"Dave's Faves" by Dave Yarnell

The birth of Powerlifting

Since my recent opportunity to participate in the recently formed USPF legends podcast, I have decided that I really needed to revisit the roots of not only my own lifting career but the roots of the powerlifting game itself. How long has competitive powerlifting really existed? What is the difference between powerlifting, Olympic lifting, all-around lifting, professional strong-manism, crossfit and any other type of sport featuring the lifting of weights and other heavy objects? Well, Peary Rader was around when the whole thing began, actually well before it began, in fact. In a 1983 article, Peary decided to tell his side of the story. As far back as the late 40s, folks in the iron game began to at least visualize the idea. But before powerlifting, there was the Professional Strongman association, which Peary acknowledged as perhaps not the best start, as professionals were known to be difficult to work with, so it was decided early on that things might advance more smoothly by working with the amateur crowd.

Olympic lifting had been well established by then and many of its strongest proponents were not big fans of the upstart powerlifting crowd. Guys like Bob Hoffman were heavily invested in Olympic lifting and its success, and were afraid that this new sport would be a talent drain from the strongest athletes of the era. 

There was even a bit of snobbery among the O lifting crowd, with athletes and coaches alike feeling that O lifting required more athleticism, skill, and technique than powerlifting. After all, powerlifting was all about brute power and strength, and could be practiced by a gorilla with a little training under his belt.

But for the same reasons, it appealed to more of the “average Joe” types as a sport they could find themselves enjoying and competing in. Though the big 3 powerlifts are not devoid of any skill or technique, one could learn the basics of the movements and learn to perform the competitive styles of all 3 moves in short order. 

Eventually, folks began to realize the possibilities for introducing more newbies into the iron game, and what that could mean for gym owners and equipment makers, along with those hawking courses, periodicals, supplements and so on. In the early days, Bodybuilding faced its own challenges as well, and many disliked the idea of men and women competing against each other by performing a series of poses on stage, without any accompanying feats of strength included to “prove oneself” as a true strongman or woman. 

The earliest bodybuilding contests were usually paired with strength contests of some sort. Though Rader himself was pro bodybuilding to a degree, he asked what the point of a 19 inch arm was if its owner was not also unusually strong. Hoffman thought along similar lines. 

Now of course Peary was a tad biased but he claimed that the early Iron Man newsletters and publications were the most accurate in terms of reporting the status of powerlifting, and this was probably true. The early Arena and Strength magazines, of which I am privileged to own a few, were focused on boxing, wrestling and “all-around” lifting, with some O lifting coverage as well. This eventually morphed into Hoffman’s Strength and Health magazine, with Weider getting in the mix with his MuscleBuilder/Power magazine. Eventually, Hoffman started his “muscular development” magazine so as not to lose the bodybuilding crowd to Weider.

So the first big contest that could even be considered a powerlifting meet was held in July of 1949 over 2 days, and included the Mr. 1949 bodybuilding show and was well attended.

The strongman component was the “continental and jerk” which they felt would attract some O lifters as it was close to an O lift in its performance.

This was the start of the amateur powerlifting organization in this country. Then in the fall of 1950, further meetings were held and a new, more inclusive name came about... “ The International Strongman Association” Membership dues were set up. But with mostly professionals involved, there was not enough overall participation to make the sport thrive and grow at that time.

Shortly after this it was decided to enter more vigorously into amateur competition by connecting with the AAU and the Olympic Lifting Committee.

The Olympic Committee felt that if they could control to some extent what would later be called the powerlifting committee, they could prevent it from destroying the popularity and growth of O lifting.

The powerlifts or “odd lifts” as they were called early on, were still not super popular until later in the 50s and in 1959 a National Championship was to be held In Colorado Springs, with the lifts being contested to be the continental and jerk, bench press and squat... no deadlift as of yet.

General AAU rules were to be followed. The same weight classifications that were used in Olympic lifting were used in this contest and this was to set the precedent. The “Mr. North America” was to be held in conjunction with this contest, but the entries were so low that the event was cancelled.

Another national contest was then planned for Milwaukee for the following year, with the contested lifts this time being bench press, deep knee bend and deadlift, and in that order. This one was also cancelled due to not enough entries, despite the fact that plenty of local powerlifting meets were being held around the country at this point.

Around March 1955 there was a big Powerlift contest held in Oakland, California. The lifts used were: the Olympic press, upright rowing, the bench press, the squat and the deadlift. At this contest the highest bench press was 360 and the highest deadlift was 625 done by a heavyweight by the name of Tiny Walsh who weighed 263 from Ed Yarick’s gym. There were also women’s contests held in conjunction with this with 10 entries, so you can see that the women have been doing powerlifting just as long as the men.

Somewhere around this time, there was a discussion between Rader and Hoffman, wherein Bob was still against powerlifting as he felt the lifts were bad for O lifters, but Peary tried to persuade him that squats, at least, were beneficial to and should be done by O lifters.

Peary did not see any great benefit to bench presses and deadlifts and called them “slow lifts,” but did not see any harm in doing these.

Up until this time America had been dominant in O lifting but around 1959 or 60, this began to change and O lifting would begin a long decline. Between this time and the early 80s, O lifting’s loss was largely powerlifting and bodybuilding’s gain. Some of it may have been a direct result of powerlifting’s new popularity, but there were other factors. The July and November Issues of Rader’s lifting news contained records for the newly established powerlifts, the bench press, squat, deadlift and curl. It was also in 62 that a meeting of the AAU weightlifting organization convened in which quite a verbal brawl ensued and Rader suggested that the powerlifters be allowed their own division of the AAU, but there was not a lot of support on this other than from Peary and a couple of others.

In the March issue of 1963 Lifting News there was a report of the Southern California Powerlifting Championship. It was in this contest that Pat Casey, who many of you remember, made his entrance into the world of powerlifting and made a 530 bench press, 200 curl and a 580 squat. These were the three lifts used in this contest.

In the 1964 AAU weightlifting meeting it was decided that powerlifting records set before January 1965 would not be considered valid, the 3 official lifts would be bench press, squat and deadlift and a new weight class of the 242s was considered but tabled for a later date. It was also decided that a junior national meet would be held around August and a Senior National meet in or around September every year. In September of 64, there was a big meet in York, Pa, which represented a big turnaround for that group. There was also a big Prison meet in Leavenworth, and in fact Powerlifting was very popular in Prisons in these days.

At the 65 AAU Weightlifting meeting, it was decided to give the annual Senior power meet to York and the Juniors to Patterson, New Jersey under a man named Frank Bates. From this time on, Powerlifting was well established and continued to grow in popularity.

For the video version: https://youtu.be/zkhqMQ0t77o