Plague of Strength

To reiterate the aim of this series, it serves to impart the idea that your conception of yourself isn’t you- in fact, it only fucking exists in your head. If you adjust your conception of yourself to reality, rather than trying in vain to bend reality to your will, you can actually achieve great things, and they might not be the great things you’d originally anticipated. And this shit isn’t just limited to lifting, obviously- in part one I gave a number of examples ranging from baseball to chemical engineering, but there are examples closer to home, like Ric Flair.

When professional woo-er Ric Flair began wrestling, he was a 300 pound “big man” who just bashed the fuck out of pepole instead of wrestling and had no mic skills to speak of. After nearly dying in a plane crash, Flair went from 300 pounds to 180, spent an insane amount of time rehabbing, building his body back, and working on his ring skills, so that when he returned he became a legend for his insane conditioning. Though he started out like all wrestlers from Minnesota (doing nothing but moving massive weights for low reps), Flair added in a shitload of conditioning to match his new, far lighter body (6′ 230lbs), adjusting his physique and skills to the new reality he faced, rather than trying in vain to pursue a fruitless track fighting the existence of physical reality.

“For sure. One year, I did 286 hours of wrestling matches and I did 10 years of at least 250 [hours]. That, plus my workouts in the morning, which were 500 free squats, 200 pushups or 500 step-ups, or the StairMaster for 30 minutes. I was very keen on conditioning. At hotels, I would do the fire escapes — 35 floors up and down three times. I used to go through a deck of cards — counting the jokers as [No.] 20. Every time you turn a card, I’d do that number of exercises. So, I would do that many squats, crunches, pushups. It would be 440 of each. The best I ever did that was 38 minutes. Try doing 440 pushups in 38 minutes. I’ve only lost a pushup contest to one guy and it was Kurt Angle. And I didn’t take that as an insult.

By the time Ric hit his 60s, he was arguably one of the strongest and fittest men on the planet at his age, and can still out-cardio the younger wrestlers and move decent weight (he was still putting up 300 on the bench in his early 60s and deadlifted 400 at 64), and looking at his pics in his AWA days, it’s unlikely Ric Flair thought he would even live to see the age of 64, nevermind retire from wrestling as one of the greatest in-ring performers in wrestling history.

Let your path in life and lifting develop itself, rather than trying to force yourself to ascribe to and assimilate with an image or a personal philosophy that probably doesn’t match your own.

As teens, Sam and his brother Joe would leap out of bed at 3AM on a daily basis to help their father buy produce, then would return home and train like teens possessed from 5-7AM before going out to help their father on his delivery route.

“At times the temperature would be 30 or 40 degrees and then they would wear sweaters to keep them warm, since there was no heat in their little gym. At 13, when Sam started his training, he was of average strength and weight, with measurements of 12 1/2″ arms, 39″ chest, 28″ waist, 20″ thigh and 13 1/2″ calves . His training program consisted of curls, presses, chins, high pulls, supine presses, squats and dead lifts, and he never figures he had any training problems that time and hard work wouldn’t overcome. Sam exercised because he enjoyed it and he put his whole heart into his workouts” (Rader).

Adding to his already impressive physicality, Loprinzi began to box and wrestle in high school, and he and his brother began training at the historic Multnomah Athletic Club, founded in 1891 to serve the tiny populace of turn-of-the-century Oregon, which is now shockingly the largest indoor athletic club on planet Earth. That facility has inexplicably been filled with bleeding-edge weightlifting tech since it opened, and it served as the Loprinzis’ base of training operations as Joe and Sam competed in Olympic weightlifting (with Sam taking second to [I believe] his brother in both of his meets) and Sam set his sights on the Most Muscular award at the Mr. America.

Along the way, Sam and Joe found themselves in World War 2, wherein they taught physical fitness at Treasure Island (that’s the name of a real-life naval base, apparently) and became besties with fitness guru and television personality Jack LaLanne. Like Jack, Joe Loprinzi was an avid runner, and the three led long runs (the Loprinzis were really big on 6-10 mile runs) and calisthenics on the daily, likely all while competing at handbalancing and various lifts.

