Dick Conner Still Training Clients

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Everyone who is involved in strength training knows the value of a good workout partner. A workout partner pushes you, holds you accountable, and can serve as a trainer, reminding you of specific techniques while lifting. A good workout partner is also with you while you train. They are on time, never late and keep the same schedule that you do. Since I started training in 1980, I have always had the same workout partner. My partner has an excellent memory and can recall what I did last week or even last year. My partner also reminds me of how I was feeling during specific workouts where I underachieved. Maybe I had a headache, a tweaked muscle, or some personal things going on and wasn’t fully engaged. I am referring to my training notebook or journal. It is the most important accessory you take to the gym with you. It is also, BY FAR, the most underutilized piece of equipment. As a trainer, I require everyone I train to write down what they do. Not everyone likes it, but if you do not have time (or discipline) to write down your reps and weight with each workout, you are not giving yourself the best chance to achieve your goals. If your desire is to go to the gym for fun and a bit of exercise, then that is not a problem. If, however, you wish to make measured and sustainable improvements, you need to track your workouts. Each workout, I review the last time I did that sequence and try to improve by adding weight, reps or time. These small improvements add up over time. Imagine if you are a competitive lifter and you add one pound to your deadlift each week. That would be a 50lb improvement over the course of a year. My journal motivates me to do just a little better than I did last time. I see so many lifters doing the same weight (or just randomly changing weight, exercises or reps) for weeks or even months on end with no real plan or improvement. At The Pit, we have always provided a place to store your training journals. With modern technology, you can even store journals on the cloud. There is no reason to not take advantage of one of the simplest improvements you can make. The Pit has always prided itself on helping serious people achieve their goals. That goal might be walking 50 steps or squatting 700lbs but if it is important to you, it is important to us! If you have any questions, as always, just feel free to stop me and ask. I believe in fitness!

Lifting Up The Soul

The Army soon sent future strength coach Dick Conner to Flint Kaserne, Bad Tolz, Germany, which was the home of the 10th Special Forces. Conner’s latest assignment was more than Conner could take in, more than he comments, “ever deserved.” Much to his surprise and delight, the facility housed a weight room, and a basketball gym, as well as an indoor swimming pool. In the winter, the location afforded a ski slope, and a rink to ice skate. The small city of Bad Tolz, had a river running through it and the water was crystal clear, originating from the Bavarian Alps. Conner recalls, “the city itself was pretty as a picture.” “Very little was ever said about my not being a radio operator man, and I didn’t bring it up,” says Conner. “Again, lifting weights was all I really lived for, and it had a lot to do with my getting into some trouble in Bad Tolz. As punishment for my actions, I was busted in rank and sent to the 504 Airborne Battle group. I had five months left in the Army when I arrived at the 504, and it was a hard five months. The 504, however, offered a gym which I quickly located and proceeded to spend as much time there as possible - doing what I loved.” After Conner completed his commitment, he returned to his hometown, Evansville, Indiana. Reflecting on that time, Conner says, “from 1955 to 1962 I was told what to do, and how to live, and for the first time, I was on my own. Again, I never had a plan for my life, and I had interest in only a few things.” Conner was starting life as a private civilian, settling into a career while keeping his passion for weight training at the top of his list of priorities. Upon returning home, Conner accepted a job at ARKLA, a manufacturer of air conditioners. Two weeks after he started, half the plant was laid off, including the new hire, Dick Conner. After ARKLA, Dick went to work at Double Cola where he was employed for about a year. He delivered soda on the Tell City route. While he was on vacation from Double Cola, he heard Whirlpool was hiring and he proceeded to apply. Dick was employed at Whirlpool until August of 1965.  Of course, the most important part of Conner’s life continued to be lifting weights. “I did most of my weight training at the YMCA in Evansville. The YMCA, like almost everyone in that day, believed weight training was of little benefit for anyone. The YMCA had allowed a few men to build a gym in a corner of the building, and this room would be bursting at the seams with only 10 men. In that day, only males worked out at the YMCA. Women had access to the YWCA, and it offered a basketball court and a swimming pool. I once asked the question to a couple of young women, ‘what does YMCA mean?’