Who was Ed Coan

Philip Pape 0:02

If you're someone who loves to lift and respects the legends who built this sport and you want to understand what separates good lifters from the greatest of all time, but you've wondered what made the old school champions so dominant when they had less technology, fewer resources and simpler methods, this episode is for you. Ed Cohn set 71 world records and became the lightest man to total over 2,400 pounds. At 218 pounds body weight, he moved weights that seemed crazy. His secret was not advanced programming. It was something that built champions then and still builds champions now, but most modern lifters never master it. Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency. I'm your host, philip Hape, and today we're going to talk about the life and philosophy of Ed Cohn, arguably the greatest powerlifter who ever lived. Now you know that feeling when you're scrolling through your fitness content, your Instagram feed, your Facebook wall, and you see another new training method or a secret technique that promises to unlock your strength potential, and you've never heard of this thing before. Well, ed Cohn built his legendary career on the opposite approach. While today's lifters chase complexity, cohn mastered simplicity. While influencers sell angles and hacks, cohn relied on progressive overload and passion-driven consistency, but with some nuances, some interesting background that we're gonna get into today. Now, if you want to master these principles yourself the fundamentals that build legendary strength like progressive overload I have a free guide for you that breaks down how to apply this concept to your training. You can grab it free at witsandweightscom slash free or click the link in the show note for my progressive overload guide. It's a great blueprint for building strength the Ed Cohn way, systematically, sustainably. It gives you details on the different ways to progress in your lifting sessions, very explicitly, one method after another, and tells you how to apply it so that you can finally make progress Again. Click the link in the show notes to download my progressive overload guide.

Philip Pape 2:22

All right, let's meet the Mozart of strength. That was his nickname, ed Cohn, ed C-O-A-N. If you've never heard of him, I'm gonna give you a little bit of his background and then tie what he did to why this matters today. So his story starts in 1963. It wasn't in some prestigious gym, it wasn't some elite coaching program or anything like that, but in a basement, as all these programs start right In a basement. He was a bullied kid and he refused to stay weak. He was 155 pounds, he was getting picked on and he did what millions of teenagers have done in the past he decided to get stronger. Now I wish I did that back then. I didn't, but he did. And he did something a little bit different, though he didn't just hit the weights randomly like a lot of us did at that age Again, not me, but I, you know, I had a cousin, I knew some friends who were just, you know, slam some weights in the garage, really no rhyme or reason. I see that today with young kids, and you know it's. It's one thing to have fun I love that. It's another to continue in that method into adulthood where it doesn't actually benefit you because you are not progressing.

Philip Pape 3:26

Well, what did he do? He studied Arnold's education of bodybuilder education of a bodybuilder, which is a fantastic book and that's different from his encyclopedia of bodybuilding. So keep in mind, arnold wrote a lot of great stuff over the years. He's a great writer, fantastic life. Go check out any of his stuff. But this was education of a bodybuilder. And he bought an Olympic weightlifting set, he got some isometric cords and he started training in his basement. You know, all alone.

Philip Pape 3:52

He was determined, he was focused, kind of sounds like a lot of the story of these folks when they were at that age who ended up becoming greats. And so over months he worked with isometric cords, which are effectively cable exercises that require isometric holds, and, you know, basic equipment. And he built strength. But he also understood the principle of progressive overload that still a lot of people today don't understand or don't apply. And you know he wasn't just this kid messing around with weights. He seemed to take it seriously and, you know, perhaps he enjoyed it, perhaps he realized how much it benefited, perhaps he had a genetic, you know, growth potential that he was tapping into, but it's. It's kind of a systematic thinking that I really appreciate in someone.

Philip Pape 4:33

And when he finally joined a real gym, this was in Chicago and he was inspired by the legendary Bill Kazmaier, who at the time was a very dominant, a strong man, ed, I think the story goes that he loaded up a barbell and squatted 500 pounds right off the bat. Now think about that for a moment. Okay, most lifters spend years trying to squat, you know, double their body weight or try to build up to anything close to that. And he was hitting triple body weight squats as a teenager who'd been training less than a year all right at 155 pounds body weight. So this is going to be relevant because it's going to be something that he repeats. He continues to demonstrate this ratio of strength to weight. That's pretty incredible.

Early Years and Training Philosophy

Philip Pape 5:17

Now, again, most of us spend years trying to improve our squat, our deadlift. All of this and you know I'm an older guy that didn't get started to my 40s. Not using that as an excuse, I just wish I can go in a time machine back to my 20s or my teenage years and see what would have happened. But Ed was hitting massive weights as a teenager, not much training, and his approach apparently was one of just get the job done right. No ego, not rushing it, just get in the basement, get the job done. And so that kind of approach, that kind of mindset, really helps anyone who's trying to improve anything right.

