Powerlifting Articles

Strength Writers, Articles, and Columns That Changed My Life

Strength writers, the articles, the columns they wrote, the impact they had on my life.

Born Alpha: future NFL linebacker or Tier 1 special operations leader.

I began reading the muscle mags at age 11 in 1961, long before any powerlifting articles came into existence. My Irish father, a decorated World War II Army sergeant, fourth wave, Omaha Beach, would drive my younger brother and me to the Wheaton newsstand every Sunday morning after Mass. My dad was highly literate and weekly would pick up a fistful of magazines and newspapers.

My father would linger and talk with the newsstand owner and sole employee, his friend Alec Lysus, a World War I trench-warfare veteran. The two would talk for a solid hour while my brother and I would sit on the dusty floor and read comic books.

Comic Books, Superheroes, and the Craving for Muscle

Initially, my childhood reading interests ran to Donald Duck, Mickey, Goofy, Scrooge McDuck, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, kid stuff. I segued into harder fare, superhero comics: Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, et al. The superhero comics planted in my protuberant mind a craving for a superhero physique. All good-guy superheroes had excellent physiques: wide shoulders, wasp waists, great arms, broad backs and powerhouse legs. In my mind, building a physique like that was necessary if I wanted superpowers.

Every comic book of that era had muscle ads: Charles Atlas always had a full-page ad touting Dynamic Tension, a regimen that made him rich. Mr. America Clancy Ross had an impressive comic ad indicating that using his method “built 18-inch arms.” I was intrigued: I snuck a cloth tape out of my grandmother’s sewing kit and made an 18-inch circle. “Impossible!” I thought as I gazed at the circle. I could put my 11-year-old head through that circle. Later in life I built genuine 19-inch arms.

Gimme some of that! When I was gazing at this kind of image, I was 11 and weighed 97 pounds.

My First Barbell Set

At the Wheaton newsstand, the comics were set on the lowest level and the muscle magazines, Strength & Health, Muscle Builder and Iron Man, sat on the rack above the comic books. I commenced reading them. My father saw my interest and bought me the muscle mags.

For Christmas in 1962 I was gifted a 110-pound barbell set. I scoured the muscle mags for training routines, which I religiously performed. I wore that 110-pound set out, this right as I commenced puberty. My boy body, flooded with testosterone, muscled up. My progress was astounding.

The combination of testosterone coming online, my continual athletic activities, my voracious eating, and daily lifting hardened my baby body. At age 12, weighing 120, I clean and pressed 120. I had worked for months toward this. As I got deeper into the Iron Game, I discovered information sources that changed my physique and changed my life.

The Muscle Magazines Above the Comic Books

As the muscle magazines came out at different times, three different days a month I would walk two miles to purchase either Strength & Health, Muscle Builder, or Iron Man.

By the mid-1960s, more muscle mags appeared as both York, with Muscular Development, and Weider, with All American Athlete, launched second magazines. I would study these magazines like a Talmudic scholar and then rush to my basement gym Boy Cave to try the new Freddy Ortiz biceps routine or a Phil Grippaldi overhead press routine.

By the mid-1960s, powerlifting had formalized enough to become a legitimate magazine subject: an unofficial American powerlifting championship took place in York in 1964, and the AAU staged its first national championship in 1965. Both the Weider and York organizations began regularly publishing powerlifting articles.

Terry Todd and the Birth of Powerlifting Articles

Terry Todd was important. He had won a tennis scholarship at the University of Texas in Austin. He began power training and added slabs of muscle to his large frame. Tennis lost a scholarship athlete as Todd became one of powerlifting’s earliest superheavyweight stars.

Todd was squatting over 700, bench pressing in the 500 range and deadlifting in the 740-pound range. He won early AAU powerlifting titles and secured a big job with Bob Hoffman, who wanted to jump on the powerlifting bandwagon. Terry was highly educated, opinionated, and a good writer.

John McCallum, Keys to Progress, and Texas Swagger

Todd used a lot of folksy aphorisms and Texas bunkhouse humor in his powerlifting articles. Fedor Dostoevsky once said, “All of us crawled out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat.’” Meaning all subsequent Russian writers were heavily influenced. Muscle writers could say, “We all crawled out from under John McCallum’s Keys to Progress.”

Mac was the master of using characters to portray strength-building lessons in his articles. Todd added Texas swagger to Mac’s folksy-isms in his numerous power articles.

Paul Anderson, Strength Folklore, and Big Pulls

In the mid-1960s, power god Paul Anderson was featured in a series of articles by Todd. One great story: Paul liked to golf. He had two putting greens on his farm placed 300 yards apart. Paul took Terry golfing. Drive the ball, walk, hit an iron shot onto the putting green, walk, putt out. Paul had preloaded barbells set up adjacent to each putting green.

On rack number one he would “rep out” squat 800 pounds. Back to the first putting green where Paul would “rep out” 405 in the overhead press. Paul did this all afternoon.

