Larry Pacifico is for all intents and purposes one of the gods of powerlifting. Not one of the ancient, chthonic nightmares bubbling up from the unreachable depths of the Marianas or anything quite so dramatic as that, but as more of a Hanuman (the Indian monkey god of physical strength) At 198 and 220 Pacifico set records at fucking will, racking up nine world championship golds in a row through the seventies. His book has been out of print forever, but I was lucky enough to have an Irishman drunkenly send me a bunch of photos of the book, which he took hammered to shit, so the resolution isn’t the best. It is, however, a damn sight better than having none of Larry Pacifico’s wisdom at hand, so take what you can get and fucking like it.

If you don’t know of the man, here are Larry Pacifico’s best lifts, set with ace bandages as knee wraps and a two-second pause on the chest for the bench.

Larry Pacifico Vital Stats

• Height: 5’6″
• Weight: 198-220 (competition); ~230 offseason

Larry Pacifico’s Best Competition Lifts (set between 1971 and 1979)

Squat : 832 pounds
Bench press : 592 pounds (no bench shirt)
Deadlift : 771 pounds
Total : 2,061 pounds

Larry Pacifico’s Best Exhibition Lifts (Post-1968 lifts done at @230lbs)

Squat : 885 pounds
Bench press : 611 pounds
Deadlift : 815 pounds
Push Press : 440 pounds
Standing Press : 315 pounds in 1968
Snatch: 270 pounds in 1968
Clean and Jerk : 320 pounds in 1968

I didn’t get the deadlift section, but I did write about how both he and his deadlifting nemesis, Vince Anello, both trained in my book 365 Days of Brutality. The gist of their deadlift training is that bodybuilding was the basis and they just went fucking ham training back. It’s really not that fucking hard- just increase your level of effort expended to about 150% of what it currently is. I’ve recently discovered that I am indeed one of the people about whom I write, and while I thought I was disliked by gym owners, it turns out my level of intensity even while training high is light years beyond the average trainee. Which makes me sad for you guys, because you’re missing out on a good fucking time and a lot more weight on the bar.

In any event, enjoy. The bit from 365 is first, followed by excerpts from Larry Pacifico’s Training System, which is so out of print not even his son, badass powerlifter and trainer Jimmie Pacifico, has a copy.

Vince Anello and Larry Pacifico- Bodybuilders and World Champion Powerlifters Flying (and Winning) By the Seats of Their Goddamn Pants

The men pictured above, Vince Anello and Larry Pacifico, were powerlifters who competed against each other throughout their careers, trading records back and forth as they sought to be not just best powerlifters on the planet, but the best looking.  You would think, with a goal like that, that they would have meticulously planned their rise to victory like the internet tells you to, plotting and planning and calculating and formulating, weighing food and checking macros and doing all of the other extraneous bullshit people discuss to avoid the cold hard fact that none of that shit is worth a velvet painting of a whale and a dolphin gettin’ it on if you’re not training until your fucking eyes bleed every time you hit the gym.  

These two, however, loved training and trained like they were a couple of epic masochists trying to pick up a new play partner at a BDSM convention, and just beat the ever-loving shit out of themselves.  Pacifico ended up with 54 world records as a result and hit 832 on the squat with ACE bandages for wraps, a 593 bench, and a 771 deadlift in powerlifting meets with no flight system.  And Anello, by the end of his career, broke the 800 barrier on the deadlift for the first time at a sub 200 bodyweight, and pulled 821 in competition with a 750 squat and a 500 bench.  But because the real lifting was done in the gym, not outside it, both men had even more ridiculous numbers witnessed by multiple people, including an 880 pull by Anello and an 885 squat by Pacifico.

Like any strong person, Anello and Pacifico knew it was only weak people who would utter the tired adage “it doesn’t matter unless you do it on a platform,” because when you’re just lifting for yourself, you don’t give a fuck if anyone else approves of your lift.  Thus, they would go into the gym with the type of wild-eyed zeal usually seen on the faces of people wearing vests styled by ISIS and attack the shit out of the goddamn weights.

As neither man was huge on planning, they don’t even have a basic framework to show you.  What they did have, however, were sort of trends in their training. 

• Partials and Isometrics: Both men relied heavily on partials and isometrics to build strength.  Anello would do deadlift partials from just below or at the knee.  He’d also do partial squats, which (very interestingly) he thought were far more helpful for the deadlift than they were for the squat. Both guys used isometrics to improve their pull, setting the top pin just under their knee and pulling a light weight against it as hard as possible for six seconds.
• Negatives: Whereas Pacifico used these on the bench, Anello adopted the deadlift method of unracking a deadlift at the top of the movement, doing a very slow negative, then pulling it back up from the floor.  This was the training style used by Bob Peoples, who was the first man under 200lbs to pull 700 in competition, and People was actually int the crowd when Anello did the same with 800.
• Bodybuilding: Both men competed in bodybuilding and stayed lean year-round.  Because of this, they both had incredibly well-rounded totals, and they looked like Greek gods on the platform.
• Shrugs: Though everyone these days seems to think shrugs are stupid, both Anello and Pacifico did them with the type of religious fervor one generally reserves for suicide bombings.
• Go seriously heavy: Both guys trained primarily in the 1-3 rep range and focused on getting the weight up any way they could rather than having the best form.  A form check on Anello’s deadlifts would likely have caused most of the internet’s gurus to have a goddamn stroke.  Calling his deadlift ugly is like calling someone like the Rock or Kate Upton “pretty”- it’s not really a word that can accurately describe what’s going on.

To give you an idea of how these guys trained, here is a sample week from Larry Pacifico- there is no rhyme, reason, or pattern- he just trained his goddamn ass off, doing whatever he wanted whenever he liked.

Day 1: Deadlift Isometrics

Deadlift Isometrics– two levels, 455 for 6-second holds

Day 2: Light Back

Chinups– 3 x 10

Cable Rows– 3 x 10

Pulldowns- 3×10

Leg Raises

Situps

Day 3: Heavy Squat and Bench

Squat– 1 x 3 x 535; 1 x 2 x 615; 1 x 2 x 705; 1 x 1 x 740

Bench Press– 4 x 6 x 425;1 x 4 x 475; 1 x 2 x 505; 1 x 1 x 540

Wide Grip Bench (long pause)- 435 x 1; 435×3

Situps

Day 4: OFF

Day 5: Deadlift

Deadlift– 1 x 2 x 615; 2 x 2 x 700; 2 x 2 x 720, 1 x 1 x 720; 2 x 4 x 525

Day 6: More Light Back

Chinups– 4 x 8

Pulldowns– 3 x 10

Bent Over Row– 3 x 10

Situps– 2 x 25

Forearms– 3 x 10

Day 7: Squat and Bench

Squat– 1 x 3 x 525; 1 x 2 x 615; 1 x 2 x 705; 1 x 2 x 740

Bench Press– 4 x 6 x 325; 1 x 4 x 415; 1 x 2 x 505; 1 x 2 x 540

Skullcrushers– 1 x 8; 1 x 6; 1 x 4; 1 x 3; 2 x 1

Situps– 2 x 25

Larry Pacifico’s Bodybuilding for the Powerlifter

Larry Pacifico’s Bench Training System

Larry Pacifico’s Squat Training System

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