Ken Leistner is
an American strength training writer, personal trainer, strength
consultant for the National Football League, and chiropractor.
He is often known as "Dr. Ken". Photo By Kathy Leistner
- Stone by Slaters
Hardware |
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History
of Powerlifting, Weightlifting and Strength Training - Part
Eight
by Dr. Ken Leistner
Early Awareness, Bars
and Plates.
As a relatively astute young man whose compulsiveness
leaned towards “having to know everything” about
whatever it was that caught my interest, I
often got hung up on minor details but it assured
the completion of any task or project that
was started. This made me a coach’s favorite
and when motivated to go to class, a favorite
of most teachers. Fortunately, there was only
a two year period that could be described as “fallow” relative
to my high school education and I salvaged
my class standing in the final few years by
displaying a dedication to academics that reflected
my interest in football and strength training.
Typical as an eighth to tenth grade student
was my presence in the back row of any classroom,
eagerly leafing through the latest edition
of Strength And Health or Muscle Power magazines,
and being asked, “Mr. Leistner, would
you care to join the class in our discussion?” My
response was always similar and given without
hesitation, varying little from “Nah,
I’m doing okay back here.” Needless
to say, my obsession with training was a topic
of conversation among teachers and coaches
since during that period of time, only those
considered to be weirdos or suffering from
narcissistic or homosexual tendencies buried
their faces in publications that featured half-dressed
men either posing or tugging on a heavy barbell
in what looked to be a form of undergarment.
Even during the time I sporadically attended
class, perhaps being the only student that
would check into homeroom and then head to
a job washing the breakfast dishes and serving
as a short order cook at a nearby busy luncheonette
until my own school lunch period, I maintained
reasonably good grades. I was fortunate to
have a number of concerned teachers who saw
a bit of potential in me who joined with two
coaches to ride me hard and keep me in line.
I knew about weight training and developed
a focused interest in the activity at least
two years before my father allowed me to lift
a weight. This wasn’t due to his concern
about disrupting cartilaginous growth plates
but rather, he saw the activity as a waste
of time and energy that could be better spent
at a part time job that would bring in family
income. My father also felt that there was
a threat of becoming “muscle bound” and
slow, further hampering my athletic endeavors
and if I trained regularly, there was his belief
that I would “turn queer.” There
was a long-standing relationship between the
gay community and the bodybuilding culture,
at least in the New York City area and a number
of local weightlifters also maintained relationships
of a varying nature with that same underground
world, underground at least until perhaps the
early-1970’s. Thus, even when explaining
to my father that my sole interest was to become
stronger for football, his hackles were up.
Once I got going at the age of twelve however,
he pitched in while never truly embracing my
love for the lifting sports.
 |
The
great Bill March trains on the York Olympic
barbell, the gold standard of the 1960’s. |
I had literally made a study of the popular
muscle related magazines. “Popular” is
a definite misnomer because there was nothing
remotely popular about weight training in the
late 1950’s and early ‘60’s.
It was viewed as a strange thing to put time
into, a cult-like group of men who seemed to
do what they did for the edification of one
another because few outside of the small, closely
knit training community cared about their physical
development. Of course, the positive and negative
of this situation was that anyone who had obvious
muscular development received attention, wanted
or not. If you had what appeared to be a veiny
or bulging fifteen-inch arm, the odds were
good that you would be asked, “Uh, do
you lift weights or something?” My usual
retort that “I play football” usually
ended all conversation with most of the uninitiated
who then assumed that playing football produced
the above average degree of muscular development.
Remember too that if one intended to remain
on the “socially acceptable” list,
attracting attention to one’s lifting
activities was to be avoided. However, Hoffman’s
Strength And Health and Weider’s three
or four magazines with their oft-changing titles,
provided photos and articles that gave me a
reasonable idea of what I should do once I
actually was permitted to begin my strength
training activities. I knew I needed a barbell
and plates, something that would pass for dumbbells,
a bench, and a rack to place the bar on for
some of the exercises. I realized that anything
past that would be a luxury and it seemed as
if the big guys didn’t really do anything “fancy” over
and above the basic barbell and dumbbell exercises.
