the POWER MAG NEWSLETTER
monday june 11, 2001
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1.....RICKEY DALE says.....
good day to all..............the weather is heating up for
sure.....and this can be very bad for powerlifters.....loss
of minerals......loss of vitamins......sluggish
feeling......low energy levels.....
etc...etc...etc......you really have to take the time to
make sure you have all of your bases covered this time of
the year.....be smart and take the time to do what you need
to do.....
2.....POWERLIFTING PARAPHERNALIA and TRIVIA.....
and we took four winners this week.....as two came in almost
at the same time...... so the winners ofthe incredibly
sought after crain's muscle world, ltd j-j t-shirt
are.......mike bixler from hanover, pa........scott billings
from edmond, ok....erik
gunnerson from sacramento, ca.....and joe sheerin from
harleysville, pa
with the winning answer of CRAIN POWER-PLUS........
and this week's trivia question is ???????????????....who
created the term "the strongest shall survive" ????
below is a very interesting article i gleaned from another
forum........nothing new in it that is not going all around
the world.....
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AN INCONVENIENT MAN FOR SPORTS
What happened to Yuri Vlasov after he told the truth?
Interviewed by Mark Vodovozov (1988)
Yuri Vlasov is a Merited Master of Sport, an Olympic
weightlifting champion and a writer. At a meeting at the
Ostankino TV Studio, late in 1986, Vlasov broke the silence
about the problems in big-time sports - too much
commercialization,drugs. and the cruelty of children's
sports. The latter two issues were especially disturbing
since they were considered atypical of Soviet athletics.
WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO SPEAK OUT ABOUT ANABOLICS?
In the past, no one ever admitted that drugs in
weightlifting can help one lift some 20-30 kg more in the
snatch and the jerk,while harming one physically and
morally. Sport is aboutstrength,fortitude and beauty, not
chemicals. Unfortunately, anabolics have been in use for
several decades. We cannot blame the use of drugs on a
single Olympics, a single world championship or the athletes
in a single country. The problem must be dealt with jointly.
HOW DID THE ATHLETES REACT TO WHAT YOU SAID?
Many of them supported me. Though sometimes not without
hypocrisy - it's so nice to declare oneself a "captain of
perestroika"! I was disgusted with the article in Ogonyok by
Arkady Vorobyev (the weightlifter and coach) against
anabolics. In the early 70s, Vorobyev (then at the Committee
for Physical Culture and Sports) was one of the first to
distribute these preparations to
members of our national team. I learned about anabolics from
him. When I fell gravely ill, Vorobyev suggested I use
anabolics as medicine. So that's how it goes - yesterday he
was passing the weightlifters fistfuls of these tablets,
today he's trying to shift the blame onto others.
HOW DID SOVIET SPORTS OFFICIALS RESPOND?
When I was elected Chairman of the USSR Weightlifting
Federation late in 1985, I made the abolition of anabolics
in the training process a primary condition. The then
leaders of the Sports Committee promised support. Soon
afterwards I attacked the International Weighlifting
Federation for its obsolete and ineffective methods of
preventing drug abuse. They encourage
drug abuse. My articles published abroad ended with my
having a "trial" staged against me in Athens in April 1987.
It was one of the many trials in my life.
FOR SLANDER?
The international Federation used the decision by the USSR
Sports Committee not to field our team for the World Cup in
Australia. This was a protest against the formalistic
approach to preventing drug abuse.
Sports Committee executives Kolesov, Parkhomenko and I were
summoned to Athens. The Federation presidium met behind
closed doors, and my colleagues were not given the floor. I
was put behind a separate desk, and they started to ask
questions in an overtly rude manner and to threaten me with
serious sanctions. For boycotting international competitions
they said we'd be fined
hundreds of thousands of dollars or our team would be
disqualified. They thought they had me and I would stop
talking. But I went on - at Press conferences in France and
Finland and on TV in Mainz, West Germany. And in Cologne I
said that I knew of major bribes that had been given in
return for not fighting drug abuse.
I think Andre Coret (France) was removed that same year as
President of the European Weightlifting Federation for his
stand against drugs. He and I acted together. The French
papers wrote that Coret had lost the election because he
supported a Russian.
Perhaps before combatting anabolics abroad, the Federation
leader should have put his own country in order?
It is all connected. It is impossible to combat drugs in one
country, because its representatives purposely don't compete
for the gold medals. I tried to arrange cooperation in this
field. But the leading weightlifting countries pretended
there was no problem.
BUT DRUG PREVENTION CENTRES DO EXIST AND ARE SUPPOSED TO
COMBAT THIS EVIL?
This is a worldwide sham. All top athletes know how to avoid
getting caught. No wonder Prince Alexandre de Merode, head
of the IOC Medical Commission, once said that the aim of
many national drug-prevention laboratories was,
unfortunately, not to reveal the offenders, but to help
them, so that forbidden preparations would not be detected
on the days of competitions.