Philip Pape 5:52

For me back then it was playing saxophone. Okay, I was a music nerd, but you know what I practiced every day. I got really, really good, was able to go to a nice arts high school. It was a great experience. I was able to meet my wife at a gig in my 20s. Even though I was an engineer I was also being able to play. It has nothing to do with Ed Cohn, my point is just being systematic and focusing on something and improving it over time is the bread and butter of personal growth in any area. Right? So when we fast forward, that was the beginning. Right Then, what Ed accomplished.

Philip Pape 6:24

So if we look over the next two decades of his life, he set 71 world records, which just sounds impossible until you understand the dominance that he brought to different weight classes and different federations and obliterated the standards at the time. So in 1991, he was 218 pounds and he totaled 2,402 pounds. That was a 962 squat, a 545 bench and a 901 deadlift. Insane, all right. This was a 14 and a half percent increase over the previous world best. So if, in in powerlifting terms, if we were to use an analogy of a sprinter, that would be like knocking one and a half seconds off the hundred meter world record. And you know when records are broken, it's usually by tiny amounts, right, a few pounds here, a few pounds there.

Philip Pape 7:14

When it comes to lifting, sometimes we see these step changes and Ed just shattered them, right, and so people were questioning, they were skeptical. They're like are the weights even real. You know, even to this day we question are they using foam weights in that video? And so his best IPF raw in 1994, his total was 2,282 pounds and that was a world record and it became kind of the gold standard for drug tested lifting. And then in the 1998 championships he pushed the equipped total to 2,463.6 pounds. He had a 1,003 squat, a 5.73 bench and an 8.87 deadlift. Now, if we look at other legends of that era, you've got Kurt Kowalski, you've got Dave Waddington, you have Gary Frank. They were also setting records, but they didn't match this level of consistency across different weight classes and then this margin of victory that Ed Cohn was demonstrating, and so he was quite the winner. Let's just say he was quite the winner.

World Records and Dominant Performance

Philip Pape 8:13

You know, even I'm shocked, kind of learning, relearning about his history, which I've heard in drips and drabs over the years from powerlifters and from some of the guys I follow and listen to on podcasts. But I'm going to call myself a young guy. I'm in my forties, I didn't grow up necessarily with this culture, so I'm kind of figuring it out now and having fun researching and sharing with you guys on the podcast. Now, these are just numbers, these are just records. I think what made Ed the goat right, the greatest of all time, was how he achieved them, why his methods still work today, and that's where I like to make the connection from history to modern times. So what have we lost today in fitness culture?

Philip Pape 8:48

I think this is going to sound a lot like my Ronnie Coleman episode, but simplicity is is undervalued, right In terms of principles. We're talking progressive overload, we're talking periodization and we're talking having a passion for this. And I want to include passion on the list because I'm starting to see a theme that the guys and ladies who really excel they've got to love what they're doing. I've been asked on a podcast before how do you go to the gym and lift when you don't like it? And I'm like I don't get that because I like it. The gym and lift when you don't like it, and I'm like I don't get that because I like it. Now I like it because it gives me something, it gives me a result, but I actually like it for the sake of it, and not everybody does, I think although I think you can develop passion for almost anything when you get good at it. It's just a passion born of hard work, as opposed to hedonism or pleasure, right. And so his training philosophy is build strength, muscle will follow. Don't overcomplicate the issue, right?

Philip Pape 9:45

We see today a lot of noise around range of motion and different rep ranges and strength versus hypertrophy, and like crazy programming because everybody's trying to come up with something new. I mean, I'm accused of that myself. I come up with training templates for my clients and for Physique U and I'm like, okay, what can I do? That's at least perceived as a bit different, unique and value-added, that's not already out there. And you know what I end up doing. I end up coming down to the basics of. Well, guess what? This program is actually kind of similar to this guy's over here and this woman's program over here, but I've taken the principles and put them together and that's almost the best you can do today because we already know it works.

Philip Pape 10:27

And when we look at Ed Cohn, what was he doing? He was training with one or two sets per lift, not necessarily three, four, five. You know he was focused on form, like all those guys had to be, of course, to be able to lift into those numbers and do it without injury. And then he followed progression cycles, like light to heavy, for example, very much like base to peak. When you're peaking for a powerlifting meet, you go from high volume to high intensity. For example, and my friend Tony P he's in the community, former client lifting buddy of mine, he's in my barbell club as well.