. They did not know that it stands for Young Men’s Christian Association. Anyway, I found myself working out at the YMCA from 1962 until about 1966.” “In 1965 I hurt my back while squatting…hurt it bad. At that time there was not a safety rack for squatting. And…I was headed for more problems. In addition to the pain in my back, I was having pain under my kneecaps; pain that I later came to understand, was caused by squatting incorrectly. I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with chondromalacia, a degeneration of the cartilage under the kneecaps. “To make it even worse, I also had pain in my right shoulder. To tell the story quickly, but with sadness, after ten years of loving a gym more than anything else in the world…I was done…my days of strength training were finished.” In August of 1965, Dick left Whirlpool and began a career with the Evansville Police Department. He had become bored working in a factory and that was his reasoning for becoming a police officer. The training consisted of a nine-month probation where the trainee worked in various areas of the department: traffic department, motor patrol, identification, detective record room, etc. The police department at that time was made up of nearly all men, athletes, and World War II and Korea veterans. “As a result of the injuries I was enduring, I began losing my strength. It took about a year for me to lose most of my strength, but my love and passion for the gym was still within me. Without missing a beat, I began training two young men. My first training “subject,” was Dan Franklin, the son of my lieutenant. The second young man I started working with was Randy Dickens, the son of my sergeant. I trained Dan at his parent’s home, and later the same went for Randy. During this time span we picked up more high school football players. In 1972 we began training at my home which was on Carol Drive. “So many athletes were working out with me, and it was great. During this time, we had a man named Joe Bradley who was built like a body builder. At least I thought so. We had Dan Franklin who was well-built. And others who were game for anything. We got the idea to go to the Mr. Indiana Contest, and Dan, Joe, and Randy Dickens would enter. And maybe we had others, but it’s been almost 50 years and at 83, it’s the best I can do (to remember) …. “I do know the trip started with a bang! As we were headed to Anderson, Indiana, it was raining, and I was driving. Drive I did, right through a huge construction sign that was supposed to keep me from driving onto a newly built road. The car was full of young people, and they probably thought ‘so what…he’s a cop.’ We went on down the road and I stopped at a State Police post and told them of my wreck, and we proceeded on to experience Mr. Indiana. “The contest was an eye-opener. Seeing the athletes was an experience, but we did not anticipate seeing steroid usage; we had no idea that this world existed. And believe me, it did. “Besides the wreck, the thing I remember best was entering the theatre for the Mr. Indiana contest, and Hans Braukhof, one of The Pit’s strongest, was reading an Iron Man magazine. I remember walking up to Hans and looking at a picture of Sergio Oliva sitting in a Nautilus pullover machine. What I remember is Hans stating, ‘We need one of these machines,’ to which I replied, ‘No way,’ as I was already over my head with a growing number of people in my basement. “Well… it didn’t take me long to change my mind, after seeing the best built man in my basement finish tenth place in the Mr. Indiana contest, and the rest of our team finishing. “By Monday morning I went into action.” Stay Tuned for Part 10!

The 77th Special Forces was one of three groups, the others were the 10th in Bad Tolz Germany, and the first in Okinawa. The 77th was stationed on Smoke Bomb Hill and was an elite group whose goal was to train others in special warfare. Smoke Bomb Hill was located at Ft. Bragg which is a U. S. Army post in North Carolina. This elite force had to have secret clearance, and for some, crypto clearance. Coach Dick Conner soon found out it had all kind of characters: men with combat patches on their uniforms from the 101st Airborne, 82nd Airborne, Rangers, Merrill’s Marauders, just to name a few. At that time Conner was assigned to a team and the first action was attending a demolition class. A class that involved test and field work with explosives. The next thing on the agenda was two months in Utah, in the middle of the winter. This consisted of ski training and then playing war games. The young solder’s weight training gave him a great edge on everyone else, as he was, by far, the best skier on his team. In the war game field he could carry his own equipment plus a hand generator. The war games were simple - get to the target and blow it up. “The main test for our team went like this: we would jump in the Rocky Mountains, in about four foot of snow, and then proceed for days to knock out the target. Me and another trooper, whose first name was Tom, were selected to push out the heavy drop on the second pass. What we were to do was let the team jump, then the plane would turn around and we would push out a heavy bag full of skis and equipment. Then we would jump behind it. Well, the heavy bag had a black parachute and Tom, the trooper with me, noticed it in its bundle…just as we were jumping. He started to yell about it and sure enough it took his air from his chute and collapsed it, but it opened before landing..so we began our target hunt. That night after trying to make it through deep snow, with all the equipment we had to carry, was followed by the best night I ever slept. Waking in the morning covered with new snow,” recalls Conner. This was called a field problem. The days in the mountains, in well below zero weather took its toll on some. One of the big mistakes was the boots the soldiers were wearing – called Mickey Mouse boots. They caused one man’s feet to get so bad he had to be thrown out of the war games. Dick also saw one cry from the cold. Another soldier high in the mountains took off his clothes and got in a stream of freezing water that flowed like mad in the mountains. This was one method used by Special Forces/Green Berets to find out about you and train you according to your strengths. Because of Dick’s weight training, again he was able to do anything physical as good, or better than anyone else. “One more time I remind you…few people at that time understood the great value of strength training – not even Special Forces,” says Dick. Conner did well in Utah except for one thing. The two weapons men on the team were sent out to do recon on the target. They were to find out when a train would travel the track, and determine the next target to be hit. The team captain sent Dick along, he supposes, to learn from both men, who had combat experience.  “Well before leaving I had put an antenna high in one of the trees in the mountains – when we got back, things were in an uproar, as the team had been located by the enemy. They were trying to leave – but no one could climb the tree to get the antenna wire. Again, weight training was the reason I could climb that good. The captain was NOT HAPPY --- ‘Never do that again Conner,’“ Dick fondly remembers. After two months in Utah the team returned to Ft. Bragg, N.C. At that time, a Special Forces team had two radio operators, and radio school was Conner’s next assignment. “I knew my heart was not in it, as I could not see me working through learning the process of Morse Code, and all that was included,” says Dick. What followed may be hard to believe, and Conner adds that he “was once called a liar over it.” The Special Forces teams were disconnected in some way with the first sergeant, who was in charge of roll call every morning. Just a few days before Dick was scheduled to go to Radio School, the first sergeant asked for volunteers for permanent K. P. (kitchen patrol) duty, during morning roll call. He added that K.P. duty would be the same as the cooks, which meant working the same hours as cooks. What it meant to Conner was “plenty of time to workout – plus, if they didn’t catch me in time, I wouldn’t have to go to radio school!” Well, Conner was not caught and by the time he was, it was too late to go to radio school. On the very morning the school started, an officer came into the mess hall and said something like this to the young Conner, “you’re supposed to be in radio school – and then he told me to go back to my team and report to my sergeant.” It goes without saying that Conner’s sergeant was very angry. He had served with Conner in Utah, so Conner was aware of how mad he could get. But all said and done, Dick says that he thought he could get by with it. And, he adds, he did get away with it, at least for a while. Conner continued to work on K.P. not being bothered at working jobs that other soldiers hated – and working cook hours made it perfect for him to do what he loved the most, lift weights. This snafu went on for about 60 days and then he was quickly directed to Special Duty. “To this day I do not know how the Army messed up what follows,” says Conner. The Special Duty was meant to be a punishment for Conner, and he was joined by two other duds who failed to do what the Army directed. “These two and me were put in charge of firing several furnaces that heated hot water for several Army barracks that housed some troops from another country….and it was, as we soon found out, a dream come true,” explains Conner. “Whoever the officer was that signed the papers putting three men on this job had no idea what the job was. The actual job took about one hour twice a day … for one man. Three men, (myself and the two duds) could not have dreamed this up for ourselves. These two other men were as special as I ever met. They were put on this detail because they didn’t get along with the Army. One of the guys was named Billy, he was a Christian and would witness to his faith to anyone and everyone. I did not know for sure if this is why he got in trouble with the Army, but I believe it was. The second guy, Bob Dothast was “Cool Hand Luke”! Bob was about 6’3” and a great athlete. This is what I remember about him. He eventually went to college on a diving scholarship – at Wisconsin. He transferred to Iowa where he played football on the team that played in the Rose Bowl. He played tennis in the Pan American games, and he played golf with the officers on post. Bob was fearless. One day he said to me, “let’s go swimming” and we did. As I remember, it was the officer’s swimming pool where we didn’t belong, but Bob thought he belonged anywhere. Well, it was the summer of 1960, and again as I remember, Bob gets the idea that we should talk Billy into firing the furnaces for a week and we could take a vacation … he did and we did.” Dick recalls that everything was hunky-dory, except for one thing. Being a paratrooper meant he had to jump every 90 days or lose his jump pay. “The duty I was on was so good and I didn’t want it messed up. I had a buddy who was the company carpenter, his name was Royce Adams. So I talked to him about getting me on a jump manifest, and he did. The jump was a night jump, so I thought I could go from my present barracks without being noticed by anyone. Well, as I walked across the area, not more than 100 yards from my then present barracks, I heard a voice yell “Hey aren’t you Dick Conner? We have been looking all over for you.” He went on to say I was supposed to be in Germany…. Well, again, it has to be hard to believe, the Army for some unknown reason thought I had a crypto clearance. In other words, they had somehow messed up, and I took advantage of it.” Dick Conner’s next duty was to be Bad Tolz, Germany, probably the best duty in the Army at that time. Stay tuned for Part 9 of “In The Pit with Dick Conner”

