To find old issues of PLUSA, go HERE.

Welcome back to the vault. This time we are jumping ahead to the January 1986 issue of Powerlifting USA, Volume 9, Number 6. The cover price had climbed to $2.95, a year's subscription ran $21, and the sport looked very different from the one we covered in the 1980 issues.

Ed Coan was being called the world's best lifter in print, and he backed it up by laying out his entire deadlift cycle for anyone with a pencil. The IPF Worlds had just wrapped up in Finland. The federation fights had moved to open letters. And the ads in the back were still selling "steroid substitutes" by mail order.

If you missed the earlier retro pieces, start with April 1980: The Year of Kazmaier and January 1980: The Dawn of a New Era and the USPF. Read them next to this one and you can see how fast the sport moved in six years.

The State of the Sport: Testing, Lawsuits, and Open Letters

In 1980, the fights were mostly about who controlled international representation. By January 1986, the fight was about drugs, and it was being argued in print.

The President's Message in this issue is not a pep talk. USPF President Dr. Conrad Cotter uses his page to answer an Iron Man article by Dr. Todd, which said steroids had split the sport into "warring factions." Cotter calls that premise mistaken and gives his side of the history, starting with a 1982 doping control proposal that failed by one vote. He closes by pointing out that the USPF had now voted to test at the 1986 Women's, Collegiate, and Senior Nationals.

That is the part that matters. Testing was coming to the biggest national meets, and the people in charge were still arguing about who deserved the credit.

The Worlds were drug tested, with around three lifters per class picked at random. Lambert reports that Sweden, after a run of failed tests by its athletes, would skip most IPF events for a year and spend the travel money on more testing at home. He also mentions "lawsuits and new national and international organizations springing up in the United States." You can see it in the Coming Events calendar, where USPF, ADFPA, APF, and WPC meets are listed side by side.

Sound familiar? Forty years later, we are still having the same argument. I wrote about where that leaves lifters in The Role of Federations in Powerlifting. The short version has not changed. Pick a federation whose rules you respect, follow them, and go lift.

Legend Profile: Ed Coan's 12-Week Deadlift Routine

The Workout of the Month in this issue is Ed Coan's deadlift routine, and the headline does not undersell it: "The World's Best Lifter lays out the Routine that can put 30 Lbs. on Your Deadlift." The photo shows him pulling 859 at 198 at the Senior Nationals that year.

Coan opens with a line every lifter should tape to the wall: "In my opinion, the DEADLIFT is probably the most important lift in a meet. It is a lifter's last chance to win or lose."

Here is how he built it.

• The cycle: 12 weeks. Three weeks of 8 reps, four weeks of 5s, four weeks of 3s, and a final week with just a double at or around your opener.
• The schedule: Deadlifts on Saturday, assistance on Tuesday.
• Assistance: 3 sets of weighted chin-ups for 8, 2 sets of 8 on long pulley rows, and 2 sets of 20 shrugs with a front grip to build grip strength.
• Warmups every week: 135x8, 240x5, 340x3.
• The top sets (written for a lifter who pulled 600 at his last meet): 425x8, 445x8, 465x8, then 490x5, 510x5, 525x5, 535x5, then 555x3, 570x3, 580x3, 590x3, and 600x2 in week 12.
• Conventional work: Coan pulled sumo, so conventional pulls off a 2-inch block came after, from 390x8 up to 500x3 in week 11. If you pull conventional, do your first three weeks off a 2-inch block. No bouncing.
• Meet day: attempts of 584, 617, and 639.

Read that meet day line again. The lifter in this program opens below his old max, and his third attempt is a 39-pound PR. Coan is not chasing a gym record in week 12. He doubles 600 and leaves the rest for the platform.

The magazine even tells you how to scale it: divide your max by the program's starting max and multiply every training weight by that number. Percentage-based programming, explained in two sentences in 1986.

There is nothing fancy here. Straight weight, a clear wave from volume to intensity, and a few assistance lifts aimed at the back and grip. What made it work was that Coan did not skip steps. If you want more on how Ed thinks about training, read The Top 3 Lessons I Learned From Ed Coan.

Meet Spotlight: The 1985 IPF World Championships, Espoo, Finland

The lead story is Mike Lambert's report from the 1985 IPF Worlds, held November 7 to 10 in Espoo, next to Helsinki. The USA won the team title with 105 points, ahead of Great Britain at 89 and Finland at 75. Unlike the year before, the titles were spread across a lot of countries, and Lambert called that healthy for the sport. A few moments stood out to me.

