Plague of Strength

Part One

Part Two

I realize that this series has gone long as hell getting to the training shit, and that there’s a hell of a lot more context needed for this article than really fits, so the fucking thing is like a sausage bursting its seams with information. When I set out to learn the context of something, I obviously go all in. That said, it’s obviously far too much fucking information for most people, and it’s dense even for me. Thus, I’ll be doing this article Tarentino-style and starting at the end, then jumping back to the middle- training first, and then if you want to read 4000 words that could be succinctly summed up with “no small amount of racism, a few life mistakes and a lot of bad fucking luck are all that stands between ‘Harold Poole, two-time IFBB Mr. Olympia, first-ever black AAU Mr. America, and NABBA Mr. Universe winner” and “Harold Poole, virtually unknown natty mass monster who won a title worth far more then than now,” you can in part four. Either way, Harold Poole is the name of a golden age era lifter who gets far less attention than he should (which, frankly, is a matter of fact regardless of the lifter’s skin).

Harold Poole might have been many things- bouncer, bodyguard, bodybuilder, wrestler, track and field athlete, football player- but one thing he was not was patient. After taking an insanely close second place to Joe Abbenda in 1962, Poole expected a walk-off win in 1963- after all, that’s what Abbenda appeared to have done the year prior. Little did Poole know that while Abbenda was considered to be the heir apparent, he killed himself in the gym training alongside bonafide lifting legend Bill Pearl to beat Harold Poole and the rest of the field. Poole was certainly no slouch in that department, as legendary gym owner and bodybuilding judge Tom Minichello once wrote:

Up to the late Sixties, he was an outstanding natural bodybuilder. He trained at my gym for over fifteen years and I never saw anyone train with more intensity, although Rickey Wayne was a close second.

Though his training intensity is legendary, his training weights have remained something of a mystery, though in my research I did uncover the fact that the almighty god of strength culture and history, David Willoughby, listed Harold Poole as one of the strongest motherfuckers to have every grabbed a barbell. Poole is tied for fifth on a list of the ten biggest benchers to ever live (prior to the publication of the Super-Athletes in 1970) that includes Mel Hennessey, Pat Casey, Marvin Eder, and a couple of other Baddest Motherfuckers:

Harold Poole– Bodyweight: 162lbs, Bench Press: 425lbs (flat back, two second pause, and no flight system for the rules) (Willgouhby 130, 132).

Willoughby did mention that as the lift was considerably heavier than the middleweight American record at the time that he thought the lift was done under less-than-official conditions, but as his date for the lift seems to have been a typo (1966, at which point Poole was about 80 pounds heavier than the listed weight), I would guess that the lift was likely done when he was a freshman or sophomore in high school, putting the lift in the late 50s. Whatever his age, he was certainly under the age of 19 when the lift occurred, which puts him in a very strong second place all time for benchers at that weight under the age of 20, without even taking into account the fact that most modern benches could not have passed under the original rules (or squats, for that matter- it used to be that you had to sit in the hole and wait for an up command on the squat from the judges).

That said, Poole’s methods for developing that strength changed over the 60-plus years during which he trained. When he started, Harold Poole used the same type of program everyone did then- full body routines, done multiple times per week. Dieting never even entered his mind, as with many of the lifters of the era. Like Sergio Oliva and others, Harold Poole ate at McDonalds right up until the day of the meet, and what he ate didn’t matter nearly as much as how much- the more, the better, and the bigger he’d be. If he started to get a little fat, he’d just cut back a bit and train more.

Though the commonly accepted Harold Poole training routine for his early career is listed in Part 2, Harold remembers his methods a bit differently. After starting with his construction equipment at age ten, Harold said

“I began on the iron to get strong at the age of 12. I trained Monday, Wednesday and Friday three times a week and I never missed a workout and until the age of 19, when I won the Mr. Universe. It took eight years of hard work, three times a week.

Through that time, Monday to Friday, I would work legs on Monday with upper body on Wednesday and on Friday legs again. The next Monday I would work the upper. At that time, at the age of 12, for every exercise that I did I would do five sets of 15 reps on everything. And at that time I loved to do squats. I used to do many squats because at that time most of the bodybuilders had no legs. And that is because they did not like squats. It’s hard work. Take this guy who I met in New York in 1974. His name was Freddy Ortiz. He had huge arms and a huge chest and back but he had no legs because of the fact that he refused to do squats. And that was that” (Robson).

