My Personal Hypocrisy in Powerlifting (Part 2- Training and Drug Use)
By: Jon Grove, North Georgia Barbell
This is a continuation of my personal soul-searching into internal conflicts related to my career in competitive powerlifting. Please note that I’m not yet “that guy” that is lounging around inactive and bitterly remembering back when I was in my prime. Since I was 16 years old and did my first official powerlifting competition, I have made every life choice around the sport and 34 years later I still have the sport and training on my mind most every moment of most every day. I have accepted my place as a coach and mentor to other people and I still train with my team every week but it’s their workout and I’m just there to keep them pushing hard and training correctly. I love the sport and I have no regrets or bitter feelings about anything, but I do have a different perspective at 49 years old and I often feel hypocritical regarding certain things.
Prior to the internet, an aspiring young powerlifter had three basic choices to learn how to get stronger and how to prepare for a competition. One choice was to learn from other lifters; they were often older guys from the gym that offered advice from their personal experiences. We could read magazines for information, but the only magazine devoted specifically to powerlifting was Mike Lambert’s Powerlifting USA magazine. Powerlifting USA was a powerlifter’s bible in those days. Last, we could simply learn through trial and error. This last method was haphazard at best but what better way to learn than from making mistakes? Most lifters I know from that era used all three of these resources to become better at their craft.
I certainly used all three of these resources in my lifting career. I wasn’t around top-level competitors early on so my advice from older lifters was mostly related to hard work and discipline. Some of these guys were strong but, looking back, I don’t remember a ton of advice on technique. They were mostly power bodybuilders, and they gave me a hands-on education in intensity. We didn’t come into the gym to “work out” or joke around. A training session was like going to battle in the gym, and veteran lifters enjoy teaching a young guy this lesson. This can’t be taught online.
Any powerlifter from the late 1970’s until the early 2000’s will tell you how important Powerlifting USA magazine was to them. It was like Christmas day once a month when we opened the mailbox and pulled it out. We could read about the big meets, see the sport’s champions, get training ideas and workout programs, see upcoming meets and, of course, read the “Top 100” rankings for each weight class. The first organized routine I ever did was in about 1992 when I copied the “Workout of the Month” by 165 class champion Dominic Sardo to write out my 10-week squat program and followed his percentages and reps; this increased my squat by 40–50 pounds and I understood that I had to cycle my training to increase strength. There is no doubt that seeing pictures of lifters executing lifts and learning about programming came heavily from the pages of PL USA magazine for many people. This is an area the internet has improved upon, but it can be difficult, like most things online, to decipher between helpful information and information with an agenda.
Trial and error and allowing people to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes is priceless but can also be potentially destructive in many ways. That very statement defines this article and how I am torn by the direction I chose versus the direction I would recommend to others. It can make me feel hypocritical because, as I stated in my previous writing, I only know how to advise others properly because of my own personal trial and error which includes endless mistakes. However, without making those mistakes I wouldn’t be able to advise and mentor others so I might question if they were really “mistakes” at all.
I have tried nearly every training idea and program. Occasionally, something new surfaces or I experiment with something new but, in most cases, even the new ideas you come across have probably been tried before. As a young lifter not understanding the science of strength training including the physics of movement, biomechanics, force generation and recovery I just tried every rep scheme, every training cycle, all types of accessory exercises and every new concept I came across. I didn’t do this entirely haphazardly and I had the patience to stick with a training cycle, but I usually trained too heavy too often and let my absolute love for heavy lifting and my training intensity guide most of my choices. In turn, I had much success in competition because hard work does pay off, but I wrecked my body thoroughly and have torn nearly every muscle in my body including detached tendons, multiple joint replacements and tons of other lifting related surgeries. So, in regard to training, people should still try new things and people will still make mistakes and get injuries, but I can say that you will have a far longer lifting career and deal with far less bodily trauma by listening and learning from people that have already made the mistakes.
Last, and possibly my greatest lifting hypocrisy, is the use of performance enhancing drugs. I want to be clear on this: I didn’t question using steroids for one millisecond. I didn’t fret over side effects or long-term health implications. I had already done several competitions, but drug-free training was not something I had pride in or even thought about. I wanted to be as big and as strong as I could be and, to me, steroids were nothing more than a training aid to get me to my goals faster and make me better. I didn’t just take a few “cycles” or use low dosages of safer anabolic drugs to play it safe for the long game. I took the most powerful, most androgenic drugs and I took a lot of them over 25 years with very little time off. I have fond memories of the lifts I accomplished in these early years, and I wouldn’t change anything BUT I’m currently opposed to young lifters using steroids. Knowledge is power and, because I now have vast training insight and understand programming and the science of lifting, I can assist young people in getting stronger than I ever was without them using drugs. I do not believe in telling someone what to do with their body and I will not do so but I have trained tons of young people and none of them have ever asked me about drugs or used drugs. They compete in drug free meets and they continue to get exponentially stronger. This validates that knowledge and patience will yield great results without the need for steroids.
In summary, times truly have changed. I do not believe my story and experiences are that different from other older powerlifters. Drug use was rampant in strength sports, sound training advice was limited, and we oftentimes learned things by doing them incorrectly. Whether I’m a hypocrite or just wiser through experience, training information is now widely available, and I believe people can get extremely powerful without using drugs and can continue lifting and stay healthy for decades.