Hideaki Inaba of Japan won the 114s for his eleventh world title, making him, in Lambert's words, the winningest powerlifter of all time.

Bob Bridges, America's hope at 148, opened with 507 in the squat and never got credit for it. Lambert puts it plainly: "Depth, not the amount of weight, was the problem." Eddie Pengelly of Great Britain took the title.

Gene Bell of the USA went 9 for 9 at 165 and still did not win. Eric Coppin of Belgium matched his 1686 total and took the gold.

Ed Coan won the 198s and, by Lambert's account, practically moped afterward and called it the worst meet of his life. He felt he had peaked too early. He opened at 744 in both the squat and the deadlift, which Lambert calls wise judgment, and still won by a wide margin. Even on an off day, he was clearly the class of his class.

Tony Pharr at 220 had the greatest lifting of his life and needed nearly all of it. Tony Stevens of Great Britain got his winning deadlift up, but it was turned down because he appeared to stop on the way up. Pharr broke into tears, and the two embraced on the platform.

Bruce Takala at 181 is a story every lifter cutting weight should read. He had squatted 666 and tripled 622 in the deadlift in training. Dropping a few pounds of bodyweight "took an unexpected toll," and those numbers did not show up on the platform.

The New Superheavy Champ: Cees DeVreugd

The cover belongs to Cees DeVreugd of the Netherlands. George Hechter of the USA, the Junior World champ, had been slowed by a knee injury and needed 804 in the deadlift to catch him. It never got close. Hechter called home afterward and said two words, "I lost!" and hung up. DeVreugd squatted 881 and benched 479 while still coming back from a torn pec. The last time the USA had lost the superheavy title was 1977, to Taito Haara of Finland, who was on hand to present DeVreugd's gold medal.

Andy Kerr's profile of DeVreugd is a reminder that there is more than one road. Judo from 12 to 19, military service, then almost no serious sport for ten years. A lifter at the local pool talked him into the weight room in November 1980. He had never lifted. Five months later he did his first meet. By this issue, he was the first man in Europe to squat over 900, had hit 925, and was the first European to total 1,000 kilos.

His training was simple. Four two-hour sessions a week: bench Monday, squat Tuesday, deadlift Thursday, and a Saturday "tryout." Mostly triples, singles about every two weeks, assistance for 3 or 4 sets of 8, and an eight-week contest prep. Slow descent, fast ascent.

The Leaderboard: 1985 World Champions and the Top 100 220s

These are the class winners and totals from the official results printed in the issue (pages 10 and 11).

Class	Champion	Country	Total (lb)
114	Hideaki Inaba	Japan	1240
123	Hiro Isagawa	Japan	1240
132	Claude Hansor	USA	1366
148	Eddie Pengelly	Great Britain	1471
165	Eric Coppin	Belgium	1686
181	Jarmo Virtanen	Finland	1856
198	Ed Coan	USA	1962
220	Tony Pharr	USA	2044
242	Dave Jacoby	USA	2000
275	Tom Henderson	USA	2060
SHW	Cees DeVreugd	Netherlands	2143

The Top 100 in this issue covers the 220-pound class for USA lifters competing from November 1984 to October 1985. Coan sits at number one in the squat, the deadlift, and the total, all from the same March 1985 meet. These are the top 10 totals, listed the way the magazine printed them.

Rank	Lifter	Total (lb)	Date
1	Coan, E.	2210	3/10/85
2	Cash, J.	2110	3/3/85
3	Ladnier, J.	2105	4/14/85
4	Tullis, R.	2050	12/15/84
5	Pharr, T.	2039	12/16/84
6	Howell, G.	2009	3/23/85
7	Mangialardi, S.	2005	12/1/84
8	Borden, D.	2000	2/23/85
9	Frantz, E.	2000	3/3/85
10	Pacifico, L.	1978	3/10/85

Coan's line is an 859 squat, 843 deadlift, and 2210 total. Paul Dicks has the top bench at 612, and Larry Pacifico is still in the top 10. If you want more on Larry, go back to Only in Powerlifting: Flashback with Larry Pacifico.

Advice from the Founders

Some of the columns in this issue are dated. A lot of it is exactly what lifters still need to hear.

