IOL Strength and Conditioning

You already know Dave writes a weekly email column here on davedraper.com, one that’s come out with few exceptions 52 weeks a year since February of 1999. Newer musclebuilders may know less of Dave’s history, stuff like the 25 magazine covershots and the hefty lineup of articles in the golden era muscle mags.

So when IronHistory’s Joe Roark offered us a glimpse into his archives this week, I grabbed it. Here, have a look at Joe’s comprehensive list of muscle magazine articles by and about Dave, running from June 1963 through 2000. After 2000, Dave began writing a monthly column for IronMan magazine, as well as an editorial commentary in OnFitness, which comes out bi-monthly.
Now, Joe’s database is a collection of muscle mags, so it’s no wonder he didn’t have the GQ Magazine article archived, or the AARP article that followed only too soon after. Too soon as in GQ to AARP in five years — that’s a steep drop, wouldn’t you think?

Hardly fair for a Mr. Universe, that’s all I’m saying.

Also in the history department this week: Is it ridiculous to think a city planner in La Jolla in the ’60s might have been a bodybuilding fan?

Detective at work; I’m on it. Someone in the Friends of La Jolla Historical Society must surely know. Or know who knows. Since I’m not sure if there’s any such Society, I started at the City Planner’s office. I’ll let you know if anything interesting develops.

As we have seen over the last few weeks, muscles, strength and general feats of strength have been with us ever since the year dot. When Dave was still in diapers (probably using his milk bottle to build those biceps) Steve Reeves was posing across cinema screens; when Steve was in diapers, Eugen Sandow was appearing in the forerunner of muscle magazines and when he was in diapers, strongmen were showing their stuff at fairs and the theatre. But what of today’s bodybuilders in training? Well, they have the internet and boy, when you start searching for muscles online, you turn up the darnedest things.

If you search on a generic term such as “bodybuilding,” you get all the usual websites on the subject. You can get histories of the sport from Wikipedia, how to get buff from sites like this and in some cases even personal websites of the great and the good of bodybuilding.

And apart from the slight reference to bus making, bodybuilders certainly crop up a lot in the image searches as well, but perhaps the most famous of all the websites to have sprung up over the last few years is YouTube.

Type the term “bodybuilders” there and you are spoiled for choice: pro bodybuilders, amateur bodybuilders, training routines, interviews with bodybuilders, contest videos and if you’re really, really lucky and type in the right keywords you can turn up little gems like this:

Dave Draper vs Roddy McDowell

He-Man
played by: Dolph Lundgren

Dolph Lundgren is 6 ft 5 in and weighs approximately 237 lb. He speaks four languages: Swedish, English, German and partly French. He holds a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Kyokushin Karate and won the European full-contact karate championships in 1980 and 1981 and a heavyweight tournament in Australia in 1982. He was also a member of the Swedish Kyokushin Karate knockdown team for the 1979 World Open Tournament arranged by the Kyokushin Karate Organization. It is alleged that for his role in Rocky IV, he dabbled with steroids but this is strongly denied by Mr. Lungrun himself.

He-Man is a superhero in the truest sense of the word. Not only does he possess superhuman strength but also has a secret identity. That of heir to the Eternian throne Prince Adam. Adam is everything that He-Man isn’t. An out and out coward, an complete wimp and slightly nervy with the women compared to the out and out hero, erstwhile stuntman and someone who I dare say that Dave wouldn’t have minded training with.

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Whoops, yes I realized the day after my post I’d put big instead of small screen. Sorry about that, but don’t worry. Next week it really will be the big screen!

The Incredible Hulk
played by Lou Ferringo
First appearance on screen: 1977

David “Bruce” Banner is a physician/scientist who has been traumatized by the loss of his wife in a fatal car accident, and his guilt over his inability to save her from the burning wreckage. He begins to conduct research into strange phenomena in which human beings temporarily display superhuman levels of strength, trying to understand why others faced with a similar traumatic experience to his own were able to save themselves or their loved ones while under abnormally high emotional distress, whereas he was not. He concludes that high levels of gamma radiation from sunspots are the cause, and to prove the theory, he bombards his body with gamma radiation to see if he can endow himself with superhuman strength.

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A few weeks ago I asked the forum for their nominations as to whom demonstrated good examples of media muscle. After getting several comments from people that the chairman of News Corporation could be listed I explained that when I meant media muscle, I meant characters in the media who were more than muscled. Once that little misunderstanding was cleared up, the nominations started to roll in and will be posted over the next month one section at a time, starting today with the comic book muscles.

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Bob Simpson is a name that isn’t real well known–that is, unless you were a fan of the power rack and strength in the middle ’70s. Bob Simpson was quietly working out during the 1970s and handling world record poundage. He didn’t train for competition, or for physical beauty. He simply trained for the joy of moving heavy iron. Bob recently joined the IOL–much to my pleasure and he and I have been corresponding for a number of months. His is a story worth telling–so without any further fanfare, here is an interview between Bob and myself. Hope you enjoy it.

[This has been minimally edited--so as to not lose the flavor of the interview or glimpses into Bob's personality. W.]