And although we don’t have his training weights as he got older, we do know that in spite of his love of high reps, he was no bitch in the gym, even into his 60s. According to a guy who employed Poole as a trainer,

“My fondest memory of him happened one afternoon at the gym. I had recently undergone surgery on my knee and was sitting at my desk. One of our trainers had an issue with his paycheck, and rather than discussing it he tried to turn it into a physical altercation. Harold was on the opposite side of our gym, and within seconds he crossed the floor and had the trainer’s throat engulfed in his palm. He damn near lifted a 200 pound man off the floor like that” (Robson).

Harold Poole’s Training Style, in a Nutshell:

LONG, SLOW, DEEP REPS DONE TO TOTAL MUSCULAR FAILURE WITH FORCED REPS, AND A METRIC FUCKTON OF VOLUME

Harold Poole was a man who simply trained because he fucking enjoyed it, and only competed to show off the fruits of his labors, not to collect a fucking trophy or bitchmade “bragging rights” to the faceless non-lifters of social media who blabber on about lifting incessantly. And bearing that knowledge in mind, there is not a ton of information on how his training evolved over time. People make note of the fact he started going by Damien/Damon Poole in the late 70s after some legal trouble (which was apparently an effort to distance himself from the judges’ perception of “Harold Poole”), but not a single motherfucker ever asked him to detail the ways in which his training changed over sixty-plus years.

Having done a shitload of digging in the crates, I dug up two workouts Poole was seen doing- the first comes from the badass little training guide called the Gold’s Gym Book of Bodybuilding, which was the New Testament to my personal Old Testament, Arnold’s New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding, and the other comes from a 2002 interview with Harold Poole done by David Robson. Obviously, he switched to bodypart training with the rest of the world in the 70s or 80s and never looked back, which should be a clue to some of you out there who still think full body is the end-all, be-all.

Harold Poole’s 80’s Leg Routine

Squat– 6 x 15-6

Hack Squat– 4 x 10-12

Leg Extension– 4 x 10-12

Leg Curl– 5-6 x 10-12

Of note, Poole dropped his leg training entirely in his 60s, as he was having a lot of problems with his knees. That said, he was confident that enough volume on bodyweight squats would be able to bring his legs into shape for the Masters Olympia for which he was training in 2008 (though he didn’t end up competing).

Harold Poole’s 2002 Chest/Shoulder Workout

In 2002 Harold Poole began what seemed to be an aborted effort to compete again, this time in the Master’s Olympia. Though that comeback failed to materialize like it was a Johnny Depp attempt to kick meth, you can see that Poole’s training methods evolved beyond just training with a bodypart split.

Warmup

According to Harold Poole, “Far too many lifters skip a proper warm-up and miss out on many benefits, as well as put themselves at risk of injury. A moderate amount of light cardio stimulates and invigorates the body at a cellular level while creating elasticity in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons. It increases the range of motion (ROM) and allows the recruitment of more muscle fibers. 

• 10 minutes of moderate cardio
• High Cable Row with Rope– 2 x 20-25 (light) [Editor’s Note: I randomly throw these in on back days as a finisher supersetted with face pulls, personally, and I love them] 
• External Shoulder Rotation with Cables– 2 x 15 each side (light)
• High Shoulder Rotation with Cable-2 x 15 each side (light)

Work Sets

Seated Barbell Press– 3 x 20, 6-8*, 2-4* 25, [60, 75% 1RM] ROM on this if chin-level to full extension, and the only set to which you do not go to failure if the first one. As such, if you are not hitting failure with the prescribed weights, add weight or reps to failure.

Seated Dumbbell Press– 2 x 6-8 to failure 60, 75% 1RM] ROM on this is bigger- let your arms go slightly past 90 degrees before returning to full extension

Seated Dumbbell Lateral Raise– 2 x 10-15 [30, 35% 1RM] The ROM on this is from about 15 degrees off your hip to parallel with the ground, in order to keep constant tension on the muscle.

