Plague of Strength

Eric Pedersen is perhaps the most foundational and influential bodybuilder and professional wrestler of whom you’ve never heard, likely due to the fact that he sued Joe Weider early in his career, which hurt his publicity considerably in the magazine. Additionally, he failed to win the Mr America Overall, and because historians have failed to inform the world that the winner of the Most Muscular was the winner of the bodybuilding portion of that contest, we’ve all been looking at the wrong Mr Americas the entire time and ignored guys like Pedersen, who was the first to have bodypart routines published, the progenitor of Art Jones’ high intensity training techniques, and one of the biggest wrestling draws of the 1940s and 1950s.

Eric Pedersen fucking rules. Recognize.

Part 1

Part 2

Eric Pedersen’s Training Methods

Pedersen kept his reps higher than Tommy Chong has ever been in his life, for no reason I can ascertain other than it’s what he enjoyed. It’s unlikely that Tommy Chong even used a rep scheme like this when he worked the desk at Gold’s Venice, because Chong was a disciple of Gironda, and Gironda loved short rests and 8 rep sets. Pedersen, on the other hand. used sets of 10-15, 15-20, or 40-50 depending on the bodypart, resting 3-4 minutes between sets and up to five between exercises. Also unlike Gironda, Eric Pedersen had no set program of any kind. He would decide what he was training that day, prior to going into the gym, so as to avoid too much fiddle-fucking around at the gym. Like E-Town Concrete said, Pedersen was there to win, not to make friends, and stated as such in an article about his training methods:

“Don’t allow anyone to talk to you, nor you to them, while you are training. Work alone as if you were the only one in the gym. If you train at your own home with your barbell outfit, so much the better as far as your concentration is concerned. I prefer a gym for company’s sake, for I like to meet a lot of other fellows and exchange ideas with them. but I often work out at home.”

He seemed to have a base workout he would do every time he hit the gym, at least at first, and then would add sets to the bodypart on which he wanted to focus that day. As time progressed, it seems he moved more towards bodypart workouts to train for contests and then used a very basic full body routine on the road wrestling. What didn’t change, however, is the part that Arthur Jones misunderstood and ripped wholesale from Eric Pedersen- training to absolute failure using reps with increasingly smaller ranges of motion.

That’s right- it looks like Arthur Jones stole his two sets of each exercise to maximum muscular failure with a moderately heavy weight and absolutely perfection for form from Eric Pedersen. Or he borrowed it and simply forgot to fucking tell everyone.

The basis for Eric Pedersen’s workouts He’d add or drop sets or exercises as he saw fit by checking his progress in the mirror, and would adjust accordingly. What he never did was go easy in a workout, and would do progressively smaller ROM partials until he could barely move the weight, at which point he’d do a few cheating reps.

The cheating reps were pretty new at the time, and are not credited to Pedersen- I’ll be throwing that dude’s name into an upcoming book about the unsung heroes of lifting. Feel free to look for the guy’s name yourself, though I struggled even with most of the original search parameters I used to find it again- this one is a fucking nugget of lifting wisdom I shall always cherish. Your hint: he trained at York but didn’t compete in Oly, and he built 19″ arms using cheat curls and a cheated bent press in particular. [I didn’t even know you could cheat at a bent press]

Eric Pedersen’s Base Routine

The basis of the entire program was a full body routine he likely did between three and five times a week, doing two sets per bodypart (at a minimum), with psychotic attention to perfect form, and to absolute, utter, and catastrophic failure. Before he would enter the gym on any given day, he would make an honest assessment of his physique and determine what to add or subtract. Over time, that morphed into him training arms one day, shoulders another day, back another day, legs another, etc.

Handstand Dips Between Benches– 2xAMRAP, lowering himself until his chin was below the benches. This was his tricep/shoulder warmup.

Behind the Neck Chins– 2xAMRAP. Pedersen did both chins to the front and the back as a warmup, but he was very vocal about his idea that behind the neck pullups conferred greater gains.

Behind the Neck Press– 2×15-20

Concentration Curl-2×10-15

Dumbbell Overhead Extension– 2×10-15. Slow and controlled, focusing hard on flexing every inch of the muscle as you stare intensely at each triceps during your sets. After your triceps tire, go to half-extensions, then from a half-extension, do a few reps to full extension.

Squat-As I’ve mentioned, he liked to go to total muscular failure, like a psychotic barbell wielding Mike Mentzer. He said that for these he preferred to do more reps than find out how much he could squat, so he’d take between 200 and 300 pounds and do ass to grass squats until he couldn’t do another full rep. He’d then proceed to do progressively shorter stroke reps until he gassed out with quarter squats. He made no mention of a number of sets or reps. he just went until he decided he was fucking done, but initially he did do 2×40-50 with 150lbs, so it’s likely this was sort of a pre-Platz leg blitz that may have influenced Platz himself.

Dips– 2xAMRAP

Good Morning– 2x25x125lbs, done extremely slowly and with feet together.