Philip Pape 10:56

We get on each other a lot over messaging and he shared some really good thoughts about these legends of the past. He knows a lot about them and one thing he mentioned is that the information is not the same as knowledge. He said I think we lost something along the way that they figured out so much they did the hard lifting that it's irrational for the current fitness industry to ignore them. And I think this is important today more than ever, because we have so much information but less wisdom. I think we have more information than ever, but less wisdom. Ed and his contemporaries, like Kurt Kowalski I mentioned him they were doing what we now call power building right, and I know some people don't like that term or they use it as a boogeyman in their social media posts. It's just a combination of strength and hypertrophy and I see this message repeated over and over again now with people I respect.

Philip Pape 11:47

Take my coach, andy Baker. Right, he replied to somebody. Somebody said hey, can I do your power building program but cut out all the accessory work, all the isolation work he's like well, it kind of defeats the purpose, because how do you get stronger without getting bigger? So the principle of doing both has been around for a long time. Right, and they didn't call it power building. That's what we call it now. That's kind of a buzzword, but they prove that strength and aesthetics are not mutually exclusive.

Training Principles and Power Building

Philip Pape 12:11

And that's important because I talk about this stuff all the time. People come to me to what we call physique university and in my mind, physique is really just a culmination of all the things you're doing for your physical fitness that make you stronger, fitter, healthier and have longevity. And so when we talk about strength training, the form of training that combines a little bit of high intensity with volume and frequency right, well-roundedness maybe is a better way to put it Power building is really a great, efficient approach and there are a lot of ways to progress. And that's why I mentioned the guide earlier which you can grab at whatsonweightscom slash free or the link in the show notes. It's a guide to progressive overload, because I find people are very confused by this, and that's going to show you how to systematically increase your lifts without worrying about, you know, complicating it very much, like Ed Cohn and his ilk have inspired us to do and inspired me to do as I'm looking into their history.

Philip Pape 13:05

So, ed Cohn, he wasn't just a lifting machine. You know we like to put these people on pedestals as if they're these robots that we want to analyze, but apparently he was very humble and thoughtful and you can go watch videos of him. And you know there's a lot of ego driven personalities that dominate these sports, but I think the really a lot. I think the majority of the good guys who are at the top of their sport tend to be humble because it almost requires it to get where they are. I know that sounds ironic. Now, not always I mean, arnold is is not very humble, but we all love the guy too. He I guess he has a different form of humility, if you will. You know he kind of jokes about it while he's being a cocky SOB, right, but anyway, I Ed was on I think it was the Michael Hearn show and he said rely less on fleeting motivation and more on passion, which is a deeper, more sustainable driver.

Philip Pape 13:55

That's huge, because oftentimes we contrast motivation with process and taking action and building momentum, blah, blah, blah. I like the fact that he's saying, no, you should rely on passion. Right, rely on passion like rely on being so into something that it just drives you to do it, no matter what, for its own sake, and that is very sustainable, isn't it? Now that passion may come from the meaningful reason that you do something. It could be because you want to show up for your family, for your kids, you want to avoid, you know, health issues in old age, and that could all be tied into the passion, for sure. So that's kind of a philosophy of life in general and it appeals to me because there's a positivity to it, right, by definition, it is positive, positive meaning, not negative meaning. It drives you forward in adding the things in that allow you to pursue that passion right, and to get through setbacks. And that's important because things don't go perfectly ever.

Philip Pape 14:49

And Ed had some setbacks. He also had some doping violations. I just have to acknowledge that. Right, good with the bad, okay, in the 80s, I think, 85, 89. And then he was suspended in 1996. It led to a lifetime ban, right, and I mean these controversies were part of that era of powerlifting and I think now we're a lot more transparent, we're just like, yeah, okay, these people take drugs, but back then we're talking. You know, even before, say, the baseball scandals, that became a huge issue. Obviously, enhanced versus not enhanced and whether it's disclosed and whether it's tested is has been a huge controversial part of the sport.

Passion Over Motivation

Philip Pape 15:22

And what I want to focus on is just Ed himself, how he handled the adversity. You know he didn't make excuses. I don't think he had any bitter rants, I think he just kept focusing and lifting and helping people. And so I you know nuances, right, everybody's character is a bit complex. I'm not making any excuses for anyone, and it was a different time. It was a bit complex. I'm not making any excuses for anyone, and it was a different time. It was a different time.

Philip Pape 15:44

So back to the motivation, passion thing. You know, motivation is one of those things, like willpower, that is fleeting, but passion is pretty endurable, right, it's pretty endurable. It can take you through decades, which is what's going to be required when it comes to your fitness lifestyle, with your training. It's going to you're going to have lots of setbacks oh my, I mean, I know setbacks surgeries and injuries and lots of things that have happened. He had two hip replacements, apparently right. So any of you dealing with shoulder issues, hip issues, back issues, it happens. We got to find a way around it. Understand our constraints, keep moving forward and passion is going to take you through it, because you're going to say how the heck do I get back to the gym? How do I do it? I need to, I need to, I need to do it. I want to do it. How do I do it?

