What Us Normies Can Learn from Self-Admitted Strength Maniac, Louie Simmons.

Part 1

Louie Simmons, RIP 10/12/1947-3/24/2022, is either teaching God or the Devil how to box squat in the afterlife. He became a divisive figure in strength sports, championing meritocracy by valuing world records as the ultimate truth and disregarding everything else. Open about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, he admitted to starting them in 1970 and continuously using them thereafter.

What you thought about him depended on many complex factors. His interns speak only of his endless giving and thankless investment in their knowledge. If you were one of his lifters, he gave similarly, but you may have been seen as a workhorse. If you were a visiting lifter, he’d treat you like gold. If you were competing with him or his gym, Westside Barbell, you’d either want to fight him or thank him because he wanted competition so much that he’d help his opponents.

Whatever you think of him, his relentless pursuit of advancing strength and conditioning and spreading training knowledge is unmatched. He authored and co-authored hundreds of articles and many books. He created instructional videos and gave out his phone number at the end. You can find many stories of coaches and strength athletes who were blown away when Louie answered the phone and would talk to anyone for an hour about strength training.

I’ve taken novices to powerlifting, strongman, and weightlifting events, but most of my experience is in getting normies stronger for everyday life. Almost everything he wrote or spoke about has some application to my clients. It’s just a matter of adjusting intention and intensity and you get some great principles for all of us.

This list is my first attempt to distill this knowledge. His body of work is so vast, that I have to start with just 4 bullet points. Here goes!

You have to build a broad base. A pyramid is only as tall as its base is wide. In his system, the Conjugate System, this was referred to as GPP or General Physical Preparedness. This means, don’t be a one-trick pony. It may be surprising to hear that advice coming from a guy who hyper-specialized in creating world-champion powerlifters, but Louie had a deep understanding of the 1960s Soviet model of developing athletes.

This means that my runner friends could benefit from doing some regular Pilates and my lifter friends shouldn’t shy away from doing conditioning.

That also means that parents of youth athletes could produce a much better college athlete by having them vary their sports in middle and high school. There was a shift in the 2000s toward specialization and now there seems to be one against it.

One college football coach said he’d rather have a 3 sport athlete over a single-sport athlete. He says that with 3 sport athletes, you’ve got plenty of capacity to hone and develop, but the single-sport athlete shows you almost all that they’ve got on draft day.

Just something to think about.

Create the change you wish to see, particularly in overcoming personal challenges. Louie, a practical inventor, created groundbreaking solutions out of necessity, including the Reverse hypermachine. After fracturing his L5 vertebra and dislocating his sacrum in 1973, and despite being told he wouldn't lift again, he defied the odds. Ten months of intermittent crutch use led him to invent this machine, which offers both traction and strengthening for the back, benefiting countless individuals. Using the Reverse Hyper and other exercises to address his weaknesses he came back to deadlift over 700 pounds at a bodyweight of 198.

“Everything works, but nothing works forever” - This meta lesson applies to so many things. Marshall Goldsmith wrote the classic business book, “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” about this predicament. This is the same thing but for strength training. Change your exercises, positions, stances, angles, grips, and implements regularly.

The part that I think most people miss is that you have to adjust for whatever your current weaknesses are. It’s not a matter of changing things on a whim just because you’re bored of them. That applies to lifting or business or any self-development.

Sometimes we have to charge forward with our strengths. Other times there is more benefit in strengthening our weak areas than improving their strong areas. Knowing when to employ which strategy is the realm of an experienced coach or the result of self-knowledge from years of introspection on your craft.

Don’t skip your jumps. Jumping and landing are paramount to athletes, but I’d argue it’s just as important to adults.

Jumping is creating power. Power is one of the first qualities to diminish as we age.

Jumping is youthfulness.

Landing is the absorption of force. An effective strategy for absorbing force could be the difference between a stumble and something being broken. Being good at landing creates less risk of falling.

Louie suggested 2 workouts with 40 total box jumps for most athletes. I typically have a looser prescription for my normies clients. I’ll add jump rope or broad jumps into the warm-ups and occasionally add box jumps with step-downs to the workout.

Just jumping whenever your child or grandchild does will get you ahead of most.

The thing about wisdom is that it rarely comes at exactly the right time. If one of these hits you like a lightning bolt, then Louie and I want you to take immediate action on it! If there aren’t any immediate actions, store these principles away for a rainy day.

Thanks for reading, Coach GB. Stay tuned for parts 2 & 3.