Photos from the Association of Oldtime Barbell & Strongman Reunion. Bruce Wilhelm, Bill Seno and Carlo Dunlap were all honored at this year’s annual dinner.

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A whole lot of bodybuilding happening this weekend in Los Angeles.  The legendary Mr. California contest will be at the Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium in Culver City on Saturday and the 75th Anniversary of Muscle beach will be held on Monday the 23rd.  Both events have personal significance for me.  In the late 60’s I was a competitor in both the Mr. California  and the various bodybuilding events held at Muscle Beach.  In addition, one of the real highlights for me on Monday will be honoring  Chet Yorton as he is inducted into the Muscle Beach Hall of Fame.  Chet and I worked out at the same YMCA in Milwaukee Wisconsin while I was in college.  See you there!

LaLanne in his home gym

Saturday (5.16) I visited Jack LaLanne at his home to record a video interview about his early days in the gym business  and his days  on Muscle Beach. As usual, Jack and his wife Elaine, were the perfect hosts.  As a part of his daily workouts, Jack swims a half hour a day and now has an “Endless Pool” which he just raved about.  Great idea–always 88 degrees and you can vary the speed of the current to what is best on any day.  Jack’s 95th birthday is coming up in September and I wanted to expand my own knowledge of Jack’s early life in order to create an article for the October Issue.  To fully appreciate Jack’s enthusiasm and power, he must be video taped. Saturday’s taping provided me with a visual record of one of the seminal characters in our world and the world wide fitness revolution.  As Jack said to me, “I have dedicated my life to helping people become stronger and healthier”.  Jack’s enthusiasm for living is an ongoing inspiration.  Thanks to Jack and Elaine for a memorable day.  And thanks to our mutual friend Ricky Suzuki for making it happen.

In discussing this issue’s contents with IRON MAN Editor in Chief Steve Holman, I was struck by both the range of ideas and the range of voices the authors represented. Most of what we publish comes from individual authors who are self-directed. Yes, we make assignments, but they’re in the minority. I never know the specific contents of most of our features and departments until I read them as the issue is midway through production.

Such is the quality of the writers and the relationships—we trust our authors to deliver. IRON MAN is driven by individuals and their ideas. We keep the authors’ tone and style intact so readers get to feel a writer’s thoughts. The variety of voices is what gives IRON MAN its character.

That’s nothing new about this magazine. From its founding in 1936, Iron Man was an open forum for ideas—and so it remains. Peary and Mabel Rader started the publication to spread the word about the wonders of weight training correctly performed. We continue that tradition by honoring the wisdom of the past as well as exploring the research of the present.

For me, wisdom is defined as ideas that have stood the test of time. For example, beginning on page 60 in this issue, Charles Poliquin revisits Vince Gironda, the legendary Iron Guru, with truths Vince discovered 50 years ago and science validates today. Vince was then what Poliquin, Jerry Brainum, Steve Holman and Bill Starr are today: pragmatists always in search of a better way, a more productive way to train, eat and supplement. While those four authors represent more than 100 years of combined experience, their creativity is the foundation of their writing. Staying hungry for knowledge is the keystone of their progress—plus, of course, being obsessed in a constructive way with what they love to do.

So IRON MAN continues to facilitate connections between the writer and the reader—and IRON MAN readers are as much seekers of information as its authors are. I hope you’re as surprised and delighted as I am each month with the issue’s content. While I don’t completely agree with everything we publish—training protocols, diet or supplementation—I believe that presenting a diversity of ideas makes IRON MAN as vital and relevant as the authors who create them.

We bring individual voices together so that we can all learn from them and test their unique ideas in our own training. I’ve often cited my lifelong friend Bob Gajda’s belief that the gym is really a laboratory and that we are the subjects of our self-created experiments. The bodybuilding experience is just that: a self-directed voyage of discovery. Enjoy the odyssey. IM

I first met Zabo Koszewski in 1965 at the original Gold’s Gym on Pacific Avenue in Venice, California. By then the golden age of Muscle Beach was over—the original Santa Monica location was gone—and we’d soon be seeing the arrival of the Arnold era. Zabo was and is one of the originals, along with Joe Gold and others, who were the nucleus of bodybuilding on the beach.

The stories and photos of that beach that appeared in the bodybuilding magazines were like a beacon for all of us who saw them. It was a fantasy world of endless summer, bodybuilding and, of course, girls. The apparent freedom and fun of those guys and girls became a powerful draw to the susceptible, me in particular. In the late ’50s, as I worked out in my unheated garage with the inside temperature below freezing,I saw photos of Zabo on the beach working out—in January. I promised myself that I’d somehow get to experience it. I was too late for the golden age, but I made it in time to be a charter member of Gold’s in 1965.

In early 2008 I was talking to Zabo about my odyssey to Muscle Beach, and he mentioned that he’d kept some scrapbooks. I asked to see them, and the result is the pictorial of Zabo’s Muscle Beach memories that starts on page 192. I want to thank him for sharing his personal vintage photos with me and with the many thousands who will get to see them. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Randall Strossen, Ph.D., is a recognized expert on the worlds of Olympic weightlifting and feats of strength. He travels the globe covering the sports for his magazine Milo, and for many years he also penned a column, IronMind, for this magazine. While we no longer cover those sports in depth, I like to feature Randy’s work from time to time. He combines a deep knowledge of the sports with the photographic skill it takes to capture them at their best. Randy’s photos express the superhuman athleticism that is the hallmark of the Olympic lifter. No other sport requires the raw explosive power, unbelievable flexibility and fearlessness of Olympic weightlifting. See page 284 of the February ‘09 issue for Randy’s highlight coverage of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Erratum: In the interview with Terry Baldwin, “Strapping Up to Glory” (January ’09), the Web address listed for information on Flexsolate was incorrect. The correct address is www.Flexsolate.com. IM