Philip Pape 16:24

In 2023, this is only a couple of years ago he was 53 and he had two artificial hips. As we mentioned, he squatted 585. So he's still active, hitting crazy weights, right. Most people his age are worried about their knees creaking going up the stairs. He's still moving serious weight because his passion never dimmed his understanding that you can always progress or at least maintain your strength, right. Of course, with age, you're going to have lower and lower capacity to hit those max, max weights, but you can still perform pretty incredibly as a human being, and this speaks to something missing, I think, in today's instant gratification culture.

Philip Pape 16:59

Real strength and I'm going to talk about strength here is physical and mental is built over time, over decades. It's a form of wisdom, in my opinion. It's a form of resilience, and a guy like Ed is a good guy to look at because he had this self-deprecating humor, he had a genuine interest in helping people, he had the passion. And what that does, I think, is it spreads like a good virus. I don't think a virus is a great analogy, but it spreads to others where you elevate them. You lift them, especially if you're lifting with them, and then it pushes them because you're stronger than them or you have more experience than them. You lift them, especially if you're lifting with them, and then it pushes them because you're stronger than them or you have more experience than them, and, rather than lording it over someone, it's a source of curiosity on the other person's part and helping them on your part. And I'm talking from the perspective as a mentor, but I also am a student, and so when I can put myself around people who are better than me, especially by a long shot, but who also have a combination of passion, wisdom and positivity, that's an amazing recipe. Right there, marty Gallagher called Ed the Mozart of strength. I alluded to that nickname earlier, and why is that? Because he's a prodigy and has a legacy that's gonna echo for a long time to come. He made a huge impact on people and his principles are timeless, like Mozart's music I assume that is where this nickname came from.

Philip Pape 18:22

And when we think of today, we're living in what I'll call an attention economy. It kind of drives me crazy when I feel like eyeballs are on the screen all day. It's all about stories and posts and new content. You got to grab eyeballs, you got to go viral. And when it comes to like strength training, it's almost starkly contrast when you just go in and you move a piece of metal, a foot, you know, and just against gravity to try to build your muscles. There's something so visceral and primal about that that is the opposite of all of this. In the cloud, virtual living that we have, there's almost like two different realities in existence today. Right, there's the social media online world, and then there's the real, physical world that we're almost forgetting exists. And the barbell doesn't care, right? It doesn't care about your IG following or your feed. Your muscles don't care about hashtags, right?

Timeless Wisdom for Modern Lifters

Philip Pape 19:11

I know I'm getting kind of silly here, but at the end of the day, the principles are timeless. So Ed's career is like a bridge between the old school and modern training, proving that you don't have to reinvent the wheel, that we know a lot of what we already know that works. Just dig into it, turn to it consistently, but also be passionate and I know you can't force that. So find a way to make it passionate and if it's not passionate for you, there's probably a different method, while still sticking to the principles. So what is Ed doing today? I think he continues coaching people. He's coaching like young lifters. He's passing on his techniques but, as well as the mindset, a lot of these guys are really good at sharing the thinking behind this and again, invaluable earned wisdom is what we're getting at right, and this is why I think studying the lifting legends like this matters.

Philip Pape 20:00

I don't know how many I'm going to do here of these. Hit me up on IG. Speaking of social media, send me a message on Instagram at Whitson Weights If you have an idea for someone else to cover. I'm definitely gonna cover some women in the sport as well, and some of the greats maybe in some other more overlooked areas, not just for the inspiration of it, but the actual preservation of principles at work. I will be curious when these the series is done at some point when we're at 10 people or 20 or whatever down the road, to kind of put it all together in a compendium of you know what helps us accomplish the most with our focus on the fundamentals and our passion.

Philip Pape 20:36

So if this exploration of Ed Cohn's principles resonated with you, go check out the last Lifting Legends episode. I did. It was the first one, it was Lifting Legends number one. It was about Ronnie Coleman, and you'll see some of the differences, some of the similarities, right, Because Ronnie was a bodybuilder, ed's a power lifter. But I think both of their successes hinge on the fundamental principles we discussed today. All right, until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember that your strongest, healthiest, fittest physique and body it's not built overnight, it's not built on fads. It's engineered one rep, one set, one training session at a time, just like Ed showed us. This is Philip Pape and you've been listening Wits and Weights. I'll talk to you next time.