziegler's research convinced him that the Russians were on to something potentially beneficial to the York lifters. He encouraged Hoffman to sponsor some testing, but Bob ignored him for several years. That type of training reeked of the dynamic-tension system that had brought Charles Atlas fame and fortune, and Hoffman had skewered Atlas and dynamic tension often in Strength and Health. He believed that Ziegler's concept, which the doctor called isometrics, was too much like what Atlas had been selling for years.

What finally changed Hoffman's mind was a study out of Iowa State University that Dr. C.H. McCloy submitted to the magazine for publication. McCloy showed that non-apparatus exercises led to marked strength of the muscles. Hoffman, first and foremost a business man, understood that if he didn't grab the new form of training and run with it, someone else would. Someone like Joe Weider or Dan Lurie.

Hoffman ran McCloy's article in 1959 and agreed to sponsor the testing of Ziegler's ideas. Now test subjects were needed. That's where the other three members of the cast step onstage.