(Soviet weightlifter) Yuri Vlasov - the strongest man on Earth

[Russian Bear]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8KHxZJ1EhsQ

Yuri Vlasov is a true legend of Russian and world weightlifting. The embodiment of a strong, and at the same time, intellectual person, who embodies a man with a strong character and his own point of view.

The best total score is five hundred and eighty kilograms (195 in the standing press, 172.5 in the snatch, 215.5 at the point of the bar).

What is the legend of weightlifting Yuri Vlasov remembered for
Weightlifting competitions until 1972 included 3 exercises: standing press, snatch and clean and jerk, and since 1973 and to the present day there are only two exercises in the weightlifting program (snatch and clean and jerk). At the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964, Vlasov showed 172.5 kg in the snatch.

And a month and a half before that, in Podolsk, Vlasov lifted 215.5 kg in the clean and jerk. He was called a superman, for some time he pushed aside the competition in the Olympic discipline, it was impossible to keep up with him.
Yuri set records one after another and could have lifted much more, if, of course, he had continued to compete in weightlifting. After an unfortunate 2nd place at the Olympic Games, Yuri left the sport and took up literature. Two years later, big financial problems forced him to return to lifting weights again.

In 1967, at the Moscow Championship, he set his last record in the bench press of 199 kilograms and left big-time sports.



Vlasov's training and his contribution to weightlifting
For some time, Vlasov headed the athletic gymnastics federation and himself popularized iron training for building an aesthetic and healthy physique. His figure can be called a standard for a strongman (his weight was from 115 kg to 136 kg).

In the bench press on an inclined bench, Yuri lifted around 220 - 230 kilograms for several repetitions.

In the overhead press, Vlasov lifted a maximum of 170 - 180 kilograms for 3-4 times in several approaches. Deadlift with a jerk - 250 kilograms. This weight was given very easily and it is quite possible to assume that in the classic deadlift he could lift around 300 kg and even more.

About biceps exercises, Yuri wrote the following lines in his book “The Justice of Strength”:

To protect the biceps from heavy ruptures, which are not uncommon when performing a bench press, I introduced biceps barbell presses. Stand straight, the barbell at the hips in outstretched arms, then bend your arms to the shoulders. Reverse grip. With this technique, I pulled up (pressed) 110 kilograms without bending the body. As far as I know, no one has yet been able to achieve this result.
Vlasov paid due attention to abdominal training. In one workout, he did abdominal exercises with a 6-kilogram dumbbell behind his head. Lying at an angle on a bench, holding onto the ladder with his toes, he brought it up to 310 times. In another workout, he bent over with a 10-kilogram dumbbell - 170 times.



He paid sufficient attention to running, regularly running several kilometers, believing that running was a necessary component in the preparation of a weightlifter. He could ride a bicycle 120 kilometers a day. In addition, the athlete's training was always highly voluminous and often reached 20 tons per day. Yuri Vlasov experienced many things in his life: severe injuries, lack of money and a deadly blockade, but he always combined physical strength and intelligence.

Any Adversity Can Be Overcome. Victories of Yuri Vlasov

How a Soviet super heavyweight became the strongest man on Earth and how he overcame a serious illness. The fate of Yuri Vlasov, Arnold Schwarzenegger's idol.

"It is because of people like him that I refuse to call myself self-taught," said Schwarzenegger. The news of the death of Yuri Vlasov, the great Russian athlete, shocked the actor. Schwarzenegger called himself Vlasov's "American student." He wanted to be like him: the strongest and the smartest, "he carried more books with him than weights!" And to cope with difficulties in the same way. Bob Hoffman, a famous weightlifting coach, wrote to Vlasov: "...You were born to help Man know himself. To believe that we all have an infinite supply of strength. That each of us is capable of performing miracles..."

Yuri Vlasov was officially considered the strongest man on Earth, but that was not the biggest miracle he performed. It was much harder to stop being weak, falling apart, suffering from insomnia and headaches. But he did it.

40 minutes a day

In his youth, Vlasov demonstrated such miracles that sometimes it seemed: he is from another planet. But no - we know that he is local, born in 1935 in an exemplary Soviet family, that his father is a diplomat, intelligence officer and colonel of the GRU, and his mother worked in the library, and it was she who got her son addicted to reading. That he grew up a bookish boy and at the same time adored sports so much that at the age of 14 he had the second male category in track and field. He entered the Saratov Suvorov Military School and there, simply as part of physical education, he squatted eight times per approach with a two-hundred-kilogram barbell. He developed his own training system, constantly increased the weight, and after a few years he was already squatting with 300 kilograms.

Of course, such loads are far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary person, especially for a person who came from a half-starved military childhood - from constant hunger, Yuri went bald at the age of eight.

And now he made himself, built himself, like a house. In the tight schedule of a cadet at the school there was no time for personal training, so Yuri got up half an hour before getting up, trained, then lived according to the general schedule, and after the general run along the street he carved out another 10 minutes for training. Forty minutes a day, but this is every day and for four years. These training sessions turned out to be the best thing he did for himself in life. Firstly, he became tireless, he could work for days and not get tired. Secondly, he looked great. Thirdly, he was never sick.