“Sam’s “memorable accomplishment in those years was breaking down the Navy brass’ stubborn resistance to his, and his brother Joe’s, request to set up a weight training program for the Naval personnel at Treasure Island Navy Base in San Francisco.  Since, in those days, the great fear was that the barbell trainer was doomed to becoming ‘musclebound,’ Sam’s first order of business was to demonstrate that such worries were unnecessary by means of easily assumed splits, back-bends, and the suppleness of his muscle control (along with his and Joe’s demonstrated athleticism in wrestling, swimming, boxing, handball, and hand-balancing (Weider 24).  By the end of their enlistments, the Loprinzi brothers were putting ‘500 men a day through the Loprinzi workouts and, whereas in the beginning they were using makeshift equipment, they ended up with all of the best equipment needed for the job.’ To make their ideological victory over the Navy complete, by the time of their discharge, the boys ‘received a… commendation from their superiors for their achievement in building such a wonderful program of physical training’ (Grimek 1617)” (Thomas 10).

Upon returning form the war, Sam and Joe took their handbalancing act on the vaudeville circuit, though they quickly abandoned it due to the shittiness of travelling- recall that in 1945 there was only one interstate highway in the US (Route 66) and the vast majority of roads in the country were unpaved. Travel at that time was fucking horrific- dusty/muddy, bumpy as fuck, and involved a hell of a lot of repairing of your slow-as-fuck, lead-and-cadmium spewing vehicle and pulling it out of ditches with your bare hands.

With handbalancing off the table as a career due to the United States’ infrastructure issues and the generally shit state of everything in the world in 1946, Loprinzi needed another way to make his mark. his family was already renown for their collective fitness, and Loprinzi’s arms made bodybuilding look really appealing. That said, bodybuilding was in much the same state the US road system was in at the time- it was mostly theoretical and the bits that did exist mostly sucked. Attached to the Ms. America pageant as what basically amounted to a Title IX-style concession to the men, the Mr. America pageant was originally scored with five points each going to muscularity, general appearance, and symmetry, and after John Grimek won the event twice, no winner could recontest the show because it was felt Grimek was as unbeatable as he was unpleasant to be around.

For that reason among many, most of America looked at bodybuilders like they were mentally ill halfwits with an Adonis complex. but after Dan Lurie obviously outmuscled the overall winners of the Mr America twice, they’d adjusted the criteria to weigh muscularity more heavily than appearance- 7 points to 3. That was after they’d gone away from muscularity to prevent “grotesqueries” like peeled-as-fuck yet bodybuilding-while-black Kenneth Pendleton and the only little person to ever win a gold in the Olympics for the United States, Joe DiPietro (as a bantamweight weightlifter) (Fair 77). As I said, the state of bodybuilding was not awesome at the time, and the Olympic lifting world was only marginally less shitty, but those were the only options available in 1946.

Being a reasonable man who had neither the time to waste nor the interest in fomenting a rules change in the sport, Loprinzi decided that he would take the overall on the chin, as a short man had no chance of winning the beauty pageant. He’d seen it first hand in 1945, when he and Kimon Voyages both completely failed to place behind people who were barely even bodybuilders, and short guys who’d come before him like DiPietro and Pendleton had both seen the judges shit on their dreams. As such, Sam set his sights on what he’d seen as the true winner of the bodybuilding portion- the most muscular.

Between the 1945 Mr. America and Bob Hoffman’s 1946 show, Sam Loprinzi trained like a man possessed. Dan Lurie had issued an open challenge to John Grimek for the two to compete in a non-AAU event to determine who the greatest living bodybuilder truly was, but the the show turned out to mostly just be a warmup for the Mr America, in spite of the fact the stage held nearly every legendary bodybuilder living in America at that time. Loprinzi merely wanted to win his class as a warmup to the most muscular at the Mr America, but ended up a very controversial thrid overall to Grimek and Olympic weightlifting gold medalist Steve Stanko (who was notoriously far more top heavy than even Loprinzi).

With that massive success under his belt, Loprinzi nabbed the Most Muscular in the 1946 Mr America with ease after remaining in York to train with the York guys until the America was held. This was to be the first time that respect for the Mr America was truly split between the overall and the most muscular award, and Loprinzi’s most muscular win was a beacon to every outsider in the industry who had the body but not the face for a pageant, and to every person whose physique had ever been described by some flabby bag of mayo as “grotesque” started to become a compliment.

And it was a beacon not because he set out to win that award and won it, but because he never again entered a competition, having proved himself already to be the most muscular motherfucker in the United States and perhaps the planet in 1946- that is how you set a precedent and make a fucking statement.

