Top 10 articles: Louie Simmons

Recently, Tim Egerton at Sprint Strong posted a list of the people he considered to be the most influential in strength and conditioning.  It caused a small amount of hubbub, particularly from fans of the people he missed off.

Mike Boyle appeared at number one, which seemed to put a spring in his step, although he did also make a pointed comment about some people on the list being “simply writers” and another about “internet experts”.

I won’t comment further on the inclusion or exclusion of anyone in particular other than to say that the single biggest omission in my (humble) opinion was Louie Simmons.  A number of other people picked this up, of course.

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What is influence?

And this brings us to the definition of “influential”.  Who has influence?  I can think of a couple of scenarios here:

1. If a strength and conditioning coach does an awesome job but nobody ever finds out about how they do what they do, are they influential?  No.
2. If  a strength and conditioning coach does an awesome job but also communicates how to do this with their peers, are they influential?  Yes, within the sphere of strength and conditioning coaches.
3. If  a strength and conditioning coach does an awesome job, also communicates how to do this with their peers and the rest of the interested world via appropriate internet marketing, are they influential?  Absolutely.
4. If a strength and conditioning writer raises awareness of a fundamental weakness that most people are suffering from or a popular tendancy to follow imbalanced programmes and thereby changes the way most people work out, are they influential?  Absolutely.
5. If a gym owner devotes his life to the pursuit of raw, absolute strength and discovers that his methods can make human beings much, much stronger than anyone has ever been before, regardless of genetics, and everyone, I mean everyone uses his methods at one time or another, are they influential?  Well, I guess you’d have to ask Louie Simmons.

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Introducing Louie Simmons

You might argue that there would have been Westside without Louie Simmons.  You might argue that there was always Conjugate Periodisation even before Louie.  You might argue that powerlifters would have discovered the same ways to get really strong simply out of necessity.  But it would be hard to argue that any other person did more to popularise and bring these concepts to lifters all over the world.

Anyway.  Enough chat.  Here’s a great selection of articles from the pen of Louie.  He can speak for himself.

1. Powerlifting, then and now – this awesome introduction to Louie’s powerlifting memories takes us from his first exposure to the sport in 1966 through to the present day.  Along the way, he comes out with some amazing quotes, like “my Olympic lifting training partners should have worn signs saying “I lift weights” because if they were brought into Court for it, the case would be thrown out for lack of evidence.”  I laughed at that despite the fact that the biggest dude I met in 2010 was an Olympic lifter (shout if you’re reading this, John).
2. The conjugate method – everyone likes to talk about Westside but it’s not always easy to find an explanation of the basic principles from the horse’s mouth.  Here’s Louie on the Conjugate Method.
3. What a gym really needs – Louie explains what a gym really needs to make people really strong.  He starts with a power rack, adds some boards for board pressing, some heavy dumbbells, a stability ball for dumbbell bench presses, chains and bands, a variety of bars, gymnastic rings for push ups and pull ups, a glute-ham bench, a reverse hyper and finishes up with a pulling sled.
4. T-Nation interview – in this T-Nation interview, Louie is introduced to the bodybuilders.  He explains how Westside works as a gym, sells the benefits of good mornings, explains how to perform the kneeling squat, advises on how to improve tendon strength and discusses steroids frankly.
5. Wannabebig interview – in this great interview, Louie addresses some of the readers’ questions.  One question that really gets him going is how he trains athletes differently from powerlifters.  Louie explains how he uses more 3-rep maxes on squats instead of singles, how he uses a variety of box heights to maximise hip strength from a variety of angles, how bench training is done for 3-rep maxes and singles, and how he incorporates plyometrics into the routines.  Louie also responds to a question about shoulder health and has some interesting recommendations for this.
6. How to squat – I read this article from time to time and every time I find something new in it.  Practially all the cues I think of now are in here.  And Louie lays waste to the idea that you have to do the Olympic lifts to be fast and strong for your sport.  And if you find the absolutely classic typo, please let me know in the comments…
7. Why you should box squat – in this article, Louie explains the benefits of box squatting.  Until I read this article, I didn’t know that box squatting helped deadlifting because you are flexing out of the bottom position rather than bouncing as you do in a normal squat.  I did know, however, that one of the principal benefits of box squatting for most people is the fact that the box remains at the same depth no matter how much more weight you put on the bar.  There is a natural human tendancy to squat higher the more weight goes on the bar.  Box squats stop this.
8. Learning by asking - this is a great article about the kind of mind that succeeds.  Louie explains how his humility in asking other lifters how they achieved their results paid dividends for his own training.  Every time I read this I remind myself that I need to do more asking and less advising…
9. Advanced system for beginners – in this article, Louie explains how the Westside system works for people at all levels.  It’s also a fascinating portrait of the Westside gym, which seems to work by educating lifters who go on to break records and then turn around and teach the next generation.
10. Overcoming deadlift plateaus – appropriately, I thought putting the deadlift article at the end of the list would mirror the deadlift’s role as the final lift of a meet.  Louie explains in this article why deadlift records are much further apart than squat and bench records, why it’s such a hard lift and what you need to do to get it moving.

I hope that you found something in there you haven’t seen before.  As always, if you have another article you loved but I didn’t cite, please let me know in the comments.