Steve Stanko did pullovers with 250 pounds. I met him in York, Pa, in 1965. Would you believe I went there with a pile of articles I had written. I favoured Hoffman over Weider in those days. York were the good guys and Weider were the bad guys. Both were bullshitters as I later found out. Anyway, I met Terry Todd, PhD, who was editor of Strength and Health magazine. I gave him my articles to read. The next day he returned them with some grammar corrections but said they weren't interested. So I approached John Grimek in his office of Muscular Development. John always wore sun glasses because he damaged an eye doing an exercise with those chest expanders. He read a few of the articles and told me maybe Weider might be interested. That ended my ambition to be on the staff of a bodybuilding magazine. What the hell was I thinking. Those hacks don't make much and have to kiss the owner's ass instead of writing with integrity. John refused to let me take a photo of him.
There was a national powerlifting contest in York while I was there and also the Mr USA contest. I think Bob Gajda won that. There was a big, black bodybuilder in the audience who many thought was Sergio Oliva. Nope was a guy from New York. I took some photos of him posing outside the hall where the lifting was taking place. I got some frowns from some officials who passed by. Those were the days when Mr America contestants had to submit to an interview and also demonstrate some athletic ability. That requirement saw many lackluster guys win the very coveted Mr America contest from 1959 to 1964 or so. The AAU Mr America was second only to the NABBA Mr Universe in those days. After I took a roll of 36 slides I gave the film to the bodybuilder. Now what photographer would do that?
Bob Hoffman had a great gym at the York Barbell premises. Guests were allowed to use the gym while visiting. They used to call York, "Muscletown" but I didn't see many good physiques at the shopping center I visited! Over many years I had read Bob Hoffman's editorials where he sounded very pompous. One day while he was walking through the gym in his sports jacket I called out about how he had a fat gut! I always said what was on my mind. I still get in trouble even today! Bob stopped and invited about 5 of us training there to gather around him. What happened next was unbelievable! He took off his sports jacket, tie and shirt. He stood there in his white singlet. He asked us to observe. He inhaled a big breath and then exhaled. He kept exhaling for perhaps 15 or more seconds. When he finished he did a vacuum of his abdominals and got a guy there to touch his abdomen to see how hard it was. He dressed and off he went. The next day John Terpak, the operations manager for York, reprimanded me in the gym and told me not to insult Bob again or I wouldn't be able to train there. Shit, I felt very bad about what I did. Later in the shopping center I met Jules Bacon, Mr America in the early 40's. He told me not to worry about upsetting Bob because he was a windbag. That made me feel much better. One day Bob gathered all the visitors in the gym to listen to his tale about a weightlifting contest he entered many years ago. The night before the contest he told us he had sex for hours with some woman. The next day at the contest he clean and jerked 275 pounds. The moral of the story was that he might have done more had he not had sex for hours and hours. I was told Bob was notorious for telling those stories. We all shook our heads later thinking he was a sad guy to relate that shit! Very amusing to hear just the same.
Anyway, I did talk to Steve Stanko who was a heavyweight USA champion weight lifter in the old days. He had torn a biceps but when he showed me his arms I couldn't see much damage at all. He mentioned his pullover poundage and when I returned to Kamloops I started doing heavy pullovers. Maybe it might help increase the rib cage? I got up to 250 pounds but had to give that movement up because of very sore elbows. It took almost a year of very light triceps pressdowns to rehabilitate the triceps so I could train them heavily again. I always had a slow gradual warmup before using heavy weights.