Amusingly, Loprinzi I doubt Loprinzi set out to be a freak- he was the furthest thing on Earth from a Zyzz or a Rich Piana. Like his brother and their buddy Jack LaLanne, Sam Loprinzi was obsessed with physical fitness, and he made it his life. His gym, which he opened in Portland in 1948, has been the hardcore, old-school go-to for every lifter in Portland for over 70 years.

“With an emphasis on free weights and massive, hand-built resistance machines, Portland’s original sweatshop has trained generations of champion bodybuilders. In particular, in addition to the standard dumbbells, barbells, weight plates, and original pulley machines, the workout floor features a Universal Gym Machine and a number of early Nautilus machines that date to around the 1970s”.

Sam Loprinzi’s Workout Routine

To say that lifting was in its nascence when Sam Loprinzi was a kid is an understatement- he was born within a decade of the first-ever bodybuilding competition and the first standard Olympic barbell wouldn’t even come into existence until Loprinzi was 15 (Gallagher).

“Sam’s training took on a new character, evolving from a chinning regimen to the Charles Atlas course when he was fourteen and then on to Siegmund Breitbart’s course when he was fifteen — his equipment in those financially lean years consisting of nothing more than barbells made from cement and an iron pipe” (Thomas).

When Sam first started his training he followed the only known system at that time, which was one set of 8 to 10 reps in each exercise in a generalized full body routine, using his homemade plates and bars. As time went on, his training methods progressed, but he never stopped training handbalancing, running, or swimming. Until he died, Sam Loprinzi swam twice a week and ran three times a week, irrespective of the weather (and obviously never on a treadmill), and given the fact that all of the people of that era warmed up with rope climbing and handbalancing, I would suggest you find a rope to climb (because that is definitely the source of his biceps) and perhaps give the shit in this old handbalancing text from the 1940s a try- it’s likely along the lines of what the Loprinzis did preworkout.

ROPE CLIMBING FUCKING WORKS. Strongman William Bankier (1870-1949) stood 5’6.5″, weighed 175 pounds, and rocked 15.75″ arms, and the only thing he ever did for arms was climb an angled 30′ foot rope once a day, every day of his life. The entire workout would only take about two minutes and put enough size and shape on his arms that most of us would be looking for a sweater to cover up our arm titties if he was in the room.

Monday/Wednesday

Warmup:

• Situps– 100 reps
• Leg Raises– 200 reps
• Handstand Pushups– 4-5 x 8-10

Overhead Press– 3-4 x 8-10

Squat– 3-4 x 8-10

Power Clean– 3-4 x 8-10

Bench Press– 3-4 x 8-10

Barbell Curl– 3-4 x 8-10

Deadlift– 3-4 x 8-10

Yoga Moves

Mile Run

Friday (Heavy Day)

Warmup:

• Situps– 100 reps
• Leg Raises– 200 reps
• Handstand Pushups– 4-5 x 8-10

Overhead Press– 5 x 5

Squat– 5 x 5

Power Clean– 5 x 5

Bench Press– 5 x 5

Barbell Curl– 5 x 5

Deadlift– 5 x 5

Yoga Moves

Mile Run

T/TH/S/SUN

• Situps– 100 reps
• Leg Raises– 200 reps
• Yoga Moves
• Mile Run

Sam Loprinzi’s Diet

I know it seems basically impossible, but almost no one dieted before the mid 1970s- they ate a shitload of whole food and had none of the processed shit filled with high fructose corn syrup making them fat because they refused to walk six blocks rather than driving. Put more simply- you are fucking fat because you’re lazy and can’t cook. If you ate home-cooked foods based on meat, potatoes, rice, veggies, and fruits, being lean would be so easy you would wonder why you dieted in the first place.

“As for my diet, I eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and lean meat. I take vitamins C and E every day. Before each training session I mix up a high protein drink made with orange juice, banana, honey, brewers yeast and 90% protein powder. I then take a large spoon of wheat germ oil” (Rader).

If that is insufficient for you, you can check out my article on the protein shakes of the time– unless you were one of Vince Gironda’s guys, it was unlikely you were doing anything but eating more or less food based on your appearance in the weeks leading up to a show.

In Conclusion

In finding his own path, Sam Loprinzi revolutionized both the sport of bodybuilding and strength and conditioning in the military, which isn’t too shabby for a guy who was told he never had a shot at making a name in the bodybuilding world because of his height.

