Plague of Strength

George Frenn is yet another of the strength world luminaries who has been all but forgotten in today’s sad little Instagram-and-Youtube superstar-obsessed, blinders-on-unless-it’s-in-4k-video environment. Though Open Powerlifting for whatever reason ignores all but his first meet, Frenn was not only the first powerlifting champion ever at 242, defeating bench press beast Mel Hennessey with an 1850 total (705-400-710), but he was the first man to get through the 800lb squat barrier, the first man to total 2100lbs, and one of the greatest 242lbers of all time (853lb squat, 520lb bench, 812.5 dead)… all in spite of the fact Frenn only powerlifted to aid his Olympic hammer throw aspirations (Yarnell 139).

We’re not talking about a guy who got four and five attempts at a world record, a guy who used knee wraps that would give him 150lbs on his squat, a guy who squatted standing still in a monolift, a geared lifter, or a guy who used sumo- none of the little tricks that allow modern lifters to get over on their forebears were part of George Frenn’s giant, Santa Claus-sized bag of whoop ass. Nah, Frenn not only lifted under the Oly rules wherein there were no flights (the heaviest attempts went one after another), but he walked his gargantuan squats out of homemade squat stands, used ace bandages for knee wraps, squatted under rules wherein he had to wait for a fucking “up” command (Unit), lifted in a format of bench-squat-deadlift rather than squat-bench-deadlift (which meant that as the strongest guy in most meets, his squats and deadlifts were done in an insanely compressed time frame more in line with a Crossfit Total than modern powerlifting), and even had an informal agreement with Jon Kuc under which they “would not at any time change [their] lifting costume- so as to have a little uniformity between [them] when comparing totals – especially when they were done in separate locations,” which resulted in Frenn deadifting in boots with a 3/4″ heel throughout his career (Fernando).

Let all of that sink in- basically, every little bit of effort you’ve spent on perfecting your form, finding and utilizing the best equipment, and agonizing over the details of your stupid fucking program all boil down to one thing- you’re not even hard enough to be considered the girliest prison bitch in the world of George Frenn. In fact, the people who make that shit their focus rather than simply focusing their will into white hot rage and applying that rage in stark defiance to gravity itself likely aren’t even goddamned lifters in his mind, because the shit on which they focus isn’t lifting- it’s the wretched produce of weak minds who think that lifting weights is simply a series of fakeries and tricks to be performed in front of an audience.

Like the other throwers I’ve profiled, Ricky Bruch and Brian Oldfield, George Frenn considered lifting to be a means to an end, rather than the end in and of itself. Perhaps that was part of the secret behind their lifting success, because rather than obsess over minutia they simply focused on getting brutally strong. The real secret behind their success, though, was the fact that all three of those men were fucking animals during competitions, and they’d work themselves up into serious madspace when it came time to put their muscles where their mouths were.

“Psyching up and mental build-up for training and competitions was of prime importance to George Frenn, as was getting himself into a near-frenzy for big contest lifts” (Fitten).

Of course, it’s super fun these days to dismiss that sort of behavior as meatheadishness. After all, a thinking man would simply use math to determine their best lifts, then train with a given percentage of that with incremental progression to gradually increase their max. That’s what the Russians did at that time, right? You wanna know what they actually fucking did? The Russians sent their lifters and throwers to the US to train with George Frenn and Jon Kuc, who were so far ahead of the competition in throwing and lifting that they seemed absolutely superhuman (Sheperd). Nor was his training style indicative of a lack of thoughtfulness- Frenn had two graduate degrees, and he rigorously applied sports psychology to his his massive numbers on the field and the platform.

“Exalted by enthusiasm, bursting with facts, figures and muscles, saturated with education, possessed of a fiery ambition that seems the natural outcome of bubbling health, George Frenn, Power Lifter, Hammer Thrower and student of Physical Education, is the happy and precise combination of all things that go into making a space age champion” (Fitten).

George Frenn was a preternatural amalgam of psychosis, brazen intellectualism, brute fucking strength, and supreme confidence, and those things translated to two world records in the hammer throw and multiple world records in powerlifting. Frenn’s confidence was so absolute that after defeating the Olympic gold medalist in the hammer throw in a small meet, Frenn put out a call to all comers- he’d cough up $10,000 if anyone in the world could beat him in the hammer throw. “I’d meet him anywhere, and it’s a one sided bet, too,” Frenn said. “If I win I get nothing. I’ll take on all comers. Anyone, anywhere. I’m flat broke, but I’ll never have to pay up. There’s no one who can beat me. Bring on, Wilt Chamberlain. No one can beat me” (Twersky). Part of that, obviously, was due to the fact that he’d just utterly destroyed the Olympic gold medalist. The other part is that Frenn and Bill “Peanuts” West had figured out a way to trick their nervous system into moving far more weight than they’d ever thought possible.

