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greatest achievements and contributions to strength training and exercise

The world of strength sports suffered a huge loss on March 24, 2022, when legendary powerlifter and coach Louie Simmons passed away at the age of 74.Few, in life or death, can claim that Simmons has a passion for sports and physical training.His hard work, ingenuity, and love of the sport have benefited an entire generation of recreational and professional powerlifters in some way.
From inventing some of the most widely used equipment you’ll find in gyms around the globe, to personally designing workouts and performances for hundreds of world-class athletes, Simmons has been – and will continue to be – a ferocious pillar of coaching and the weightlifting community Cornerstone.
It would take many, many hours to list all his career achievements and accolades from front to back.But if you put together some of the strength accomplishments of the West End barbell tycoon, those feats, in no particular order, outshine the rest.
Louie Simmons suffered multiple injuries early in his athletic career and noticed that many of his contemporaries were similarly frail.In his view, something must be done to address the common ground – a way to improve yourself.
Due to the Russians’ bad habits of weightlifting podiums in the late 20th century, Simmons continued to study Soviet Olympic weightlifting plans and methods.Inspired by Soviet training principles—high training volumes, lots of movement variation, and an emphasis on “building the foundation”—Simons combined his research with his own experience, leading to the development of the conjugation method.
He determined that by training various physical qualities such as strength, speed and endurance over the course of a training cycle, athletes would maintain higher levels of overall fitness and thus be more resilient to potential injuries.It has become the norm to alternate high-load, maximum-effort workouts with lighter workouts that focus on explosiveness or speed of strength development.
Among other things, Simmons emphasized what he calls the “law of adaptation,” which means the body gets used to doing the same movements the same way.So he started using more squats, bench presses and deadlifts in his training and passed on these principles to his athletes.The development of conjugation established Simmons’ reputation in athletic training, and much of the ideology is widely used in strength gyms to this day.
Simmons helped pioneer the implementation of conditioned resistance in strength training.Specifically, use resistance bands or heavy chains as part of your workout.He determined that these tools could help athletes increase the rate of their strength development by changing the load profile of a workout.
If an athlete is weak at a particular stage of a lift, straps and chains make certain movements easier or harder in certain parts of their range of motion, provide some help or force some extra stimulation.While fitness resistance has become very popular and normalized in terms of strength and movement, Simmons is well ahead of his time in practice.
In the mid-1970s, Simmons suffered a back injury and was unable to compete.During his recovery, he tried to find a way to speed up the recovery process.He realized that doing traditional back stretches wouldn’t work for him, which inspired him to develop a reverse super machine.
Simmons kept the invention a secret for nearly 10 years, but finally brought it to market after realizing that NBA legend Larry Bird’s career was cut short for similar reasons.Reverse superstrengths can be found in most professional gyms around the world, allowing athletes to train their lower backs safely and effectively if traditional back stretches cause pain or discomfort.
Similar to reverse overweight, Simmons is also credited with the popularity of the belt squat — a movement that allows athletes to train their legs when they can’t squat with a barbell due to injury or immobility.
Simmons points out that by immobilizing the resistance of the hips and pulling down rather than axially loading the body, both he and his athletes can safely perform heavy squat training without over straining the spine.He also doesn’t just use belt squats in powerlifting.Belt squats are also a staple of the training regimens for mixed martial artists he has worked with.
According to Westside Barbell’s website, other device inventions include: Inverse Curl, Hip/Quad machine, Static/Dynamic Developer and Virtual Force Swing.
Simmons doesn’t just apply his coaching skills to weightlifting or combat sports.He works with athletes of all disciplines.Notably, Simmons spent time training and coaching the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers, baseball’s standout pitchers, track athletes such as Olympic gold medalist Butch Reynolds, and “immortal” Matt Brown Mixed martial arts fighters.
Although they don’t strictly adhere to some of the niche principles found in Westside Barbell, professional track athletes have relied on Simmons in one way or another for decades.
While he may not have been the original creator of General Physical Preparation (GPP) as a guiding principle for weightlifting, Simmons relies heavily on it in his own gym and encourages all athletes to practice GPP in one form or another.He believes that balancing training and recovery is critical for any athlete looking to achieve the highest possible overall.
“We found that when not doing small GPP training, we suffered from undertraining,” Simmons wrote in one of his blogs.”When GPP hypertrophy is ignored, any athlete regresses in strength, endurance or speed.”
He emphasized that the more an athlete progresses, the more GPP correlates with their performance in the gym.Many of his athletes engage in sports like sledding before lower-body workouts, or use ultra-high repetitions in isolation movements to flush blood into tissues.
Simmons was an accomplished powerlifter in his own right, but he became a legend in the powerlifting world for coaching other elite athletes.
Those close to him included Chuck Vogelpole, Dave Tait, Matt Wenning, JM Blackley and his first world record holder, the late Matt Dime you.That said, the athlete most closely associated with Simmons and the West End in recent years is Dave Hoff, who currently has the highest total multi-tier gear in history at 1,407 kg (3,103 lb).
These days, names like Hunter Henderson, Heather Connor, Bryony Terry and Amanda Cossatt come to mind as leaders in weightlifting.However, Louie Simmons trained women’s weightlifting in his gym long before it became the norm.
His first major female athlete was Mariah Liggett, who won several international competitions and held world records throughout her career.Other names include Laura Dodd, Terry Byland and Simmons’ own wife, Doris.
To put that in perspective, weightlifter Amy Weisberger competed in the 2000 West End Invitational, where she set the overall world record in the 56-kilogram (123-pound) weight category.
The record in question actually weighed 34 pounds more than a male elite of the same weight combined.Simmons credits Weisberger’s ridiculous strength in part to her use of equipment like adaptive resistance and reverse superpowers.
Westside Barbell is undoubtedly the most famous professional strength training facility in the world.Men, women, veterans and newcomers alike crossed the threshold on the West End, shedding blood, sweat and tears as Simmons watched.Westside’s ethos is simple – to be as strong as possible at all costs.
Simmons actually came up with the name during his tenure with the U.S. Army in California.After his release, he founded the facility and its now-iconic pit bull logo.Membership at Westside is by invitation only, and this exclusivity allows Simmons to develop and nurture the right environment for developing world-class athletes.
Those training at Westside were invited to write their names on a “blackboard” detailing customers’ personal records by weight class.Carving your name on a blackboard while Simmons watches is one of the highest honors in powerlifting.
What many powerlifters and supporters may be most impressed with Simmons is that he offers an offer that combines attitude and sincerity.He has his own way of expressing it, but always wants to see the athlete succeed.Some of his most famous phrases are as follows.
“Have you noticed that those who criticize the strong or elite are generally weaker or less successful than those they judge, and those who are strong or elite in their respective sports rarely condemn those who are less powerful or successful than they are they are.”
When the news of Simmons’ death broke, the weightlifting world held back in pain.From content creators to professional weightlifters, the community was swept up in the death of a giant.However, when Louis is gone, his devotions, teachings, lessons and musings will live on.


Post time: Apr-01-2022