“For some reason I seemed to make a good first impression on people in leadership positions. However, after a while the truth would come out about me!” says Coach Dick Conner. Conner had been in the Navy and went on to join the Army. Conner was never sure of the confusion that developed when he made this change. The Army could not understand the education and schooling that Conner received in the Navy. Regardless of their confusion, the Army sent the young man without any training to Signal Corp. Furthermore, he was sent to the 101st Airborne, without receiving the second part of basic training, which was called second eight. When he arrived at the 101st and was sent to Signal Corp, he was quick to find out the most important thing in his life – lifting weights, was almost non-existent. Well, first things first, and that was Jump School. Conner found that Jump School was somewhat tough, but again lifting weights with intensity was tougher. Jump School also had abuse from the Cadre, who were hand-picked fellow-soldiers who had the power to impose disciplinary techniques on you and you had to take it, period. Some examples were standing without a shirt in the middle of the winter, while a Cadre asked why no hair was growing on your chest – your answer better be “hair don’t grow on Airborne steel Sergeant.” Conner also witnessed a sergeant spit in a man’s face, and another kick a man in the ribs as he was face down. Posted in front of Jump School was a sign which read “Quitters Row.” The school offered a process where a soldier in Jump School could quit at any time, however, if the soldier quit at 9:00 a.m. he had to stand in front of Jump School until it was dismissed…which was usually late in the evening. Other jumpers would walk by and call the dropout a “Quitter” – and the dropout was then escorted to his company that evening where he was positioned at a “Quitters Table.” Within 24 hours, the belittled soldier was escorted out of the division. Orders of General Westmoreland, Commander, 101st Airborne Division. Jump School was designed as a demanding program to develop strong minds, and sharp attention skills. The difficult experience, Dick recalls, “probably did exactly this in my case, as never before.” “Before I proceed on with my story, let me again make this one point very clear. In that day and age, weight training was considered a waste of time. I heard all the time that muscle-bound, physical training will make you slow. Girls don’t like it, etc. etc. So again, to the young of the world, I know this is hard to believe.” After Jump School, like all paratroopers, Conner was required to make five jumps, which he had no problem completing. Afterward, says Conner, “I was now about to begin a new Dick Conner adventure, and that was being in charge of supply in the Signal Corp company. It didn’t take long for misadventure to arise, for it was not me, but what others thought about me that caused a rift. Aside from that, my mind was always on my next workout.” Dick’s next adventure in the Navy proceeded as he “did his time” and that time was spent working in supply. The company needed a man in supply, “and that was me." Two things happened: One – the man in charge of supply had about three months or so, before he was out of the Army. Two – Dick convinced them to let him put a gym in a nice large room on the second floor. “Now I want you to think a moment. If you were the only one who did for instance, a bench press in that company and you could bench 250 lbs., what do you think they thought about you? Well, 250 lbs. at that time was like 500 lbs. now; hard to believe. I was now the man in that second-floor supply gym. On top of that I was about to become the main man in supply, as within no time flat they told me that when the trooper in charge was dismissed from the Army that I would go up in rank and be in charge. This all took place in a very short amount of time, with many things going my way. It was being in the right place at the right time. Again, I was always overrated and had no business taking over that position.” As he recalls, Conner’s first mistake was not taking an inventory when he assumed the position of Supply Head. The other mistake was the condition that was created on that second-floor gym. The men ruined it. “But what happened next saved me from both mistakes and how quickly it happened was mind-bending. The word came down through the company that Special Forces was interviewing for new men – I jumped at the chance --- and was interviewed and again things went my way. I soon was gone from the 101st Airborne and my job as the head of 501st Signal Corp, Company Supply.” Soon, Dick Conner was on a Greyhound bus with another paratrooper, heading for Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. Fort Bragg was home to the 82nd Airborne Division, 77th Special Forces, a Special Warfare Unit and a large Air Force base. Stayed Tuned for Part 8 of “In The Pit with Coach Dick Conner”