Wicked Willie – When and where were you born?

Bob – I was born in Memphis, Tennessee Nov. 20, 1937.

WW – So, that would make you 69 now. Do you remember what motivated you to start training?

Bob – My uncle trained with weights when I was pre-school age and I looked at his magazines. Later, when I was 13, my father was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska with the Air Force. I had a paper route and was standing waiting on the bus to take me to my route. There was a newsstand there and I picked up a Strength and Health with George Eifferman on the cover. I bought it and read it and some of Weider’s mags as long as we were in Alaska. When we got back to Memphis—at 14 years old I got a Weider weight set with money I saved from the paper route. I soon had to add to it with additional weight.

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Muscle and Fitness, a colorful and energetic riot of musclemen and musclebuilding information, isn’t a recent publication that gained popularity overnight. It has gone by a variety of names over half a century and was reared by a guy named Joe Weider. Joe, dubbed the Trainer of Champions, dragged it from the ink-smeared pages of a manual printing press in his grandma’s Montreal apartment and gave it dramatic life based upon his vision of muscle and might.

I was one of the characters who played a role in his elaborate vision, a Mr. America and Mr. Universe in the dream he presented to the world. Appearing on the scene in the early ’60s, I filled the pages of his magazines, adorned their covers and, through inspiring pictures on California beaches, conveyed stories of delight, promise and hope to the young and young at heart.

I smiled broadly, flexed my muscles and frolicked with beach bunnies on lazy, crazy sunny afternoons. The blue Pacific rolled in mightily, billowy clouds with silver linings caressed the horizons and dogs playfully chased seagulls along endless sandy shores. Hop in. The water’s fine. Life is grand.

Hold it there. Back up twenty feet and take another look. I see a distressed cameraman and his elaborate gear in a heap of cases, containers and bags; I see a guy — that must be Joe — in half a suit with his sleeves and trouser legs rolled up; off to the side a group of sticky, uninterested bystanders mope about, kick sand and suck on water bottles. These must be the delighted characters in the delightful pictures awaiting a moment of delight.

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Previously submitted to IOL by Wayne Gallasch

September, 1970—30 years ago this month—I had the pleasure to be present at this very famous contest. Why was it so special? It was very special for two reasons.

The first was historical – it was Arnold’s last contest appearance in the British NABBA Universe. This was the contest which started in England in 1948 and where the first three winners were John Grimek, Steve Reeves and Reg Park, all legends of the sport of bodybuilding.

The second reason was personal. It was the first ever Universe contest I had attended on what was my first ever visit to England. I had heard that this would be Arnold’s last appearance in this event as he attempted to win his 4th NABBA Universe title. It seemed to be a perfect time to make the pilgrimage to London.

The Prejudging was held on Friday, 18th September in the Ballroom of the old Royal Hotel in London. It has since been demolished and rebuilt.

I arrived at the Prejudging and found that the audience mostly had to stand behind the judges as only a few chairs were provided. As I am not tall, I found a chair to stand on along with many others. A photo of the audience taken from behind Dave, Reg Park and Arnold appears below.

After the Amateur classes’ prejudging it finally got to the Professional Tall Class. To my pleasant amazement the class also included Dave Draper from USA, and 3-time former winner Reg Park. Reg was absolutely idolised by the British audience and even today is probably the all-time most popular British bodybuilder along with Dorian Yates.

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You may have heard on the news this week: Google nabs YouTube. My first reaction was “What’s Google want with the U2 site?”

Immediately followed by, “Why would U2 sell?”

Hey, I’m not even embarrassed. All my 40-some-year-old newsviewer buds would recognize U2 over YouTube.

Big old fogey tip of the day: YouTube is a video sharing website, one that’s not even two years online. Anyway, baby business or not, it’s real big money they’re talking about, $1.65 billion big.

One thing still baffles me: What about copyright issues? 70 million views daily, but still, how valuable is YouTube to Google when a majority of the clips — or at least the best of the clips — are posted by people who don’t own the rights?

Oh well. I guess an attorney probably took a look at the deal before anyone signed off.

And to bring this litte story back on track, here are three clips you’ll enjoy over on YouTube, albeit owned by the movie studios rather than Google, YouTube or the individuals who posted the video shots.

• Dave kicking sand on everyone’s favorite Monkee
  
• He was also in Lord Love a Duck, briefly.
• Mr. Universe meets the Beverly Hillbillies
• Here’s the forum thread with the discussion, including Dave’s comments about the two film experiences.

And finally, a 30-year-old Draper posing clip, not owned by a studio.

Now this, this is really trick. Our pal Joel Brandwein, a talented muscian and photographer and the guy who built sites for Ed Corney, Danny Padilla, Chris Dickerson and Earl Maynard, sent me a link to his friend’s Mr. Olympia Callout site. It’s programmed in PHP with a MySql database (I’m guessing mostly, the case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing) of a huge collection of photos from the Las Vegas event last weekend. I’m not even that much of a bodybuilding fan — competition, that is — but still.

Pick the two competitors and the pose you want to see and press “callout.” Very slick.

Mr. Olympia 2006 Callouts