I love Charles’ article on Hepburn
Five Things I Learned from Doug Hepburn
Great advice from a strongman legend
by Charles Poliquin
Long before anabolic steroids became a common shortcut in the Iron Game, there were several amazing athletes who achieved Herculean levels of maximal strength. Their formula for success contained the optimal mix of principle-based training, sound nutrition, adequate recovery and a drive to improve. One such athlete was Doug Ivan Hepburn.
Hepburn was born in Vancouver, Canada, on September 16, 1926. Born with a clubfoot and cross-eyed, Hepburn took up weight training when he was 15 and overcame his disabilities to become incredibly strong - by age 18 he could squat 340 pounds, bench press 260 and curl 140. Many strength historians argue that at his peak Hepburn was the strongest man in the world. Here’s why.
Hepburn broke eight world records in weightlifting and won the gold medal at the 1953 World Weightlifting Championships as a superheavyweight. This performance garnered international attention because Hepburn defeated US phenom John Davis, who had won the gold medal the previous year in Helsinki. Hepburn’s best performances in weightlifting included a press of 381, a snatch of 300, and a clean and jerk of 383. But Hepburn had many other impressive lifts.
Hepburn, a split-style lifter, was the first man to bench press 500 pounds (eventually lifting 545), and his record-breaking success in such basic strength exercises helped earn him the title “Grandfather of Modern Powerlifting.” Among his other notable lifts are a 445-pound Olympic press, 445 push press, 750 squat and a 705 deadlift. Note that these lifts were performed a half century ago and without the aid of steroids - in fact Hepburn was an outspoken critic of both drug use and supportive equipment. Hepburn was also as strong as he looked, weighing 300 pounds at a height of only 5’8-1/2?.
As I also am a native Canadian, Hepburn has been one of my heroes. If it were not for the strength phenom Paul Anderson, who appeared on the lifting scene a few years after Hepburn retired, Hepburn’s accomplishments would have become even more legendary in the strength community.
I studied Hepburn’s training methods and use much of his advice in practice to this day. Here are five lessons he taught me that I’ve found especially valuable.
- Concentrate on two lifts per day
This is the same type of philosophy as the “put the big rocks first in the jar” analogy that Steven Covey uses in his book First Things First. If you get strong on two basic lifts per workout, plenty of strength gains will transfer over to smaller muscles from what is known as the irradiation effect. For this reason, as often as permissible I set up antagonistic pairs together, such as pull-ups and overhead presses.
- Perform lots of sets for maximal strength
If you ever have a chance to look into the details of Doug Hepburn’s methodology to increase maximal strength, you’ll see it centers on doing lots of basic work. One of the main reasons I have stayed ahead of the game is this: doing lots of sets. Do only a few things, but do them extremely well. Ask any REAL expert on strength training and they will tell you that this is a very basic success principle.
Last January I gave an invitation-only seminar - Sport Specific Strength Training -at Level 5 PICP coach Roberto Sabatini’s gym in St-Bruno, Quebec. I asked Pierre Roy, the best lifting coach in North America, to give a guest lecture. Dr. Espen Arntzen, soon to be the first European coach to achieve Level 5 PICP, asked Pierre what he thought were the three most important keys to success in strength training. Pierre’s answer: “One: hard work. Two: hard work. Three: hard work.” And it’s true: The strongest athletes always have the biggest work capacity.
- Excite the nervous system first, and then do functional hypertrophy
Many of my successful colleagues use a variation of this approach. Whether they are from Hungary or Romania, the principle they use is the same: Excite high-threshold motor units first, and then do functional hypertrophy work.
A sample torso workout would look like this:
Relative-Strength Work
A-1: narrow pull-ups (4-inch/10-cm grip), 8 x 1 @ 50X0 tempo, rest 100 seconds.
A-2: Seated 80-degree BB military presses (4-inch grip), 8 x 1 @ 50X0 tempo, rest 100 seconds.
Functional Hypertrophy Work
B-1: narrow pull-ups (6-inch grip), 4 x 5 @ 40X0 tempo, rest 90 seconds. The grip is changed for varied stimulus - trust me, it will increase results.
B-2: Seated 70-degree BB military presses (4-inch grip), 4 x 5 @ 40X0 tempo, rest 90 seconds. Again, the change of angle will provide even better results, as you will tap into a slightly different motor-unit pool.
A sample lower body workout would look like this:
Relative Strength Work
Power cleans from the block
3,2,1,3,2,1,3,2,1 @ X0X0 tempo, rest 180 seconds
Functional hypertrophy work
Mid-grip pulls on podium, 4 x 6 @ 20X0 tempo, rest 180 seconds. Grip is between a snatch grip and a clean grip.
- Use Split Routines
I always found that total-body workouts were just too draining to allow quick recovery. I only started to make progress myself once I split up my training following Doug Hepburn’s (and Anthony Dittilo’s) methodology. What I added to the fundamentals of the Hepburn system were standardized rest intervals, and tempo; hence, making it even better.
By using two key lifts per day and multiple training sessions per week, I was able to train a host of Olympic medalists. Whether they were summer Olympians such as Adam Nelson or winter Olympians such as Pierre Lueders, they all used split routines.
There is a trend among many strength journalists to push for total-body workouts; but I’ll just point out that few Internet writers have physiques with strength to match; my colleague Christian Thibaudeau - whose strength does match his physique - is a split-routine user. Success leaves clues.
- Take your time
Doug Hepburn preached taking your time to adjust the load upwards, an approach I also strongly endorse. Pierre Roy taught me the same thing. For example, want to increase your squat? Select a weight where your spleen will come out of your left eye socket to complete 8 sets of 2. Then, every workout try to add to the total number of reps by adding only one rep per set. Once you can complete 8 x 3, only then is it time to increase the weight.
You can’t get a more solid formula for strength training than Doug Hepburn’s. These steps are still used by the best of the best. Hepburn died in 2000, but his legacy is proving that the human body has not dramatically evolved in the last 50 years and that basic hard work still prevails. There are no shortcuts - that’s the Doug Hepburn way.