Arthur Jones and Casey Viator
The Deep End of the Think Tank
Copyright,
2001 by Stephen D. Wedan
This article first appeared in Hardgainer magazine
#75. Steve has contributed many articles and illustrations for HG magazine
since 1990. Since 1986, his articles have also appeared in IronMan, Flex, British
Flex, MuscleMag International, and Muscular Development.
Steve
Wedan is an artist and writer. He also is a contributor to
the IOL Forum.
You
can see and order his new print of Dave by clicking on this
link.
By the time I was ready to leave home in New England for college in Florida in 1973, I had practically memorized the cover article of the April, 1971 issue of Muscular Development. It was written by Arthur Jones and discussed Casey Viator's training. I took from the article three main points: the importance of taking a set to utter failure; the fact that Casey switched from a three-day-a-week routine to a six-day one, although the weekly training time dropped about 25 percent; and the concept of pre-exhaustion.
By pure but happy coincidence, I had chosen to attend Stetson University, a small, liberal arts institution located in DeLand, Florida. And DeLand is the very town in which Casey Viator had trained! After settling into my dorm, I borrowed a bicycle and rode to DeLand High School. I rolled up to a Quonset hut in the field behind the school, found someone to take the few dollars it cost me to gain admittance for the year and entered what seemed to be a dream.
The Quonset hut, a small, semi-cylindrical structure, was a shell. Inside was a wooden room. Between the entrance of the hut and the door to the room was enough space for a drinking fountain.
The interior of the wood-paneled room was packed with the machines I had only read about till then. Free weights were scattered about the Nautilus machines, and the first thing I did was what I'd seen Casey do in the old magazine: I picked up a pair of dumbbells, did a set of laterals, then put them down to start a set of presses behind the neck. I had hardly begun pressing when a couple of guys interrupted me to say that I needed to do those laterals to failure. Privately, I had avoided going to failure so that I could press out a decent poundage in the company of strangers. But I feigned ignorance ("I gotta go to failure with those, too?") to bolster my fragile ego and started all over.
The evening ended back on the bike. Someone at the hut had taken me under his wing and introduced me to all the strange machines, and now my body's muscles were quivering, grateful for the fact that my new home, the dorm, was mostly downhill.
But I was elated! I had my hands on the magic. I soon would grow bigger than ever and strong as a bull.
Newer, Closer, Better
In 1974, after Stetson built a brand, new athletic center, the school received a wonderful windfall. The recently-defunct Jacksonville Sharks team of the short-lived World Football League, had to unload its assets, of which a line of nearly-new Nautilus machines were a part. Suddenly I had access to newer equipment than existed in the Quonset hut. And, to top it off, the athletic department managed to convince Arthur Jones himself to come and speak, as a sort of kickoff to the new weight room, which replaced the dark, crumbling one in the old gym.
I figured I would be one of just a few enthusiasts who would show up for the event. Nevertheless, I arrived early. In the center of the room was a Universal machine, something I was familiar with from my high school years.
Lining the wall to my left as I entered was a Compound Chest machine, a big, blue contraption that allowed the trainee to do flyes and chest presses without getting off the bench. This allowed effective pre-exhaustion, as long as you had someone to move the pin on the weight stack when you switched from flyes to presses. That's something I learned instantly: Training on Nautilus machines was strongly slanted toward having a partner or a trainer. That was an important consideration to someone like me, who much prefers working out alone.
Next to the chest combination was a Compound Shoulder machine. Same deal: You do laterals and then overhead presses.
Next came the combination Pullover and Pulldown (I think this was called a Compound Torso machine). This one required a change in seat height between movements, dropping down to allow a full range of motion for the Pulldown. And since you were strapped in, someone was required to pull the handle to within reach before you could do Pulldowns.
Against the wall that shared the doorway through which I'd entered were situated a Hip and Back, a Leg Curl, and the gigantic Compound Leg machine, a combination of leg extension and leg press. Just beyond that was a small lifting platform, holding a rusty Olympic barbell and a pair of squat stands. Adjacent to the platform and across the room from the torso equipment was an arm machine: a curling station at one end and a triceps extension station facing it.
My expectations of an intimate, little group showing up were exactly the opposite of what developed. The room quickly became packed. Presently, one of Stetson's coaches ushered Jones into the room, and after an introduction, Jones started into an articulate summary statement of what defined physical fitness and what the improvable factors were. The key improvable factor was muscular strength. And since the cardiovascular system exists to serve the needs of muscles and not the other way around, he told us that a properly-executed strength-training routine -- which involved what he termed a rush factor between exercises (to fulfill the high intensity requirement of performing maximum work in minimum time) -- was better for the cardiovascular system than running was.
He then gave us a list of requirements for proper exercise that included working against resistance that was omni-directional, direct, variable, and full-range: the list that was so recognizable to readers of Iron Man in the early 1970s. And these tool-oriented requirements had to be approached with a final requirement only the trainee could provide -- totality of effort.