I was aware, in part due to my father’s “general
philosophy of life” instructions that
my barbell had to be a safe and effective tool.
As an ironworker, he was a typical tradesman
who’s mantra was a constant and I had
heard “You’re only as good as your
tools” and “You take care of your
tools and they’ll take care of you” at
about the same young age that I was taught
what every son of every manual worker was taught; “Righty
tighty, lefty loosey” if anything had
to be opened or closed. From the very start,
I understood that while the exotic looking
benches, pulleys, and tables looked great and
no doubt could do things to one’s body
that could cause extreme muscle growth, one
first had to have the best of the most important
tool which simply meant that one had to begin
their equipment stash with the absolute best
barbell possible.
History
Supplement: Jay Rosciglione and the
St. Louis Crew
There was no weight room at college
which was not an unusual state of affairs
in the mid-1960’s. I became a
fixture at the Central YMCA on Elm
Street, hitchhiking or jogging the
four miles or so from campus to the
basement hovel called the “Weight
Training Area.” When YMCA’s
still served as daily, weekly, or monthly
residential hotels primarily for transients,
the Central Y was in every way typical
which meant that the lifting “area” was
no more than a small room shoved into
a corner of the basement. Pools of
leaking water, a cracked concrete floor,
and a lot of functional homemade equipment
was the order of the day but the group
of lifters, bodybuilders, and limited
number of football players from both
Xavier University and Cincinnati made
for an enthusiastic and spirited group
that was very supportive. The perception
of the iron game moved forward so that
by the end of the 1970’s three
or four NFL teams had full time strength
coaches and weight training was becoming
more accepted for athletes. The storefront
pits and Y basements had begun to give
way to all-Nautilus clubs and large
health club type facilities that allowed
for sauna, racquetball, and coed socialization
in relatively opulent and comfortable
surroundings. When I changed careers
and moved to St. Louis to attend chiropractic
college, I was fortunate to find the
time to train among school, clinic,
family, and employment responsibilities.
In St. Louis, George Turner, an old-school
bodybuilder, was the main man. He had
three successful health clubs with
the “least fanciest” located
in a shabby part of the city. The “North
gym” as everyone referred to
it, was home for the powerlifters.
I did most of my training with Olympic
lifter Mike Wittmer or by myself in
my basement but in time would make
regular visits to the North gym or
the Granite City Y across the river
in Illinois. The St. Louis group at
Turner’s North were in a word,
terrific. They were extremely supportive
of each other’s attempts to improve
and dedicated to what was still considered
to be a nascent sporting activity.
The best of those lifters was Jay Rosciglione.
 |
Jay
Rosciglione. |
Jay had been a high school wrestler
whose non-school hours were spent working
in his family’s very successful
Italian bakery. He more or less wandered
into powerlifting as a competitive
outlet and proved to be adept at his
new sport. Jay and I became friendly,
and eventually became a team at major
meets. I want to be very clear that
I did little to contribute to Jay’s
ultimate success and over time he was
one of the best powerlifters in the
world. His numbers, especially big
in the squat, ranked him at the top
of the 148 and then the 165 pound classes
for years but all of that came from
his ability to work hard and that discipline
and focus were much more important
than the actual numbers. At contests,
Jay and I were often assumed to be
related. I never could see the resemblance,
especially from the neck down but from
Munich to Dayton to El Dorado, Arkansas,
there would be dozens of inquiries
at every meet asking, “Are you
guys cousins?” At an earlier
time in life when weighing 232 pounds,
I was “noticeable” as a
guy who lifted weights but at 165 or
lighter, I looked like “a guy” and
not much more than that. Jay looked
as if he stepped out of the pages of
Muscle And Fitness as one of their
supplement ad models or Mr. America
winners. While competitive bodybuilders
often commented upon the muscularity
and physique development of powerlifters
like Roger Estep, Jim Cash, and Jay,
photos did little justice to the visual
impact the depth of Jay’s muscular
development and fiber-revealing definition
had on observers. He was every bit
as ripped as any dais-mounting muscle
man and of course, multiple times stronger
than any of them. Thus, when asked
if we were in fact related or told
that “you guys look alike” I
was quite flattered and it happened
often because at meets, we were usually
within feet of each other a great deal
of the time.