 Seated Front Delt Press– 2 x 10-15 [30, 35% 1RM] THis is an interesting one, similar to the Arnold Press, but without the twist. Palms-facing overhead presses haven’t been discussed by a lifter since probably 1980, so here’s the scoop on them:

“Having exhausted the lateral deltoids, it’s time to direct more attention to the anterior delts. Reps are increased, and weight is modified if necessary to accommodate a higher rep range and to move safely through full range of motion. Starting with the dumbbells at your chin, palms facing you, forcefully press the weights together and bring them overhead. Make sure the ends of the dumbbells are touching the entire time.”

Supine Anterior Cable Raise– 2 x 10-15 to failure [50, 75%**]. The second set is a drop set to failure- reduce the weight by 15% for the drop. And as this man was essentially a living dinosaur using 50 year old exercises everyone had abandoned by 2002, the performance of this old-as-fuck-school lift is thus:

“Set the pulley at the lowest setting. Sit on the floor facing the machine and attach an EZ Curl bar attachment. Hold the bar with straight arms and lie flat on your back. Lower your arms until they are about four inches from the thighs. With straight arms, raise the bar until your hands are just beyond eye level. Perform the first set until failure and rest. The second set is a drop set to failure with no rest in between drops.”  

Unassisted Dips – 2 x failure with bodyweight.

“At this point I could do no more, but Harold insisted. To Harold, one more meant three. He made his point and had already secured the job, but he wanted to show that there was a level of determination and ambition that separated him from the rest of the crowd. It was long, slow, and deep reps to failure and a memory that will last forever.” 

Harold Poole on Building His Neck and Traps

“I did close-grip upright rows until they were coming out of my ears (laughs)” (Robson).

On Getting Ripped in the 60s

“I just did extremely high reps. At one time my friend Loren Comstock said to the owner of the gym that we worked out at, ‘Harold only has to look at the weights and he gets ripped up’” (Robson).

“In the late ’50s and early ’60s no one knew an awful lot about diet and nutrition… [so everything was trial and error].” Although most lifters of the day took a couple of months off a year (guys like Pat Neve often took six months a year off of really hard training), Harold Poole and his original training partners didn’t go in for that shit.

“The three of us trained all year around, year after year after year. We stayed in shape” and “you simply entered a contest in the kind of shape you would maintain year-round” (Robson).

On Diet in the 60s

Essentially, they didn’t diet.

“You would eat meat and potatoes and you would eat your eggs and drink your milk – anything that would help you to put on weight. It was all about trying to get huge” (Robson).

In Re the Changing of the Guard (Changes to the Method as the Game Changed)

“In the early 1980s you could no longer eat anything you wanted to eat (laughs). You had to have a high protein, low carbohydrate diet. You had to be very strict. It would be chicken and fish and salad and your yams and you did not eat any red meat at all. It was a big change” (Robson).

And Harold wasn’t a big fan of the introduction of cardio, either.

“It is a whole new way of training completely and it had to be done at least four days a week. Had to be. And you do lose muscle size. I know I lost some size.

“And in the early 1960s we did not know anything about cardio but in 1981 I had to do cardio four-days-a-week.”

Poole lamented the efforts he’d made to stay competitive in terms of rip, because he had to sacrifice a lot of size as a natty competitor. While he fared well in the only tested competitions of the day (he beat fellow baddest motherfucker Chuck Sipes for Dan Lurie’s WBBG Pro Mr. America).

On Steroids

In his words, Harold Poole never used steroids because

“steroids will help you to achieve what you are trying to do yet at the same time they have very detrimental side effects. I knew this from a young age. It was around the year 1963 when I was age 19. I was living in a place called Indianapolis, Indiana and I had a friend who had helped me with my training for about five years. He was much older than I. And I asked him about steroids and he reassured me that anything like that, years later would come back to haunt you in a negative manner. So therefore I have never taken any roids of any type. It is a proven fact that if you take them long enough your testicles will shrink and at the same time also lose the hair on your head. Also, it is proven that if taken long enough steroids will increase your chances of having a heart attack. They may also cause liver and kidney problems. Therefore I am quite sure that I made the right decision not to take roids” (Robson).