These things gave the attendees a lot to talk about over dinner later on, especially the audacious claim that Nautilus training was superior to running in its cardiovascular effects. But I found something else to question, and that was Jones's statement that a three times weekly training schedule should be the maximum for anyone. "Short, infrequent workouts are not just a possibility, they are an absolute requirement," he said. Not that I disagreed. But in my dorm room sat that article in my well-worn issue of MD. Jones himself wrote that Casey had switched to a six workout-per-week schedule. He stated that it consisted of two workouts for torso, two for legs, two for arms.
And I told him so.
He fixed his glare at me and snarled, "Casey never trained six days a week. Not after he started training with us."
I swallowed hard and said, "You wrote that he did, actually. I've got the article."
"Are you a bodybuilder?" he said.
I felt my face flush. Saying "no" would be false, but I thought saying "yes" would expose me to the unspoken scorn of the dozens of eyes watching me, led -- as I felt the people were -- by Jones's example. I blinked a couple of times and managed to squeak out, "Well . . . yeah."
"I thought so. Look," he said, as if speaking to a moron, and proceeded to spell out the same basic points he'd just made about the need for infrequent training. He finished and looked at me as if to say, "Is that clear now?"
I quietly said, "You wrote it. It's on Page 59."
Suddenly the coach stepped in and announced the conclusion of the session, and the crowd swarmed Jones. He walked out the back door of the room to a hallway, but as the swirling mass of humanity nearly engulfed him, he locked eyes with me. He no longer looked at me with contempt for the sin of being a bodybuilder. He inclined his face a little and called out, "Come down to the plant in Lake Helen. See Casey for yourself. Ask him how he trained." And then I no longer could see him for the sea of questioners.
Meeting Superman
"See Casey for yourself."
The words echoed in my head for two years. Frankly, I was scared to take the step. I had publicly claimed to be a bodybuilder but didn't feel that I looked the part. I wanted to be bigger before meeting a hero. I also had a grinding school schedule and no transportation. Finally, during my junior year in the spring of 1976, I borrowed a car and drove to the small town of Lake Helen, a small, sleepy village next to DeLand. I was so nervous I almost shook.
The Nautilus plant and main office were nondescript. They were comprised of connected one-story buildings that spoke more of practical use than of ostentation. It was hot the day I visited. I got out of the car and approached what I guessed might be the main door, although there was little to suggest it was any more than just a plain door. I knocked and walked inside, bathed in blessed, air-conditioned air. There was a man, a salesman, I was to discover later, who sat at a desk, looking out of place, as though he had stopped at the desk just to make a phone call. I told him that Mr. Jones had invited me to come over and talk to Casey. I didn't mention that the invitation was an old one. After making a call to fetch the 1971 Mr. America, the man pointed to a chair on which I could perch while waiting. Almost as an afterthought, he asked if I would like a free copy of Jones's Nautilus Bulletin #2. I sat for probably ten minutes, too expectant to look through the treasure I had just been given.
I tapped my toes and drummed my fingers. I heard noises filtering from other rooms.
In my peripheral vision I saw movement. Someone had just come through the back door of an adjacent room. I glanced to my left. And there was Casey Viator. He paused to speak with someone, and I had a moment to sit there, unnoticed, stunned. It looked as though someone had stretched Saran Wrap over an inverted pile of cannonballs, pulled a blue Polo shirt over it, and stuck a human head on top. Dozens of photographs of him, in contest shape no less, had not prepared me for what I beheld.
I stood and shook his hand when he came over, and he bade me in his Cajun-influenced voice to follow him. For reasons that still escape me, he took me to a prototype squat machine, even though I was there simply to ask him about his training. He told me to stand on the machine and press my feet down against the foot-pads in alternate fashion, and then he left. Shortly after I finished, my hips and thighs on fire, he came back and took me on a tour of the facility. I was too shy to insist on having the conversation I'd come for.
I did manage to say something related to training, though, because I remember distinctly his turning to me and saying that he hadn't touched a weight in two years. This was a startling statement, given his condition.
I also forced myself to ask him about whether he had taken steroids before winning the Mr. America in 1971. Even at that early point in my bodybuilding career, I was used to champions ducking the question in print by saying something along the lines of, "No, I don't recommend taking steroids."
Casey stopped and said a plain, "No. Arthur doesn't stand for it. I think only one man has ever gotten away with it. That was Sergio Oliva about four, five years ago. There wasn't any damn time for him to get his body to return to normal hormone production before the damn contest in London. So, Arthur made an exception." (Damn was a much-used adjective for Casey.)
I was left with the impression that Casey had never used steroids at all to that point, although I cannot say for sure, since he had been active in regional and national contests before coming to work for Jones. That agreement took place after the 1970 Mr. America contest. But given the close scrutiny by Jones when he personally trained him, it seems doubtful Casey lied to me about using growth drugs. Jones was bound and determined to show the world what brief, drug-free training on Nautilus machines could do. Though Jones repeatedly made the point that Casey was no normal man on the genetic scale, what he wished to show was the possibility of dramatic improvement. Casey simply made it all the more noticeable. He seemed to improve every week that he didn't slack off, which reportedly occurred when Jones turned his attention elsewhere. When Casey was supervised, he gained muscle workout after workout.