Weighted Incline Situps– 2-3×25

Eric Pedersen’s Arm Specialization Routine

For both of these exercises, he would do as many full reps as he could, then would cut them to three-quarter reps, then half reps, then quarter reps, until he finally cheated two last full reps. After eight sets of that insane level of intensity, he’d move on to another exercise- he seemed to lead with the bodypart(s) on which he wanted to focus. I would assume the eight set limit was influenced by Vince Gironda, who was famous at the time for his 8×8 set and rep scheme that produced the leanest and densest physiques on the bodybuilding stage and in film at the time.

Unilateral Concentration Curls– 8×10-15x35lbs (going for squeexe and slow, controlled reps, using partial reps and cheated reps until you can’t move the weight)

Single Arm Overhead Tricep Extensions– 8×10-15

Wrist Curl– 2×10-15

Reverse Wrist Curl– 2×10-15

Eric Pedersen’s Shoulder Routine

This is cobbled together from three separate articles- one was a recommendation for beginners, then the other two mentioned that as a wrestler his primary movements were the behind the neck press and arms. As with arms, he focused more on the actual contraction than the weight lifted, and was adamant about staring at the muscle being worked as you work it.

Behind the Neck Press– 2-8×15-20

Front Raises (taking the bell all the way overhead before descending)- 2×15-20

Dumbbell Laterals– 2×15-20

Rear Laterals– 2×15-20 (these were described as a sort of combo of a rear lateral and a tricep kickback, or you could think of it as a stiff-arm pulldown done bent at the waist, starting with the bells hanging below you and bringing them up and back towards your hips

DB Overhead Tricep Extensions– 2×15-20 (the electromyograph was invented in 1890, but the oscilloscope you needed to interpret those signals didn’t exist until the 1930s, so slow your role before you shit-talk a dude with arms bigger than you for including a tricep exercise in for shoulders.

Pedersen’s Routine While Wrestling

When Pedersen was on the road travelling and wrestling, he was getting a shitload of exercise between practice and fights anyway. He did assure the readers of Muscle Power that he was still lifting, though, and stated that the following comprised the mainstays of his barebones routine, done a couple of times a week.

Handstand Dips Between Benches– 2xAMRAP, lowering himself until his chin was below the benches. This was his tricep/shoulder warmup.

Behind the Neck Chins– 2xAMRAP. Pedersen did both chins to the front and the back as a warmup, but he was very vocal about his idea that behind the neck pullups conferred greater gains.

Behind the Neck Press– 2×15-20

Concentration Curl-2×10-15

Squat-As I’ve mentioned, he liked to go to total muscular failure, like a psychotic barbell wielding Mike Mentzer. He said that for these he preferred to do more reps than find out how much he could squat, so he’d take between 200 and 300 pounds and do ass to grass squats until he couldn’t do another full rep. He’d then proceed to do progressively shorter stroke reps until he gassed out with quarter squats. He made no mention of a number of sets or reps. he just went until he decided he was fucking done, but initially he did do 2×40-50 with 150lbs, so it’s likely this was sort of a pre-Platz leg blitz that may have influenced Platz himself.

Dumbbell Overhead Extension– 2×10-15. Slow and controlled, focusing hard on flexing every inch of the muscle as you stare intensely at each triceps during your sets.

Dips– 2xAMRAP

The Down The Rack Nuclear Option

Growing up, everyone had a different method of going down the rack, but it generally consisted of doing drop sets with 5 to 10 pound drops. The guys at Bert Goodrich’s gym had a system they called Up and Down training, and everyone at the gym swore by it. It consisted of running the up and down the rack doing singles on a given exercise, which doesn’t sound all that bad until you get to the details.

Most famously used for biceps and triceps, it was also in vogue for overhead dumbbell presses. To do them, you start with the 5s and increase by five pounds until you fail on a single, then do singles all the way back down to the fives. It’s a single set per bodypart, and the number of reps depends entirely on your level of strength.

Earl Liederman tried it for biceps, and he did singles all the way up to the 60s for biceps, which he claimed felt like 100s after doing 11 reps with progressively increasing weights. He also tried this for shoulders and said there was no way you could not grow using that sort of brutal method, so it’s one to keep in your toolbox.

Eric Pedersen’s Diet

Like all bodybuilders of that era, Pedersen just ate a fuckload of food and then trained hard as shit. Pedersen was obviously naturally lean, and you’re talking about WW2 era United States- food was rationed during his entire teen life, and prior to that America was struggling to get out of a depression- it wasn’t like they struggled to get lean. Pedersen was a voracious eater, as were all of the bodybuilders of that era, and was a big fan of eating a large steak with some veggies, brown bread covered in butter and honey, and a pint of milk an hour before training, so that he had enough energy for his training. Like all other lifters of the era, he was big on the basics- steak, eggs, milk, bread, and potatoes.

According to Thrillist, typical American dinners were nothing I would fucking eat.

