NAked Warrior - ZANDERBILT

I R O N E S S A Y S
Cassidy” training and over time morphed his training template into a mirror of the
methodology used by Ed Coan and Doug Furnas. At the time I was conversing with Ed
weekly and I would continually share with “The Great One” how “The Kid” was doing. I
would alert Ed on how Kirk’s training had gone the previous week and seek Ed’s thoughts.
I’d relate the glitches and potholes we encountered and Coan was magnificent. He would
ponder with me about what had happened and would continually make incredibly insightful
suggestions about how to up Kirk’s game.
Ed’s core advice was oddly resonant with my own discoveries when I first began training.
John McCallum, my first Iron Mentor, had repeatedly stressed the importance of the 5-rep
set. Later when I trained with Hugh, he too stressed we should get as strong as possible
using 5-rep sets. My introduction to Ed and Doug’s training template was old home week
when Ed indicated that the backbone of his strength philosophy was “getting as strong as
possible in the 5-rep set.” Ed encapsulated the rationale: “The 5-rep set strikes the best balance
between low 1-3 rep power-building sets and 8-12 rep tissue-building sets.” I
anchored Kirk’s training template around the 5-rep set and he took to it with a vengeance.
The last piece to the Karwoski puzzle fell into place when he ventured to West Haven
Connecticut at my beckon to learn “The Fantano Bench Press.” For some reason, structurally
or psychologically, Kirk absorbed this complex method effortlessly. While it took
most lifters years to master and incorporate all the subtle, interrelated complexities, Kirk
picked it up in no time. It was like handing a boy who had never touched a football the ball
and having him throw a 70 yard “frozen rope” bullet pass on his first effort.
Nutritionally he needed help. He was massive but fat and eventually we hooked him up
with a monstrous bodybuilder named Anthony D’Arrezo (RIP). Anthony got Kirk squared
away on a big man nutritional regimen that dropped Karwoski’s body fat percentile from
20% to 10% without any degradation in muscle mass. Karwoski morphed into a power
Terminator and just as I had been there when he commenced his national domination, it
was fitting that I was there when he began his world domination. We captured the world
team title with ease.
At the awards banquet afterwards, the greatest non-USA powerlifter in the World, the
Finnish 181 pound World Champion, Jarmo Virtanen, came up to Dan Austin immediately
after Dan came offstage after being awarded the Champion of Champion’s award.
Virtanen had his Finn posse with him and these genuine bad asses sauntered over to Dan
and I. Jarmo looked like Charles Bronson and was in a confrontational mood. He swilled a
double vodka with one hand while he chain smoked Marlboros with the other. I thought he
was going to offer congratulations; instead he ignored our handshakes and glared at Dan,
“So, Don, I see you have my Champion of Champions award; be a good boy and hand it
over!”
For complete information on Marty Gallagher’s The Purposeful Primitive, or to
purchase the physical book, visit http://www.dragondoor.com/b37.html now
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