"I dreamed of great strength, but brute force, vulgar, always disgusted me. I felt not even hostility towards it - hatred!"

The Strongest on Earth

The strongest man on the planet was considered to be the American Paul Anderson. He pressed 185.5 kg. Paul came to the USSR, and people who saw his performance were amazed: a biceps like a bull's leg! Paul was very heavy, he even walked differently than everyone else, but rolled out one leg after the other. It seemed that no one would surpass the American athlete in the next ten years, and Yuri Vlasov did not even think about it, he simply admired him and eagerly looked through every issue of "Soviet Sport", hoping to learn the details of his training.

At that time, sport was not the main thing in Yuri's life. After college (silver medal), he entered the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy. It was easy to study, and there was always time for training. The fifties were coming, the USSR participated in the Olympics for the first time, interest in sports in the country grew, athletes were stars. Yuri trained after classes, late in the evening, until he was kicked out of the gym. In his second year, he was already among the top five weightlifters in Moscow, but did not think of connecting his fate with sports: "I was really interested in literature." Yuri graduated from the academy with flying colors, continued training, and once, unexpectedly for himself, broke Anderson's world record in the clean and jerk exercise! It was in the officers' house of the Leningrad Military District. The spectators screamed with delight. From that moment on, Vlasov was considered the strongest man on earth. And he could no longer treat sports as one of the components of his life. The title imposed a lot. Now he had to prove every day that he had received it for a reason. In 1959, Yuri won the World Championship in Warsaw, and in 1960, he performed at the Olympics in Rome so well that these Olympics are still called the Vlasov Olympics.

And then – ten years of “walking on gold”: victory after victory, record after record, he had no rivals left. One day in Vienna, a skinny guy was brought to Vlasov, the translator asked him to say something to the beginning athlete, Arnold. Yuri looked at the guy: for some reason, it was clear that he would be useful. “You will succeed if you train,” he promised. Arnold did not forget this meeting. And Yuri, probably, did not remember, he was training a lot then, performing and constantly writing something, getting published, improving his literary skills.

Too much for the nervous system

"Two serious things - writing and big-time sports, one of which literally physically sucked me dry, are too much for the nervous system," he later admitted. And he talked about overloads, insomnia, and chills after hard training. Vlasov lost the Tokyo Olympics to his teammate on the Soviet team.

"Why did I torture myself, why did I get answers in heart-wrenching trials? It was very interesting. So interesting that I would repeat everything from the beginning and, of course, I do not dare to regret anything."

Yuri left big-time sports, limited his training to running and warm-ups, but his body was already taking revenge on him for the past overloads. In 1968, the athlete was already constantly ill: shortness of breath, arrhythmia, headaches did not allow him to engage in his favorite writing craft. The spinal injury he received on the platform also took its toll. He was constantly suffering from colds and flus – his immune system was failing. In 1970, it got to the point where Yuri could not lift more than five kilograms, and all the physical activity available to him was limited to an hour and a half of walking – slowly, he could not do it quickly.

Yuri thought: I am only 35, and I am falling apart! Loose muscles, flabby skin, constant headaches! He had no strength for anything. He completely abandoned training, could not work, could not sleep – he could not do anything. The doctors threw up their hands. After thinking about it, Yuri decided to look for ways to save himself. He kept repeating a phrase from Zoshchenko in his head: “No, I do not strive to live too long, however, I consider it shameful to die at 38.”

Step by step

Yuri told about how he got out of this protracted, many-year illness in his books. Step by step, victory after victory. Here he drinks not two sleeping pills, but one and a half, here one, here half, here he tries to fall asleep himself. Here he slowly walks around the house, here he runs 300 meters, here he returns to light training. Here he increases the load, here he buys a bicycle, here he swims in a cold river. Recovery was very difficult and slow, but he rejoiced at every victory, every kilometer on the bike, every minute of running. And gradually he began to run an hour a day, and could ride a bike 100 kilometers. He slowly returned to weightlifting.

"The ideal of tirelessness haunts me. To train myself so that I do not know fatigue, always have a margin of safety." Yuri was ill for the best years of his life, but he coped. Do not try to repeat this at home.
Arnold arrives

In 1988, the famous Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the USSR. The action movie "Red Heat" was being filmed. Everything was going according to plan until the actor said at a press conference that he wanted to meet Yuri Vlasov. This meeting was not in the plans, everyone was alarmed, but what can you do... The meeting of two strong people took place in the gym at the Palace of Pioneers. Arnold talked to Yuri, tried out homemade exercise machines with interest. He presented a portrait with the inscription

"To Yuri Vlasov, my idol."

Arnold would not have become Arnold without such an example before his eyes.

There was much more in Vlasov's life. He was a State Duma deputy, ran for president, and was engaged in his beloved writing. And to the end he remained true to his principles: physical education and the development of will, "a joyful mood, faith in the surmountability of any troubles, a change in the outlook on old age and age in general" - and we are guaranteed health for many years. Yuri Vlasov called this the art of living.

Source: Home Hearth Magazine 12/05/2021, 18:30 Larisa Khomaiko