The strength sports community suffered a great loss on March 24, 2022, when legendary weightlifter and trainer Louie Simmons dies at the age of 74. Few people, living or dead, could claim to live up to Simmons’ impact in both sports and physical training. Entire generations of both recreational and professional lifters have benefited in some way from his efforts, ingenuity, and devotion to physical culture.
Since the invention of some of the most widely used parts of equipment you will find in gyms around the world to personally design the training and performances of hundreds upon hundreds of world class athletesSimmons was, and will continue to be, a pillar of ferocity as a coach and a cornerstone of the lifting community.
Listing all the achievements and accolades of his career from start to finish would take many, many hours. But if I were to compile some of the Westside Barbell mogul’s most resounding achievements in strengththese feats, in no particular order, would stand out above the rest.
The legacy of Louie Simmons
The conjugate method
Louie Simmons had suffered from various injuries early in his athletic career and realized that many of his contemporaries were similarly debilitated. In his mind, he had to do something to address the common denominator: the focus on lifting himself up.
Simmons went on to study the Soviet Union olympic lifting programs and methodologies due to the dominance of the Russians on the powerlifting podium in the late 20th century. Having been inspired by Soviet training principles, high volumea bunch of exercise variabilityand an emphasis on “building the foundation”: Simmons combined his research with his own experiences, leading to the development of the conjugate method.
He determined that training various physical qualities like power, speed and endurance throughout a training cyclean athlete would be maintain a higher degree of general fitness and thus be more resistant to possible injuries. Alternate max-load, max-effort workouts with lighter sessions focused on explosive power or rate of force development it became the norm.
Beyond that, Simmons also highlighted what he called the “law of adaptation,” meaning that the body would get used to performing the same movements in the same way. So he started using more squat variations, bench pressand dead weight in his training, and passed these principles on to his athletes. The evolution of the conjugate method established Simmons’ name in athletic training, and much of the ideology is widely used in strength sports gyms to this day.
accommodative resistance
Simmons helped spearhead the implementation of accommodative resistance in strength training. Specifically, the use of resistance bands or heavy chains as part of the exercise. He determined that these tools could help an athlete improve your rate of force development changing the exercise load profile.
Bands and chains make a given exercise easier or harder in a specific part of their range of motion, providing some help or forcing some extra stimulus if an athlete is weak in a particular phase of the lift. Although accommodating resistance has become quite popular and normalized in strength and athletics, Simmons was far ahead of his time with the practice.
reverse hyperextension
In the mid-1970s, Simmons suffered a back injury that prevented him from competing. While he was recovering, he was trying to find a way to speed up the rehabilitation process. He realized that doing traditional back extensions would not work for him, which inspired his development of the reverse hyper machine.
Simmons kept the invention to himself for nearly 10 years, but finally brought it to market after realizing that NBA legend Larry Bird’s career had been cut short for a similar reason. Reverse hypers can be found all over the world in most specialty gyms, allowing athletes to train your lower backs safely and effectively if traditional back extensions cause pain or discomfort.
The belt squat
Similar to hyper inverse, Simmons is also credited with the proliferation of the squat belt — an exercise that allows an athlete to train his legs if he cannot squat with a barbell due to injury or immobility.
Simmons noted that by fixing the resistance at the hips and pushing down instead of loading the body axially, he and his athletes could safely perform heavy squat training without excessive spinal fatigue. He not only used the belt squat in Weightlifting, anyone. Belt squats were a staple of men’s training regimens. mixed martial arts athletes with whom he also worked.
Other team inventions include: the Reverse Curl, the Hip/Quad Machine, the Static/Dynamic Developer, and the Virtual Force Swing, according to Westside Barbell’s website.
Athletics without weightlifting
Simmons didn’t just apply his coaching skills to weightlifting or combat sports. He worked with athletes from various disciplines. In particular, Simmons spent time coaching and teaching the Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers in the NFL, noted baseball pitchers, track athletes like Olympic gold medalist Butch Reynolds, and MMA fighters like “The Immortal” Matt Brown.
Though they don’t adhere as rigidly to some of the niche tenets found at Westside Barbell, professional athletics has leaned on Simmons in one way or another for decades.