“The “Receptor Principle” particularly fascinates George. It puts lifting on a higher level of awareness he believes. Only a small percent of available muscle fibers that make up a particular body of muscle are activated in a simple muscle contraction. The strength of the contraction depends on how many fibers contract at the same time. “Group Firing”, as it is called, can be controlled largely by conscious thought. It becomes a confidence game. Simply telling yourself the weight is heavy and that you must lift it doesn’t usually work. The muscle must be tricked. Take the classic case of the 120 pound woman who lifted the end of an auto off her injured child. Fierce motivation propelled her. Muscle can be tried into making super lifts. The available nerve channels are there, but discovery takes searching. Conscious searching. Discovery is by chance. Take the case, as another example, of the man who saved twelve thousand dollars over a period of years from money he had found on the streets, only because he looked for it.

How does the brain receive the impressions (Receptor Principle) that will send out the message to the muscle to contract stronger (Group Firing)? One was is the touch system developed by chance by George and Bill West working together. The hand of the training partner on the bar or the body during a limit attempt offers the additional “power of suggestion.’ Once when George was struggling to deadlift 710 off the blocks Bill got him past a sticking point by lightly placing his fingers under the bar. A sharp slaps on hips in the low positions of a heavy squat will also work wonders. They have named it the Assistant Method. Then, of course, there are cheating movements, less delicate than the power of suggestion method, in which you take the muscle by the collar and force and overload on it” (Tanny).

Reading that, you might see how a guy who in 1966 was quoted as saying, “I will probably wrap up power lifting when I make an eighteen hundred total,” a total he broke in his very first meet, ended up setting record after record in the hammer throw and powerlifting (Tanny). He was so invested in turning his body into an explosive powderkeg of barely restrained muscular violence that literally nothing stood in his way when training, and he was always ready to compete, whether it be in the original Westside Barbell Club in Bill West’s garage, on the track, or in a meet. If anyone is a living testament to the methods described in my article on somafera, George Frenn is it, because his ability to slaughter weights while in a self induced frenzy is what gave him the records he accumulated over his life.

“Under the right conditions, anything is possible” (Tanny)

Frenn wasn’t simply some berserker content with just whylin’ the fuck out on the weights like he was Tookie Williams on PC, however- being a thinking man, he also utilized what were then cutting edge sports psychology techniques like (Smith):

• Cue words– George was known for constantly reaffirming himself throughout both workouts and meets, telling himself that he’s got this, etc. This was essential to
• Focus on himself, not others– Though Frenn was aware of what others were doing, his attention was turned entirely inward while competing and training
• Develop effective routines– From his reliance on twice weekly sprints to develop explosive strength to the structure of his workouts to the use of three spotters on squats, Frenn was constantly analyzing his process and refining his methods to develop the most effective routines possible.
• Develop a competition atmosphere in practice– George convinced Bill West to toss out all of his old weights and replace them with Olympic competition plates to ensure that the conditions under which they trained would be as near to competition as possible. “‘It’s strictly a mental thing,’ says George. ‘You must remember that emphasis is on maximum lifts at all times. You have to channel not only effort but also training conditions to the maximum effort and conditions that exist in and at a contest’” (Tanny).
• Focus on day-to-day success– Frenn knew that with his style of lifting and temperament, continuous incremental progress was not what he was after- his strength varied wildly from workout to workout. Thus, he followed a simple rule- break a personal record, any record, at every workout. “Become conditioned to successful attempts,” whether it be “an added rep or an added pound almost anywhere you have never done it before” (Tanny).
• Use mental imagery– George would start visualizing his attempts months out from a meet to ensure that once he entered the competition the fear of the attempt would be gone, because he had already performed it dozens of times in his head.
• Concentrate on the process, not on outcomes. Frenn had success so ingrained in himself that the process itself really was the outcome. The trophy at the end was simply part and parcel of the process.

These methods weren’t simply pulled out of a textbook- they were the combination of George, who had medical and psychological experiments to confirm what he had already seen in his own training, with the experiential evidence of Bill “Peanuts” West, the leader of the Westside Barbell Club (which was his garage). From this, George and Bill developed a couple of principles unique to themselves, like:

“‘Change of Heart Syndrome,’ mood effects performance. Mental depression hinders effort. Peace of mind, then, becomes as important as the act of training. Nor is peace of mind static. Like heavy single attempts, peace of mind comes hard, but with continual striving, it comes.

“‘Labyrinthine Principle.’ Medical research indicates that when the head is forward, the face down, an upset occurs in the middle of the ear that causes relaxation of the spinal muscles. By forcing himself to look up George can maintain the arch and rigidity of his back, the form necessary for both the squat and deadlift. He recalls the time at a contest when his final deadlift stuck half way, and suddenly realizing his head was down he threw it back as hard as he could which gave his spine arch, and the weight moved up again steadily to completion.”