“Today bodybuilders are prone to a thing called roid rage and it can get you in trouble with the law.

There have been cases in the news. Sergio Oliva was a police officer and so was his wife. From what I hear he used to slap her around until she took her handgun and she shot him. That is crazy” (Robson).

We didn’t have a clue what roid rage was because it wasn’t as widespread. And you have to remember that with steroids there is use and there is abuse and the bodybuilders of today abuse the roids. There is no way in hell that anyone is going to weigh 300lbs ripped. I tell you it is a bit crazy.”

On How Guys Like Him and Marvin Eder Build Muscle Without Steroids

“It was just a matter of how you wanted to work as to achieve your success. I wouldn’t say that the guys who did take them did not work as hard. If you are training and at the same time taking a substance that is going to help you to grow then more than likely you are going to train even harder” (Robson).

Up next, the conclusion of the Harold Poole story, which covers his Mr. America issues, his time in the IFBB, his brief stint in pro wrestling, his drug issues, and his descent into red-hatted Luddite psychosis as he claimed the sky was fucking falling and we all needed to return to the bosoms of the baby Jesus to protect ourselves from the waves of terrorists we faced just before he died. I never said the man was right about everything, and his turn to a half-assed Clayton Bigsby was as disappointing as it was unsurprising, given my recent discovery that at least 80% of Americans read on an 8th grade level or lower.

JUMP TO PART 4

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Comstock, Lauren.  Introducing Harold Poole.  Reprinted from Strength & Health, Page 28, August 1962.  Muscle Memory.  Web.  7 Aug 2020.  http://www.musclememory.com/showArticle.php?sh620828

Conner, Dick and Dave Wedding.  High Rep Training.  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  28 Oct 2009.  Web.  11 Aug 2020.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2009/10/high-rep-training-dick-conner-dave.htm

Estrada, Tony. Harold Poole, Legendary Delts. Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 27 Mar 2017. Web. 31 Jul 2020. http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2017/03/harold-poole-legendary-delts-tony.html

Fair, John.  Mr. America: idealism or racism: color consciousness and the AAU Mr. America contest, 1939-1982.  Iron Game History.  Jun/Jul 2003, 8(1):9-30.

Fair, John D. Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.

Harold Poole.  Greatest Physiques.  Web.  24 Aug 2020.  https://www.greatestphysiques.com/male-physiques/harold-poole/

Higgins, WIll.  Weird lives of Hoosier muscle men: Twiggy’s bodyguard, Arnold’s template, Mel Brooks’ Mongo.  Indy Star.  Web.  7 Aug 2020.  https://www.indystar.com/story/life/2018/01/30/odd-jobs-hoosier-strongtwiggys-bodyguard-mel-brooks-mongo-schwarzeneggers-template-odd-jobbing-hoosi/1047862001/

New York Crime Rates 1960-2018.  Disaster Center.  Web.  17 Aug 2020.  http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/nycrime.htm

Pearl, Bill.  Social Media Post.  Facebook.  4 Sep 2018.  Web.  24 Aug 2020.  https://www.facebook.com/116733248412758/posts/information-regarding-arthur-harris-was-excerpt-from-a-2008-article-that-appeare/1849179891834743/

Rader, Peary. Abbenda Wins “Mr. America” As Twenty-five Men Compete For Title.  Reprinted from IronMan Magazine, Vol 21, No 6, Page 12, August 1962.  Muscle Memory.  Web.  17 Aug 2020. http://www.musclememory.com/showArticle.php?im210612

Roach, Randy. Muscle, Smoke, and Mirrors, Vol. I. Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2008.

Roach, Randy. Muscle, Smoke, and Mirrors, Vol. II. Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2011.

Robson, David.  An interview with the legendary Harold Poole.  Bodybuilding.com.  19 Feb 2019.  Web.  28 Jun 2020.  https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson301.htm

Sprague, Ken and Bill Reynolds. The Gold’s Gym Book of Bodybuilding. New York: Contemporary Books, 1983.

Willoughby, David. The Super-Athletes. Cranbury: AS Barnes and Co, Inc, 1970.

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