 |
Jay
and Dr. Ken circa 1982. |
One of my perks for handling and coaching
Jay was a hand-delivered, four day supply
of freshly baked brownies at every venue
he or I competed at. Although I was guilty
on almost all occasions of finishing
the entire container of brownies by myself,
better than that came when visiting the
bakery on Friday afternoons. Interning
at the Logan College Clinic that served
the rather downtrodden neighborhood of
Ferguson, I could travel quickly and
easily to Turner’s North and within
blocks of that, to the Rosciglione Bakery.
On Fridays, Jay or his brother Pete would
whip up a few gigantic pizzas that served
as lunch for the family. Honored to be
considered as family, they usually saved
a large helping (or two, or three) for
me, knowing I would stop in prior to
my clinic hours or training. Everyone
from the New York Metropolitan area will
tell anyone who will listen that pizza
just isn’t pizza unless its made
in New York (with top marks going to
Brooklyn) and pizza anywhere else is
barely edible. However, to this day,
Jay’s pizza remains my favorite,
the absolute best I’ve had and
in my neighborhood, pizza is a U.S. Department
Of Agriculture official food group! For
those who used to marvel at Jay’s
muscularity, where every fiber and striation
literally jumped out from beneath the
skin, yes, he ate the brownies, pizza,
and anything else that the bakery so
expertly made for all of the Italian
restaurants in St. Louis and for retail
sale. Jay’s training, like that
of cohorts Bill Davis, Rick Wickham,
and the other wonderfully talented crew
at the North gym, was very basic and
uncomplicated. Squats, bench press, rows,
pulldowns, deadlifts, shrugs, and what
everyone in St. Louis for some reason
referred to as “head pulls” which
was a partial deadlift from knee height
done every other week, constituted ninety-five
percent of their training. The basics
served Jay well as he was still competing
at the World Championship level to the
mid-1990’s. Even today, that group
of lifters from St. Louis and Jay in
particular, elicit favorable comment
and they were deservedly seen as a force
to contend with at every contest spanning
many years.
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Bob Hoffman’s Strength And Health was
the lifting bible for the sport while Weider’s
magazines stressed the bodybuilding end of
things. Years later, when York produced both
Strength And Health and its companion Muscular
Development as monthly editions while Weider
countered with Muscle Power and Mr. America
magazines, my training partner and friend Jack
summed it up best by stating that “S&H
and MD have the info we need but Weider’s
got the photos for greater inspiration.” Iron
Man magazine had also become a regular “read” for
us and the bimonthly publications offered a
little bit of everything and did it better
than anyone else. We marveled at the photos
of the lifters and the outsized bodybuilders
and we already knew some of the fellows personally
from our own training facility that were appearing
in these very magazines. We were shocked at
the kind of weight that was being lifted in
both Olympic lifting and odd lift/powerlifting
contests and carefully noted the photos to
see what kind of equipment was being used.
Hoffman pushed his York Olympic barbell and
it was considered to be the ultimate. While
any real Olympic bar was beyond my financial
possibilities at the time, I would dream about
putting my hands around the same type of bar
the greats used. At Tony’s storefront
however, in addition to the one York barbell
on the floor, we had two Jackson Olympic barbells
that seemed to be just as good if not better!
I hadn’t even heard of the Jackson Barbell
Company but Tony was the one who could and
would fill me in.
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