My anti-drugs stand also irritated USSR Sports Committee
officials. Especially when I arranged democratic elections
of the senior coach of the USSR team (Alexei Medvedev is now
coaching the USSR team and the weightlifters' results under
him have improved - M.V.) and demanded that the
weightlifting department of the Sports Committee also hold
elections. I started feeling a vacuum around myself.
Your story about how children's bodies are broken in
big-time sports elicited a wide response from TV viewers and
"MN" readers.
At the time I was unaware that children's sports had been
condemned in the West as one of the most inhuman forms of
professionalism. And, really, in the name of what are the
12- arid 13-year-old girls being hurt in gymnastics,
swimming and other sports? And in weightlifting, extreme
rejuvenating won't
bring any good. Why don't we realize that a child's body
cannot stand up to the cruelties of competition? But at the
Federation meeting, the children's coaches accused me of
undermining our sport. It's hard for me to understand people
who harm children without any pangs of conscience. But the
Sports Committee responded to their words, not mine. The top
officials were
especially irritated by my sharp criticism of children's
sports.
WERE ANY SPECIAL STEPS TAKEN AFTER THAT?
After my speech in Mainz in May 1987, I never went abroad
again. Later, I was offered a job as head of the athletics
federation.
As I see it, the struggle against negative phenomena in
sports is formality, lip service. I don't think a drop of
glasnost has ever penetrated this sphere of the Sports
Committee. Secret relationships - mutual guarantees - exist
in all big-time sports. They guarantee the most diverse
benefits - sports assemblies (which essentially are a free
rest at a health resort),
judges' qualifications and long stints of coaching abroad,
and trips with our national teams. All that means big money
- money which is not always earned. People like myself are
unnecessary in this case.
You have left your post as chairman of the athletics
federation and are now writing. What are your former
colleagues - workers in other federations and sports
organizers for whom sports is, first of all, the health of
masses of people - to do?
Federations head sports in many countries. They arrange
competitions and sports assemblies, and all sorts of trips.
Do we need such an organization as the Sports Committee, the
way it is now - not taking any responsibility for
the children coming out of school poorly developed
physically, with poor health, for the fact that physical
education on a mass scale exists primarily on paper alone as
before? Maybe we should divide the Sports Committee into two
organizations - one dealing with big-time sports, and the
other with popular sports. And one would hope that as few
officials as possible - whose
well-being is secured by talented athletes, sometimes at the
price of their health - work in it.
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3.....FORM.....STYLE.....TECHNIQUE.....and ROUTINES.....
i would like to touch on a subject quickly.......that is,
should one do a light workout day????.........for many years
i did them......after much research i finally came to the
conclusion there is really very little reason to do
them......a complete waste of time........first...they are
not productive in building strength......or
endurance.......second...if you are using them to work on
form..i would suggest you do this on your heavy
day.......while you are warming up with the empty bar and
the lighter weights...work on your form...style and
technique...this is also a good time to do any speed
work...killing literally 3 birds with one stone
(workout)....
light workouts are o.k. to do if they are in place of the
heavy one because of injuries and/or
overtraining......but.........if you are training heavy 3-4
days a week already.....i can find little reason to burn up
a couple of more days if you do not have to.....my reasoning
and my logic...
BELOW.....recent college grad junior lifter 181 lb'er noah
divine........squatting 640 for a single in his last workout
in preperation for next week's junior nationals in chicago......
4.....NUTRITION and SUPPLEMENTS.....you are what you
eat.....
it still bothers me to see how many athletes do not even
bother to use the basic minimum supplements......vitamins
and minerals......20 years ago when there were very few
supplements to choose from anybody who was serious in
powerlifting (or other sports) always took them.....now that
we know more and how they work and how we need them...it
seems less of the basics is being used..........do not lose
the edge....use them........................
we are in the process of doing inventory right now and we
have some closeout specials on a few products.......protein
bars.....and a few drinks..........
also we have on special some pittbull sweat shirts and sweat
pants at half price...so i do not have to count them and pay
tax on them to uncle sam....
and we now have a video available on sergio oliva and frank
zane from 1972......both on one tape.......very inspiring
footage......of two of the greatest bodybuilders of all
time....29.95 plus shipping......
.....and check out the incredible supplement specials at
www.crainsmuscleworld.com/supplements.asp
5.....PARTING THOUGHTS.....
this week's newsletter was rather short....I
APOLOGIZE....the past few weeks and next week my little
league baseball team is winding down it's season with
tournaments and it has been taking up a bit more of
time.....so.....by the time we get into july..we should be
back on track....
so a very day to you all and good luck to all of the
competitors in next week's junior nationals....
IN HIS NAME
Rickey Dale Crain
5 time world champion
2000 powerlifting hall of fame inductee
CRAIN'S MUSCLE WORLD, LIMITED
www.crainsmuscleworld.com
APPLETREE MINISTRY
www.appletreeministry.com
3803 north bryan road
shawnee, oklahoma 74804-2314 usa
800-272-0051
405-275-3689
405-275-3739 fax
405-627-0134 cell
rcrain@charter.net
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