Dr. Judd Biasiotto on Psyching Up:
Biasiotto opens with the wild stuff. Kazmaier cramming ammonia capsules up his nose and screaming. A bench presser whose 240-pound coach slapped him before attempts, until one day the coach knocked him out cold. A lifter who ran headfirst into a wall. Then there is Lamar Gant, who glared at the bar, spread his lats like a cobra, and lifted calmly. The lesson is that arousal helps strength, but more is not always better. A simple lift like the deadlift tolerates a lot. A complex lift and a newer lifter need less. Novices who copy Kaz are copying a skill level they do not have yet.

Dr. Fred Hatfield on Predicting Strength Loss:
Hatfield adapted what the Soviets called the "Coefficient of Contest Efficiency" to stop lifters from guessing what cutting weight would cost them. In his example, a 62-kilo lifter benches 170 in training. Cut to 56 kilos, with a history of doing 2 percent less in meets, his real contest max is about 152.5. So he opens at 94 percent, takes 96 on his second, and 98 on his third. Hatfield also cites a Soviet finding that 80 percent of weightlifting world records over 20 years were set by lifters who did better in contests than in training. Then comes my favorite line in the issue: "Most of you older fellas and gals out there won't use this technique because you're too stubborn."

Dr. Ken Leistner on Nutrition:
The late Dr. Ken Leistner asks why every muscle magazine carries ads for "new" supplements almost every month. His answer: products fall out of favor when they do not deliver, so sellers need new ones. His prescription is boring on purpose. Enough calories for your goal, moderate protein, enough fat, carbs for fuel, fluids, and a varied diet. He even says you can eat at Skyline Chili in Cincinnati if you use common sense.

Roger Estep on the Lifter Who Can't Squat in the Gym:
A 149-pound lifter writes in because he squats over 100 pounds more in meets than in the gym. Estep tells him to pick the sets and reps he enjoys most, then check the details: bar position, foot spacing, shoes, suit, and not wasting energy walking the bar out.

Bob Rood, Masters Champion:
Willie Morris profiles Bob Rood, a Baltimore stevedore who started powerlifting at 41. He won the National Masters 220s in 1982 and defended it in 1983 by pulling 644, 50 pounds more than he had ever made in a contest. He trained alone at the Dundalk YMCA on his lunch hour because the ships set his schedule, and he almost never maxed in the gym because it drained him. Deadlift day topped out at a 90 percent single.

Pioneers of Power: Kuc and Williams

Pete Vuono's Pioneers of Power column takes it back to the 1972 Worlds in Harrisburg and two training partners from the Weight Masters club in Scranton: John Kuc and Jim Williams. If you read the April 1980 retro, you saw Kuc talking about forced reps and training under Williams. This is the meet that made them legends.

A flood kept them out of the Junior and Senior Nationals that year, so they peaked for the Worlds. Williams benched 675 and nearly locked out 700. Vuono notes that bench beat the deadlift of 54 of the 65 men entered. Kuc squatted 905, close stance and high bar, in a nylon suit, a standard belt, and one pair of Ace-type wraps. Kuc won with 2350, and Williams took second with 2225. Their combined total was 4575.

Vuono wrote that "only Ted Arcidi" had even attempted Williams' 675 bench in the years since. In the same issue, an Inzer ad lists Arcidi's 705 as the biggest bench of all time. That is how fast things were changing.

The 1986 Marketplace: Vintage Gear Prices

Still mailing a check to a PO Box. Here is what the ads were asking:

• Bob's Custom Lifting Belts: $60.00 for a suede-covered belt with five rows of stitching. A single-thickness leather belt was $28.00.
• MAC Texas Power Bar: $189.00, advertised as used at the 1981 through 1984 Senior Nationals and the 1984 Worlds.
• Inzer Powershirt: $36, or two for $62. The Inzer training shirt was $29, and Groove Briefs were $16.
• The Steel Tip: Dr. Ken Leistner's newsletter was $18.00 a year.
• 1986 USPF Registration: $16, or $8 for high school athletes with proof of enrollment.
• MUSCO-MXT: advertised as a "Steroid Substitute That Works!" for $30 a month. It ran in the same issue as Leistner's column on supplement hype.

If you want the modern versions of that gear, we carry lifting belts, knee wraps, competition singlets, and chalk.

5 Actionable Takeaways from January 1986

---

This is the issue where the sport starts to look like the one we know. Coan was writing programs that read like modern percentage blocks. Hatfield was telling lifters to stop guessing. The testing debate had made it to the President's page.

The gear changed. The federations multiplied. What did not change is that the lifters who won in these pages did the simple things, in order, for a long time.

Live, Learn, Pass On.
Dave Tate
elitefts