• work with the reality in which the rest of us live, not the one in your head. If you find that most “in the know” people are telling you that you’re an idiot, it’s likely you’re an idiot. And those “in the know” people must come from outside of your circle of friends (should you still be a person who has friends in spite of everyone’s actions in the last year) if you ant their opinion to be truly valid.
• play to your strengths. I strength coach youth athletes on occasion, and one of the kids I coach insists he is going to be a quarterback in spite of the fact that he’s white, slow, 5’9″, and has terrible mechanics. When everyone in the room insists he switch to defense he screams foul, claiming we’re just trying to hold him back. He’s a fucking idiot, as is every dickhead who “deloads to the bar” to focus on technique when the problem is that most of you are so fucking weak you should consider checking yourselves into the hospital. Strength begets strength- work on your weaknesses just enough that they don’t detract from your strength- you’re not going to will yourself into Hafthor any more than I am. When picking a pastime, pick one that fucking suits you rather than the “cool” choice. You’ll be much happier in the end.
• run, or at least do some cardio a few times a week. We all should, and guys like the Loprinzis, Ric Flair, and Maurice Jones stand as a reminder that you don’t have to be near death to have a decent total. I’m not trying to live to see 100, but I don’t want to suffer through my last 20 years either. Thus, I intend to keep myself as fit as possible until I finally just stop waking up- fuck all of that getting old bullshit. And to those of you who will screech hypocrisy, recall my series on running was a retort to the specious claims that humans are born endurance runners- we’re sprinters, and it’s science. 5’6′ 135-165 pound Bruce Lee ran three miles a day, Sam Loprinzi ran a mile a day, the slighter Joe Loprinzi ran 6-10 a day, and burly-as-fuck 5’8 230lb Maurice Jones used to run an 11 mile trail on the daily- it doesn’t have to be a fucking marathon. Just get outside and move around.
• Climb a fucking rope every day if you can find one. If you look at any of the turn-of-the-century women lifters, they all had insane biceps from climbing ropes, as did the aforementioned William Bankier, who once said that the only people in the class of John Grimek were fellow runners and rope climbers Maurice Jones and Sam Loprinzi, which is a rad fact I just rediscovered in my MJ article and which ties up this entire article nicely.

Stop overthinking everything and start doing anything at all. You will figure out your path along the way- it’s how life works, and when you stop fighting it you’ll grow physically and mentally as a result.

SUPPORT THE STRENGTH SPORTS UNDERGROUND AND A ROGUE ACADEMIC HELLBENT ON FORCIBLY EDUCATING EVERY PERSON WHO’S EVER LOOKED ASKANCE AT A BARBELL.

Sources:

Fair, John D. Mr. America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015.

Gallagher, Marty.  Olympic barbell history snippet.  Iron Company.  14 Feb 2017.  Web.  23 Feb 2021.  https://www.ironcompany.com/blog/olympic-barbell-history/#:~:text=Olympic%20Barbell%20History%20Snippet,-Olympic%20Barbell%20History&text=In%201928%20Kasper%20Berg%20of,standardizing%20the%20Berg%20Olympic%20barbell.

Gentle, David.  Clevio Massimo.  History of Physical Culture.  25 May 2020.  Web.  1 Mar 2021.  https://www.davidgentle.com/hopc/clevio-massimo/

NPS.  Sacrificing for the common good.  National Park Service.  Web. 1 Mar 2021.  https://www.nps.gov/articles/rationing-in-wwii.htm#:~:text=During%20the%20Second%20World%20War,contributed%20to%20the%20war%20effort.&text=Supplies%20such%20as%20gasoline%2C%20butter,diverted%20to%20the%20war%20effort.

Rader, Peary. The story of Sam Loprinzi. Reprinted from Feb 1963 Iron Man magazine. Foundations of Iron. 16 Mar 2018. Web. 26 Dec 2020. https://foundationsofiron.com/2018/03/16/the-story-of-sam-loprinzi-iron-man-ed-1963/

Thomas, Al. Where are they now? Sam Loprinzi.  Iron Game History, Aug 1996. 1(6):8-10.

Willoughby, David. The Super-Athletes. South Brunswick: AS Barnes and Co, 1970.

Would you be beautiful in the ancient world.  BBC.  10 Jan 2015.  Web.  27 Feb 2021.  https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30746985

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