One published routine Casey followed was made famous by its sheer brutality. He performed leg presses, followed immediately by leg extensions, followed immediately by full squats. No rest was afforded him at all: He was literally rushed from one exercise to the next. In the July, 1971 issue of Iron Man, which would have been written sometime in April or May, Jones recorded
Casey's performance in the above routine as follows:
Leg
Press -- 460 pounds x 25 reps
Leg Extension -- 200 pounds x 22 reps
Squat -- 400 pounds x 17 reps
On June 10, he did the following:
Leg
Press -- 750 pounds x 20 reps
Leg Extension -- 225 pounds x 20 reps
Squat -- 502 pounds x 13 reps
Besides being almost literally unbelievable individual performances, it demonstrates the degree of improvement a genetic superior can make with a slave-driving kind of supervision. Assuming it was, indeed, done drug-free, it is the stuff of legend. Arthur has written since then that he regrets not supervising every workout, since he remains convinced Casey would have made even better improvement. The mind boggles at this.
When we returned to the front office, Arthur Jones appeared. He operated in what I recognized as his familiar lecture mode. Casey lit up a cigarette, as Jones told me to pay attention. He was about to demonstrate why Casey would always be in a different physical dimension than the one I (and almost everyone else on the planet) occupied, and for reasons unrelated to how either Viator or I trained.
"Flex your triceps," he said.
I turned my right arm toward him and flexed.
"Now, look," he said, using his thumb and forefinger to measure the distance between my elbow and the bottom of the long head of my triceps." Compare this to Casey's."
Viator put the cigarette in his mouth and pulled up his sleeve. A huge mound of muscle crawled into view.
"See here? There's no measurable space between the end of his triceps and his elbow, whereas yours has a good two-inch gap. Flex your forearm."
While my left biceps is the better of my two, my right forearm is slightly better than the left, so I goosenecked the fist of that arm.
"Note the gap here," he said, touching the end of my forearm flexors and my wrist. "Casey?"
By now, Viator was leaning against the wall. He apparently had been through this performance innumerable times. He flexed his forearm, which was the size of my calf, or nearly so.
"See how his muscle bellies come right down to the wrist? And look at his extensors," Jones said, pointing to the muscle at the top of Casey's forearm.
They extended two-thirds of the way down to his wrist, while mine ended just shy of halfway down.
Using these examples, he forcefully made the point that more important than the fact that Casey's bones were much bigger than mine and his neurological efficiency -- his mind/muscle connection -- was probably greater, was this muscle length issue. The main reason Casey's muscles were so big was that they were so long, compared to the tendons that connected them to his skeleton.
According to Jones, while there are several important, natural advantages that Casey possessed over 99 percent of those who have ever picked up a barbell, this one was pre-eminent. According to Jones, there were several important, natural advantages that Casey possessed, but which 99 percent of the rest of us do not: This one, the unusually long muscle bellies, was the pre-eminent one. Viator might have had a much greater recovery ability, a better distribution of fast-twitch muscle fibers, he might even have more fibers per muscle than the rest of us. But these factors were minor in Jones's opinion, compared to muscle belly length, when it came to his potential to build muscles of great size and strength. Longer muscle bellies simply can achieve a greater cross-sectional area and volume than shorter ones can. It, along with all of the lesser factors, was a simple genetic accident that was completely unchangeable. I wasn't about to argue.
"Come on back when you're in gym clothes," Arthur said. "Casey will put you through a proper workout."
Casey nodded, and I said something like, "Great!," wondering what I was in for.
I had filled the previous two years working out in Stetson's weight room following the Nautilus circuit. Yes, I occasionally strayed from the Nautilus system, almost always in the direction of workouts espoused by Bradley J. Steiner, workouts which typically brought me good results. Most of the time, however, I had worked to momentary muscular failure in each exercise on the following circuit:
Hip
and Back
Leg Curls
Compound Leg (leg extensions and leg presses)
Compound Chest (flyes and chest presses)
Compound Torso (pullovers and pulldowns)
Compound Shoulder (laterals and presses)
Curls
Triceps Extensions
The exact names might be slightly different. It was twelve exercises, done for one set of eight to twelve reps each, performed with as little rest between exercises as possible.
I had done everything correctly. I performed the first three or so reps slowly and smoothly and only after completing them did I pull or push as hard as possible. I kept a slow pace on the eccentric contraction of each rep. I went to absolute, utter failure. I kept my face relaxed during each set. I got as much rest as I could, consistently, and I ate as much as possible.
Considering the fact that this training was broken occasionally by periods of less intense, abbreviated workouts, I had a basis for comparison. And so it was that when, a week or two later, I returned to work out twice under Casey Viator's tutelage, I would ask him a question of some importance to me: Why, when I trained in a way dubbed proper . . . was I not making any progress at all?
Steve
Wedan is an artist and writer. He also is a contributor to
the IOL Forum.
You
can see and order his new print of Dave by clicking on this
link.
Click here to read Steve's HIT primer