To be sure, not all of Frenn’s methods led to success, nor did any of them really endear him to his fellow competitors. Given his penchant for fling into a blind rage and maintaining that state for the duration of a competition, the shit-talking of others could definitely throw off his game. Faced with the Olympic silver medalist after breaking the indoor world record, Frenn was already feeling pressure. As Frenn put it, “the day before the meet he walks up and tells me he’s going to break my world record. And, he says, he’s going to use my weight to do it with. My record was 68’7½”. On his first throw, Harold does 72’2¾”. I fouled four out of my six throws” (Putnam). That worked both ways, however, and Frenn was well known for talking mad shit at meets… for which the guys against whom he competed fucking hated him.

Frenn’s wild-eyed competitive spirit knew no bounds. He named his dog Burke, after his chief rival. Before a meet in which Burke was competing but Frenn decided to sit out, Frenn introduced Burke to Burke, explaining he’d named the dog after the thrower. Frenn then proceed to yell to his dog throughout the meet. “‘Hey, Burke, come over here and sit down. Burke, cut that out. Burke, quit licking my face.’ Burke, the human, didn’t do very well in that meet” (Putnam). On top of that, all of the throwers in the US looked up to the aforementioned Harold Connolly, about whom Frenn referred to as “father,” constantly whispering evil shit to Burke like, “Father’s here,” and “you know you could never beat Father” (Ibid). Eventually, all of it just ate Burke up, and he quit throwing shortly after the dog incident.

“‘I don’t like George’s mouth,’ Burke said before quitting. ‘I don’t like his harassment. I used to handle him but no more. He’s just too strong. But you’ve got to give him credit. Everybody else in world class has more speed and more quickness and more coordination. But George makes up for that with his strength. And his mouth‘” (Putnam).

Frenn saw any friendliness out of his fellow competitors as weakness, and if he received any pleasantries out of the competition, he claimed that he was a lock for the win. Dipping into his madspace, Frenn would say shit like “If he was ready, really feeling vicious for this meet, he would have just glared at me. He’s not feeling ornery enough to win” (Putnam). In competition, Frenn had no friends- just foes to fucking vanquish. To Frenn, it was the thrill of competition, not the bosom of his competitors and the warmth of camaraderie or whatever noncompetitive people say competition is all about, that drove him. Win or lose, Frenn would go balls out and do his level best to trash everyone else there.

Up next, I’ll cover the training methods Frenn utilized to become the OG “Most Hated” powerlifter, as well as the myriad shit he did that led to his eventual blacklisting. If there is more compelling character in the sport of powerlifting, I’m unaware of him, and his training methods should have you just as captivated as his psychological techniques. In the meantime, reread out parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Get Your Fucking Head Right series.

“To be sure, strength is a product of the mind. Strength is triggered in the brain, not in tight muscles.”

Sources:

Fernando, Ron. Deadlifting Theories of George Frenn. The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 12 Jan 2011. Web. 5 Mar 2019. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2011/01/deadlifting-theories-of-george-frenn.html

Fitten, Tony. Working out with George Frenn (1973). The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 21 May 2014. Web. 5 March 2019. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2014/05/working-out-with-george-frenn-tony.html

Putnam, Pat. He knows how to throw his weight around. Reprinted from March 9, 1970 issue of Sports Illustrated. Sports Illustrated. Web. 5 Mar 2019. https://www.si.com/vault/1970/03/09/554134/he-knows-how-to-throw-his-weight-around

Shepard, Greg. The history of the BFS total program for athletes. Reprinted from Nov/Dec 2009 Bigger Faster Stronger Magazine. Bigger Faster Stronger. Web. 6 Mar 2019. https://cdn4.sportngin.com/attachments/document/0010/5713/BFS_Total_Program_History.pdf

Smith, Leif H. and Todd M. Kay. Sports psychology for dummies, from Sports Psychology for Dummies. Dummies. Web. 7 Mar 2019. https://www.dummies.com/sports/sports-psychology-for-dummies-cheat-sheet/

Syken, Bill. George Frenn, hammer thrower: July 6, 1970. Sports Illustrated. 16 Sep 2002. Web. 6 Mar 2019. https://www.si.com/vault/2002/09/16/8116817/george-frenn-hammer-thrower-july-6-1970

Tanny, Armand. George Frenn, Power Lifter (1966). The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezson Ban. 18 Jun 2011. Web. 5 Mar 2019. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2011/06/george-frenn-powerlifter-armand-tanny.html

Twersky, Marty. Frenn puts up $10,000 that says nobody beats him in the hammer. New York Times. 29 Apr 1973. Web. 6 Mar 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/29/archives/frenn-puts-up-10000-that-says-nobody-beats-him-in-hammer-aau.html

Tyler, Dick. West Coast Bodybuilding Scene: The Golden Era. Santa Cruz: On Target Publications, 2004.

Unit, Dennis J. The history of the International Powerlifting Federation. Powerlifting.Sport. Web. 6 Mar 2019. https://www.powerlifting.sport/federation/history.html

Yarnell, Dave.  Forgotten Secrets of the Culver City Westside Barbell Club Revealed.  Self Published: Lexington, 2014.

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