“Overall, the ’40s weren’t nearly as dire as the previous decade (especially once that war production cash flowed in), but families weren’t whipping up five-course meals during the WWII ration years. Instead, they’d go with a centerpiece like liver loaf (it has “B vitamins that help keep you smiling with glowing health!” said an ad from that era) paired with veggies like buttered spinach. When dessert was an option, it might be a simple sherbet or banana drop cookies” (Hunt).

Words can barely articulate my horror at the prospect of trying to build muscle in the 1940s, but Eric Pedersen not only did it, but did it as well as the best of them even into the early 1960s. And it’s not as though the food got much better in the 1950s, because if you were a typical American in that decade, here is the noxious bullshit you would be eating at dinner (bear in mind the scent of tuna makes me punch whoever the fuck is responsible for offending my nose with it):

“With the war rations and Great Depression officially behind us, the 1950s became a veritable casserole city. Tuna noodle was a signature, and since it had veggies, it sometimes spared kids from a common(ly reviled) side dish of the era: lima beans. If you got dessert, it was almost definitely gonna be a Jell-O “salad” with a whipped topping. In fact, these treats were so in vogue that Jell-O took things too literally and marketed gelatins with actual salad flavors, like celery. You don’t see them around today for a reason” (Hunt).  

At that point, you didn’t have a lot of options for food, either in terms of different types of cuisine, fast food (there were only 7 McDonald’s in the world in 1955), sit-down restaurants, or places to buy groceries. As such, we could all stand to note that even when the above bullshit is about your only option for food, you can still build 19″ natty arms.

Eric Pedersen shows us that none of us really have any excuse for not being as big or strong as we like, other than the fact that we’re clearly not trying hard enough.

And there you have it- the entire life and times of a bodybuilder of whom everyone should know, and yet very few do. he was the progenitor of what became the heavy duty training system, the first person I recall seeing mentioning the necessity of a good mind-muscle connection for proper growth, and possibly the first person to do a bodypart split outside of arm specialists ever in history. Throw on top of that the fact the man was a mob enforcer trained in various arts of savagery by one of the hardest men to ever throw a punch in anger, and you’ve got a solid recipe for one of the baddest motherfuckers who have ever lived.

Sources:

Alvarez, Pablo.  Eric Pedersen.  Pro Wrestling Historical Society.  Jul 2014.  Web.  15 Sep 2020.  https://www.prowrestlinghistoricalsociety.com/bio-0113.html

Fair, John D. Mr. America: The Tragic History of a Bodybuilding Icon.  Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015.

Flammini, Vincent.  Facebook comment.  Facebook.  13 Apr 2020.  Web.  18 Oct 2020.  https://www.facebook.com/116733248412758/photos/eric-pedersen-lost-the-1947-aau-mr-american-contest-by-12-point-to-steve-reeves-/1672795086139892/

Hoffman, Bob. The 1965 FIHC Mr. Universe Contest. Reprinted from Strength & Health, Aug 1966, Page 22. Musclememory. Web.  10 Nov 2020. http://www.musclememory.com/showArticle.php?sh660322

Hunt, Kristin.  What’s for dinner: America’s meals from 1900 to 2000.  23 Dec 2013.  Thrillist. Web. 11 Nov 2020. https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/common-american-dinners-for-each-decade-of-the-20th-century-thrillist-nation

Jailhouse rock.  Pulp International.  19 Oct 2019.  Web.  15 Sep 2020.  https://www.pulpinternational.com/pulp/entry/Photo-of-bodybuilder-Eric-Pederson-in-Los-Angeles-jail.html

Jones, Art.  Casey Viator- in training for the “big one.” Muscular Development.  Pp 34. Web. 11 Nov 2020. http://www.arthurjonesexercise.com/MuscularDevelopement/CaseyViator.pdf

Liederman, Earle. Try this unique system of training. Your Physique. Jul 19??. Pp 16.

Martin, Rueben. Facts About Reg Park “Mr Britain”. Reprinted from Strength & Health, Aug 1950, Page 26. Musclememory. Web.  10 Nov 2020. musclememory.com/showArticle.php?sh500826.

Pedersen, Eric.  Arm Development. Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  8 Nov 2018.  Web.  19 Oct 2020.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2018/11/arm-development-eric-pederson.html

Pedersen, Eric. Better shoulder development. Strength & Health. Date Unknown. Pp 16-17,47-48.

Pedersen, Eric. Exercises I like best. Muscle Power. Oct 1948. Pp 14-15,43.

Pedersen, Eric. Exercises I like best, part II. Muscle Power. Nov 1948.

Pedersen, Eric. Powerful abdominals.

Pedersen, Eric. My training program. Muscle Power

Weider, Joe. “The great 1963 IFBB Mr Universe- Mr America- Miss Americana.” Reprinted from Muscle Builder, Vol 14, Num 2, Page 12, www.musclememory.com/showArticle.php?mb640312

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