Reg Park Routine Circa 1950

[abett07]

Originally Posted by BendtheBar

Reg Park Routine Circa 1950

Monday, Wednesday, Friday

Barbell Curl 4x6-8
Seated BTN Press 4x6-8
Bench Press 5x5
Barbell Rows 4x6-8
Squat 5x5
Deadlift 5x5

Food: Red meat, orange juice, milk, eggs, 6 protein drinks (milk/honey/cream)

full on , isnt that too much lower back work ?

[BendtheBar]

Originally Posted by abett07

full on , isnt that too much lower back work ?

Certainly for an intermediate lifter.

A beginner could tolerate it unless the have poor form or a weak lower back.

[tgchan]

Originally Posted by Casey Butt

Actually, it was never very well published - you'd probably have to be a bit of a Park fan to have come across that. As far back as his track running days in high school Reg spoke of having lower back pains ...incredible when you consider what he went on to lift. He had a long torso and that made Deadlifting and Squatting problematic for him - so he relied heavily on High Pulls/Power Cleans and Front Squats in his training.

For beginners he did prescribe Deadlifts three times per week, and also didn't seem to take such a cautious approach in the Weider magazine articles as he did in the Reg Park Journal. However, after 1952 Park never had good relations with Weider, broke off business ties with him, and it's not unlikely that Chas Smith was the actual author of at least some of the articles that appeared in Weider magazines under Park's name (Smith ghost wrote many of the articles appearing in Weider magazines in those days).

Park also trained for times with experienced Olympic Lifters (for instance, British Champ George Popplewell) who had much better mechanics and conditioning for frequent Deadlifting than himself and those influences probably affected his advised training courses at times - but he, himself, could not tolerate frequent heavy Deadlifting and when he did include the Deadlift eventually he settled on building up to only one top set once per week. I think he may have seen himself as somewhat uniquely disadvantaged in that regard, so it seems that sometimes he cautioned trainees to Deadlift only once per week, other times he assumed he was speaking to beginners and intermediates with better leverages than him and not handling nearly the amount of weight (Park Deadlifted up to 700 lbs). But to make up the training effect for his lower back he mostly relied on Power Cleans and High Pulls, as well as started every session with 3-4 sets of hyperextensions with a barbell across his shoulders (he did this from the early days throughout his entire career). In fact, whenever I see a supposed full-body Park routine that doesn't start with hypers I know it's either a routine written by someone else to be "Park-ish", or Park may have wrote it but left the hypers off the beginning because he considered them a regular part of his "warm up". Later, towards the late 1960s when Park was performing split routines he didn't start every routine with hypers, but in his full-body days he did from the early 1950s on.

Just goes to show that despite his gifts, he was human ...at least in the lower back.

I was trying to contact "Casey Butt" but the forum site wouldn't let me:

"You have exceeded the maximum number of private messages per day. This limit is removed after you become an established community member. Please contact an administrator if you feel this is in error."


Can someone please let him know about this post please? or just send him this message for me. I would be very gratefull


Hello,

I have unexpectedly stumbled on your post about Reg Park routine. I have some routines but I really don't know which one is genuine... I am also thinking about buying his book from USA "Strength & Bulk Training for Weight Lifters & Body Buildersby Reg Park" (I live in Europe- Poland) but I am not sure if they will ship it here...

Can you please share some of his routines that you have?

If you are interested I can send you some routines I have found.

Thank you in advance for your help!

tgchan"