The next day, Dick dressed and presented himself to the Army recruiter. He was joined by his buddies, Larry Goodman and Billy, who witnessed Dick enlisting in Airborne, per his drunken warnings the previous night. “I did have second thoughts about what I was doing – but not for long,” Dick mentions wryly. Before he could bench press a set of 200 pounds, Dick was on a bus with the other recruits, heading to Fort Ord, California, leaving all his worldly goods with Goodman and Billy. “I had no plan in life beyond the drive to lift weights,” says Coach Conner. Dick said he called his dad and told him what he had done. His dad was not happy about Dick’s impulsive move, furthermore, he was not happy that Dick had not been home to visit in over two years.  Conner recalls that it took about two days, for trouble to find him. “I should have known better than to listen to another recruit, but my situation was different and difficult. As we stood in chow line, one that extended about a half block, I was told by another recruit that I did not have to stand in line because I had a “strip” on my shoulder. When you enlisted from the Navy to Army, etc., within 90 days or so, you get to keep some rank. I proceeded to listen to him, as it did make some sense to me. He told me that I was to go in the back door. So I did. Almost the very second I entered the back door, I was confronted by a cook who wanted to know what I was doing….. And I told him I was going to chow to which he announced, “No, you are going on mess duty.” Not mincing words, I told the cook that I had no intention of doing that and just like that ….we were in a fight. Bad deal for a recruit in Basic Training. The cooks jumped in to stop the fight and to my surprise they did nothing but put me to serving butter. At that time basic trainees never got enough to eat, at least back then and more butter was right down their alley. So I gave to them what they wanted, not the one pat of butter the Army directed. But I said how much you want? Before I knew it, one of the cooks said “get that crazy man out of here.” I proceeded to get a tray and went through the chow line, ate and left.” Dick had been lifting for several years and at that time only about one person in ten thousand lifted weights. Conner was stronger than the average man, but he had no idea how much stronger some men were genetically. After several days the Army decided Conner needed Basic Training, in order to instruct him on how to shoot an M1 rifle. Basic Training took practically no effort for Conner. The young man had been weight training and he had been through Navy Boot Camp. To his surprise (and lack of explanation), he found Army Basic Training to be much easier than Navy. Since weight-training was rare, Dick found that nobody in his company in Boot Camp was acquainted with the sport. Dick easily beat anybody in the physical training test. To Dick’s amusement, he played on the flag football team and “had a blast.” “We had a black guy who wore a size 17 shoe. We were best of friends as he played on the team, and was real fast even with this size shoe. I mention this because I ended up in Germany and about two years after Boot Camp I read in “Stars & Stripes”, the military newspaper in Europe, about this big-footed running back who was a star football player. And yes, it was my buddy from Basic Training.” Dick notes that most people did not know that football and boxing in Europe at that time was like the movie “From Here to Eternity”. If you were good, that is all you did. No work, only play. Conner’s basic training was coming to an end, and it was sooner than he anticipated. About December 14, 1958, an order from the commanding General came down that Ft. Ord would be shut down over Christmas, and his company was to cut their training by a week, so they pressed into fast forward, and his orders were to report to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky for Jump School. Dick recalls, “I knew all the tricks of the trade for hitchhiking. As soon as we were out of Basic, I went to a Greyhound station and found a guy who worked as a bus driver and paid him to put my duffle bag on the bus for Evansville. Then I began to hitchhike. I have been called a liar on this part of the story, but so be it. Ft. Ord was located near Monterey Bay, California, so I took off without a map and without a clue as how to get to Evansville, Indiana. I completely depended on the people who picked me up, plus I wanted to go through Sacramento to see my buddies from the Navy, but I don’t remember much about my short visit with them. But I do remember Larry Goodman had taken a beating from the Hell’s Angels for something he had done to one of their girlfriends. It took me four days to get home, but on the way I went through Reno, which I knew little about at that time. But I remember how exciting crossing the border was and how I actually saw a ghost town between Sacramento and Reno. At that time, 1958, the highway was not two-lane and it was the winter route between California and Chicago. One guy picked me up and he was driving like he was nuts. He also told me I was hitchhiking at a time I could get snowed in. But the one ride I got was the one that is hard to believe. It was two girls and they were going to Idaho. As they talked, and I sat in the front seat with them – yes, they started talking about two guys they met in Sacramento. And … you guessed it …. It was my two buddies. Anyway, I got home just before Christmas, and having been gone for over two years, nothing was the same. So about a week later I headed for Ft. Campbell, home of 101st Airborne, Division and Jump School.” Stay tuned for Part 7 of “In The Pit with Dick Conner” I asked Dick why did he want to be strong (and increase his size) --- His response: To some degree, not all, but a lot of guys who lifted back then were loners and I fit that group – why, I don’t know. I do know that when I started to lift while on the USS Hornet I was no preoccupied to a troubling extent. I see this today in some others, we call it an inferiority complex, I believe I fit that mode – in my case, my love for weightlifting set me apart. But it also caused me to be more and more aggressive, in time and as my story goes on, much of it I can not write about, but I will tell as much as I can – and I will be truthful.