That powerlifting article blew my 15-year-old mind. It still does to this day. It is a strength folk legend that Terry Todd thankfully retold. Todd did an entire series of powerlifting articles with Anderson, a radical thinker and innovative trainer. One powerlifting article was called Big Paul and the Big Pull. Todd described Paul’s extensive pulling regimen: deadlifts wearing straps with hooks, good morning bends with a 55-gallon oil drum packed with cement, Anderson pulls 505 to sternum height outdoors wearing cowboy boots. Awe inspiring.

The Youth Movement: Todd, Suggs, and Starr

Terry was the leader of the “Youth Movement,” young athlete-writers under age 30. Hoffman desperately sought to change the direction of his magazines. The World War II-vintage men that ran his magazines were caught flatfooted by archrival Joe Weider. Joe was hipper than hip and raking in the cash with his “swinging 60s,” go-go, beach-lifestyle muscle mags. He featured smoking-hot babes in his ads.

Terry Todd used his Texas connections to bring in a fantastic athlete-writer named Tommy Suggs, who in turn brought wild-child Bill Starr.

These men, Todd, Suggs and Starr, were all national-level athletes that were competing and kicking ass currently. These weren’t retired champions reflecting on glory days. The men could all write, and they were all seeking to take their respective national rankings to the next level. They were “in the deal,” and when they got an opportunity to quiz the men they looked up to, they interviewed the champs like a DA grilling a suspect. They passed along empirical insights and tips. They clued us in on how the best of the best went about it.

Weider, George Frenn, and the West Coast Powerlifting Writers

In short, they walked the walk and could talk the talk. In the mid-1960s, Joe Weider decided that he was going to fight Hoffman for domination in the new sport of powerlifting. He enlisted the services of the eclectic, volatile George Frenn, a highly educated educator. Another athlete, George was world class in explosive throwing events. George took up powerlifting to aid his throwing.

The eclectic George trained with an equally eclectic group of powerlifters that gathered in Bill “Peanuts” West’s garage gym on the West Side of L.A.

Joe Weider was a regular visitor. He would bring along photographer Gene Mozee, a 450-pound raw bencher at 195 bodyweight, or Russ Warner. They would snap dramatic photos of West squatting, Frenn deadlifting and the biggest superstar in powerlifting, Pat Casey, benching 600 pounds. Joe was gobsmacked. He hired George Frenn to begin writing powerlifting articles for Muscle Builder.

Joe stayed a fan of powerlifting until another new fad arose, women’s bodybuilding. When women’s bodybuilding took off in popularity, no more powerlifting articles.

Muscular Development, Hugh Cassidy, and My Own Writing Career

The York Barbell outfit launched Muscular Development magazine and devoted a full one-third of the magazine content to powerlifting articles. My powerlifting mentor, Hugh “Huge” Cassidy, had numerous articles done on him and his career. Hugh, another educator, had a dozen of his articles published in Muscular Development.

He mentored my own writing career. He and I co-wrote four powerlifting articles, my first-ever published articles, this in 1978. To come full circle, as an adult I wrote articles for the same magazines that I read as a child. It is déjà vu all over.

Safety Note for Old Magazine Routines and Heavy Lifting

This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW first-person strength-history memory. It is not individualized medical, youth-training, rehabilitation, coaching, or programming advice.

Old magazine routines, daily youth lifting, heavy squats, bench presses, deadlifts, overhead presses, maximal pulls, lifting straps, collars, belts, and homemade basement setups require judgment. What inspired an 11-year-old boy in 1961 is not automatically a safe or complete training plan for a modern lifter.

Young lifters, beginners, older lifters, injured lifters, and anyone with medical concerns should use age-appropriate loading, qualified supervision when needed, proper warm-ups, safe equipment, recovery time, and honest stop rules. Stop or scale back for sharp pain, dizziness, chest pain, unusual shortness of breath, numbness, repeated technical collapse, uncontrolled bar path, or any symptom that feels different from normal training effort.

The useful lesson is not to copy every old routine. The useful lesson is to seek real writers, real lifters, real experience, and the kind of iron knowledge that changes a life.

Equipment Notes for Old-School Powerlifting Inspiration

Marty’s origin story begins with magazines, a barbell set, and a basement. Modern lifters and facilities still need the same basics, only safer, better built, and matched to the intended use.

For old-school barbell training, readers and facilities can compare Olympic weightlifting bars, weight plates, weight benches, and the broader powerlifting equipment category.

For lifters setting up for squats, bench presses, deadlifts, and hard pulling, relevant tools may include IRON COMPANY leather weightlifting straps, SnapClips barbell collars, IRON COMPANY urethane Olympic grip plates, and the IRON COMPANY Pioneer Cut Best Fit leather powerlifting belt, when those tools match the lifter, lift, room, load, and intended use.

The equipment does not create the writer or the lifter. The obsession, the reading, the practice, the logbook, the mentors, and the years under the bar create the lifter.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan: The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.