Bill Pearl | Anti-Aging Role Model

Back in the sixties, men who weight trained with any degree of seriousness practiced three separate and distinct forms of progressive resistance training: bodybuilding, powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting. Bodybuilding was about building muscle mass while staying lean. Powerlifting was about lifting as much as possible in the squat, bench press and deadlift. Olympic lifting was how much poundage could be hoisted overhead in the press, snatch and clean and jerk. The Amateur Athletic Union ran the Mr. America competition for forty years and controlled most local physique competitions. They awarded athletic points to physique competitors. If you wanted the extra points, you needed to demonstration proficiency at some sport. Most bodybuilders picked Olympic lifting.

Bodybuilders entered lifting competitions to pick up those invaluable athletic points. Powerlifters of the day often were ex Olympic lifters who couldn't master the subtleties of the very exacting Olympic lift techniques. Olympic lifters were plentiful in the sixties. Practicing the three overhead lifts produced men with thick traps, python-like erectors and round rhomboids. Massive backs were built by pulling on cleans and snatches; thick shoulders were built from heaving overhead pressing and jerking. Pear came up in this constrained era. Genetically predisposed to thickness, he amplified his ample natural gifts.

Multiple discipline lifting produced outstanding physiques. Men who practiced the three interrelated liftin arts, men like John Grimek, Marvin Eder and Roy Hilligen, developed incredibly rugged and functional physiques. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sergio Oliva and Franco Columbo were later examples of Old School bodybuilders with heavy lifting backgrounds. All three were national or world level lifters before they peaked as bodybuilders.

Nowadays on one practices the three lifting arts and something has been lost. Today is the dreaded era of he resistance specialist. Physiques nowadays tend to have a predictable sameness about them. High-torque power exercises are required to develop mountainous traps, enormous erectors and overall muscle thickness. By becoming truly strong at basic compound multi-joint barbell and dumbbell exercises,, muscles develop in a way unobtainable by any other mode.

Dorian Yates and Ron Coleman between them ruled the bodybuilding world for 15 consecutive years. This was largely because of their incredible leg and back development: Yates rowed with 500 for reps while Coleman deadlifted 800 for reps. There is an undeniable correlation between massive strength development and massive muscle development. Strength increases beget muscle size increases.

In the 1960's two bodybuilders stood apart from the pack. Each was an immortal. England's Reg Park and America's Bill Pearl. Reg was God-like, Arnolds's mentor. Bill Pearl was the American colossus. These two men took the look that John Grimek actualized and epitomized, the power look, to the next level. Both men were big men; thick, incredibly strong yet graceful. They had functional builds and were as powerful as they looked. Both were athletic. Bill squatted 600 pounds when 400 was an excellent lift. Reg bench pressed 500 pounds when 300 was good. While the top physique competitors of the day weighed 170 to 195 pounds, Bill weighed 240 and Reg 245. Pearl's proportions were eye-popping. Reg, slightly taller, had the shaplier physique. Reg was an Irish Wolf Hound while Pearl was a Bull Mastiff.

Without knowing it, he encouraged me to train early when I still worked real jobs. Eventually he unknowingly encouraged me to leave the city and move to the country. He had opted out of the lucrative rat race in order to seek the elusive, rural, "quality of life." He was a successful gym owner in Los Angeles before he moved to the bucolic bliss of rural Oregon to live on a farm. That particular city many fantasy took root in my head and eventually I did as he did. I, too, bailed out of the rat race and relocated to the isolation and peace of the country.

After Bill purchased his farmette, he built an amazing gym in the barn out back. He spent his time restoring antique autos, one of his many hobbies; he was a hobbyist and had innumerable collections of old things. He also had a beautiful wife, Judy, and he was totally in love with his soul mate.

Pearl seemed genuinely happy, one of the few truly happy men I've ever encountered. Eventually I followed the path of Pearl, imbued and imprinted with my own subtle variations. Pearl is 20 years older than me and since 1964 he has inspired me. He continues to inspire me. He has been my iron role model and a life role model for almost 50 years and counting. His training, like his life has evolved over the years. Pearl embraces changed and instead of becoming fossilized and change-resistant, as people do as they age, Bill remains fluid. Early on, Bill used bar-bending poundage in basic movements to build his incomparable mass and size. Once he obtained enough beef, he switched gears and concentrated on refining, honing, chiseling and defining his incredible mountain of muscle and sinew.

Always a training innovator, in later years he added the element of accelerated pace to his resistance training. Pearl injects a cardio element onto his weight training efforts; a Pearl version of 3rd Way cardio. Sustained strength (cardio training that builds hybrid "super muscle." Bill related to me that once he got into the swing of his two hour daily weight training regimen, his heart rate would never drop below 120 and often would spike to 170 or more. His rapid-fire workouts purposefully combine cardio training with strength training to elicit a specific effect. He no longer cared to ride the Brahma bull of huge training poundage, he had enough size. He completely changed direction. The name of the game was upping the intensity by moving faster during the workout. He positively devoured the time element of the training parameter. This approach could be summarized as lots of exercises performed using pristine technique done at a blistering pace.

Pearl might have dropped from sight, but he wasn't about to stop training. Every morning at 4am he famously rolls out of be and by 4:30am is engaged in a 2 hour workout enduro. He is a lacto-vegetarian, totally eschewing meat, an dis happily dependent on eggs, vegetables, dairy and fruit juice for his dietary needs. A competitive bicycle racer at one time, Pearl used to think nothing of jumping on his bike for a thirty mile jaunt. Bill Pearl is still my role model. Pearl demonstrates that a man can possess the body of a much younger man if they are will to still practice the three interrelated arts. As long as the enthusiasm and fire in the gut remains, as long as you continue to train hard and eat with discipline, you are still in the game and can still live life to its fullest.

Like a twenty foot high neon sign he projects a simple message, one exemplified by vibrancy and youthfulness that seems to say, "Look at what can be accomplished with diligence, perseverance, tenacity and intelligence. Look at how the aging process can be retarded and held at bay. Look at what is possible!"

Check out the links below for profiles on other remarkable men I have met in my almost 60 years of training. Each have influenced me in different ways over the course of my strength career.

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