General physical preparation
While he may not have been the original creator of general physical preparation (GPP) as a guiding principle in weightlifting, Simmons drew heavily on it in his own gym and encouraged all athletes to practice GPP in one form or another. He believed that balance training and recovery be vital to any athlete who wants to achieve the highest total possible.
“We found that when we don’t do the small GPP workouts, we suffer from detraining,” Simmons writes in one of your blogs. “Any athlete will regress in strength, endurance, or speed when GPP for hypertrophy is neglected.”
He emphasized that the more advanced an athlete became, the more relevant GPP was to their performance in the gym. Many of his athletes would participate in exercise like the pull the sled Before your lower body workoutsor use ultra high reps in isolation movements to rinse blood from the tissue.
As a weightlifting coach
Simmons was a great lifter in his own right, but he became legendary in powerlifting for training other elite competitors.
Among those closely associated with him are Chuck Vogelpohl, dave tatematt Wenning, JM Blakley, and its first all-time world record holder, the late Matt Dimel. That said, the athlete who may be most associated with Simmons and Westside in recent years is david hoffwhich currently has the highest multilayer trim total in history: 1,407 kilograms (3,103 pounds).
According to open weightlifting, set that record in 2019 at the WPO Super Finals:
- squat — 577.5 kilograms (1,273.1 pounds)
- Bench press — 460 kilograms (1,014.1 pounds)
- dead weight — 370 kilograms (815.7 pounds)
Women in weightlifting
Today, names like hunter henderson, heather connor, brianna terryand amanda koatsu come to mind as some of the dominant women leading the charge in powerlifting. However, Louie Simmons was promoting female weightlifting in her gym long before it became the norm.
Its first major female athlete was Mariah Liggett, who won multiple international competitions and held world records throughout her career. Other names include Laura Dodd, Terry Byland, and Simmons’ own wife, Doris.
For a little perspective, powerlifter Amy Weisberger he competed at the 2000 Westside Invitational, where he set a total world record in the 56 kilograms (123 lb) weight class.
- squat — 204.1 kilograms (450 pounds)
- Bench press — 127 kilograms (280 pounds)
- dead weight — 204.1 kilograms (450 pounds)
- Total — 535.2 kilograms (1,180 pounds)
The record in question was actually 34 pounds ahead of the male total elite in the same weight. Simmons credited Weisberger ridiculous force in part to its use of accommodating stamina and gear like the reverse hyper.
west side bar
west side bar it is arguably the most famous professional strength training facility in the world. Men, women, veterans and newcomers alike crossed the threshold of the Westside and shed blood, sweat and tears under Simmons’ watchful eye. The spirit of Westside is quite simple: get as strong as possible at any cost.
Simmons came up with the name during his tenure in the US Army while stationed in California. After leaving him, he founded the facility and its now iconic pitbull logo. Membership at Westside is by invitation only, and that exclusivity has allowed Simmons to cultivate and nurture the right environment for the development of world-class athletes.
Those who train at the Westside are invited to write their names on “the blackboard,” a blackboard that lists the names of the sponsors. personal records by weight category. Engraving his name on the board with Simmons’ remark is one of powerlifting’s highest honors.
Memorable quotes and contributions
What many lifters and supporters can remember most about Simmons are his quotes that provide a combination of attitude and sincerity. He had his own way of making a statement, but always wanting to see athletes succeed. Some of his most famous phrases are below.
“There are two types of people in this world: predators and prey.”
“Weak things break.”
“Don’t have $100 shoes and a dime squat.”
“Big is not strong. Strong is strong.”
“Have you ever noticed that those who criticize the strong or the elite are often weaker or less successful than those they judge, and those who are strong or elite in their respective sports rarely condemn those who are not so strong? or successful like them? they are.”
In Memory
The lifting community recoiled in grief when news of Simmons’ passing broke. From content creators to career weightlifters, the community was stunned by the passage of a titan. However, even though Louie is gone, his offerings, teachings, lessons and reflections will remain.
Featured Image: @westsidebarbellofficial on Instagram
