Plague of Strength

Jesus was a powerlifter. He lifted so goddamn hard. He never did win no world record, but he did get his pro card.

As I work on the article series on Muscular Christianity, I can’t get over how undeniably weird the movement is- it’s easily weirder than the Flat Earth movement, though marginally more logical. I’ll admit it is somewhat less nonsensical than the inclination for American evangelicals to support racism, the death penalty, crony capitalism, exploitation of the working poor, demonization of immigrants, and all of the other wildly un-Jesus-like shit they espouse, but of all of the things early Christians were, jacked-as-fuck paragons of hypermasculine virtue they were not. Every since I lifted in a Gold’s in Tulsa on a Sunday morning and had some pastor babble Christian platitudes at me until I finally told him to shut the fuck up, the intersection of Christianity and lifting has been mysterious and comical, and Zuver’s Gym illustrates that point nicely.

Zuver’s Gym stands as the most bizarre example of this movement. Designed as a way to rope wayward youths and hardcore lifters alike into the welcoming bosom of Southern California’s particular brand of wild-eyed Christian zealotry, Zuver’s was like those nutcases doubled down on their weird as fuck honey pot recruitment practices. They weren’t just luring dudes in with the promise of getting their dicks sucked for Jesus- they were luring them in with the promise of getting their dicks sucked on the low-low with some serious muscular dude sweat and the occasional glimpse at some sweet buff Christian titties… for Jesus

If you don’t recall my rundown of Zuver’s, go here. Certainly, none of the Christians involved with that gym will enjoy my characterization thereof, but as I outlined in the first part of this series, Calvary Chapel did some seriously shady shit and there was a lot of low-key gay shit going on in their church at the same time as they had a public obsession with stamping out homosexuality. I have no problem with anyone fucking anyone, but railing against it publicly while getting fucked up and sweaty with dudes behind the scenes is the exact sort of behavior you’d expect out of people who cherry pick their own holy book to justify their incessant judgmental shittiness and endless Ponzi schemes for properties in heaven.

All of that nonsense aside, Zuver’s would have been the greatest gym on the fucking planet were it not for the fact that it was part of a movement that preyed on the mentally ill and ostracized. In its heyday it was arguably the best equipped gym on the planet, and it boasted the best lifters in America outside of Bill West’s gym and York Barbell. They had a couple of world record holders, like Tom Overholtzer, and strength luminaries like Paul Anderson and Pat Casey were fixtures there as well (Anderson was a preacher, so that makes sense).

Frankly, the idea of everyone at a gym utilizing the same methods to gain strength seems ridiculous to me, but as people love locking themselves into programs so that they can brag that they do such-and-thus trendy routine, I figured it would make sense to share the Zuver’s method. Though I would venture to guess they relied on a significant amount of Christian magic, there’s no record of the sorts of sacrifices and offerings they did. Certainly, there are plenty in the way of blood sacrifices in the Old Testament, and California was the capital of the world for killings in the 1960’s and 70’s, so there might be an element of slaughter to the success of Zuver’s lifters in that era… there certainly hasn’t been an accounting for the whereabouts of a lot of the Southern California missing persons in that era, and I like to think Zuver’s played a part, because that’s far more fun than just thinking their church bilked a bunch of lonely old people out of their Social Security money.

“They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.”

– Joshua 6:21 leads me to believe California’s missing persons were all buried in a crawlspace under Calvary Church.

My ridiculous speculation aside, what we know of the Zuver’s method comes from the recently deceased Dr. Ken Leistner, who lived in a tiny camper (only slightly larger than a king sized bed) with another man for months as they trained at Zuver’s. According to Leistner, a typical program for a lifter at Zuver’s in the ’60s was fucking brutal. Tons of sets, tons of reps, and tons of weight. They moved enough weight on a daily basis that they were probably catching the attention of the Colombian cartels, but luckily Zuver’s members were always heavily armed. My puns aside, you natty bros should probably just stop reading here because you’ll find yourselves overtrained just from reading this, and any Redditors will definitely suffer anal leakage and possible eye strain from glancing over this volume. Their sessions were longer than a motherfucker due to the fact they practiced the way they played, so there were massive delays as dudes wrapped their knees with eight ace bandages, mummified themselves in sheets, and did all of the other insane shit they did to get the effects of today’s gear.

Monday

Bench Press- 5, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2 (adding weight over the sets), then 3-8 singles
Dumbbell Bench Press (palms facing each other)- 4-8 x 3
Dips– 4-8 x 3 (vary hand spacing from set to set)
Squat– 5, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2 (adding weight over the sets), then 3-8 singles

“Once every 3 or 4 workouts, work would be done in the rack, shortening the range of motion to 3/4, 1/2, or 1/4 squats, depending on the weakness of the individual squatter (remember, we were doing pretty much full squats in competition in those days). These partials were done just as the full squats and the emphasis was on using a ton of weight (a half ton anyway. It wasn’t that unusual to use 1100 to 1200 for the 1/4 squats)” (Leistner).

Wednesday

Incline Bench Press- 6-8 x 3
Deadlift / Rack Pulls (they alternated them week to week)- 5, 5, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2 (adding weight over the sets), then 3-8 singles
Stiff Legged Deadlifts– 4-8 x 3
Heavy Barbell Curls– 4-8 x 3

Friday

Same as Monday.  

Clearly, I was a bit heavy-handed in my abuse of the Zuver’s people, but evangelicals are a scary bunch of fucking weirdos, and they frankly don’t get enough shit from the world at large. As such, I’ve taken it upon myself to wage a one-man war on their continual encroachment on our collective psyche. Regardless of my opinion of their anti-intellectualism and general unpleasantness, they did produce some strong lifters and utilized a system that is pretty unique in its execution. As such, it might bear some experimentation on your part to see if their volume or rep scheme bears any fruit for you. Failing that, you could always try some Old Testament human sacrifice and see if that gets your bench up.

Like I said, you never know if it’s going to work without trying it.

Sources:

Leistner, Ken.  How we trained at Zuver’s, Part 1.  Reprinted from Feb 1979 Powerlifting USA.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  23 Jul  2016.  Web.  5 Sep 2019. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2016/07/how-we-trained-at-zuvers-ken-leistner.html

Leistner, Ken.  How we trained at Zuver’s, Part 2.  Reprinted from Feb 1979 Powerlifting USA.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  28 Jul  2016.  Web.  5 Sep 2019.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2016/07/more-of-that-ken-leistner-plusa-article.html

Liked it? Take a second to support Jamie Chaos on Patreon!