Gagne Metrics

[lardy]

Came across this earlier, Verne Gagne was by all accounts a bit of a bad ass amateur/pro wrestler who liked to work really hard on strength and conditioning, one of the stories I heard was whilst he was a trainer for pro wrestlers he had a building with 21 flights of stairs, and he would make aspiring wrestlers run up and down them before making them firemans carry another guy up them and then making them wheelbarrow up the 21 flights of concrete steps, as soon as this was finished he would make them run into some nasty hard ropes in the ring over and over leaving people with split skin and bruises everywhere! that was just day 1.

Anyway I don't know if he truly believed in these or if he was selling the idea or even if it was just his way of trying to get the everyday person moving, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

Here he is in 1964 showing you how to do "Gagne metrics" (Isometrics) 

[Deuce Gunner]

Thank you for sharing that. Here is an interesting but tragic incident that Gagne was involved in. From Wikipedia:


On January 26, 2009, Gagne got into an altercation with Helmut Gutmann, a 97-year-old resident of the Bloomington, Minnesota facility where they both resided. According to Gutmann's widow, who was not present during the altercation, Gagne picked Gutmann up and hurled him to the floor, then broke his hip by pulling back on his body. "'The attack happened quickly while the men were at a table,' Bloomington Police Chief Jeff Potts said. 'It was more like "a push and a shove" and it caused Gutmann to fall.'"[12]



Neither man had any recollection of the incident.[13] Gutmann was admitted to the hospital, and died on February 14 from complications of the injury.[14] On February 25, 2009, the older man's death was officially ruled a homicide by the Hennepin County medical examiner's office.[13] On March 12, 2009, the Hennepin County Prosecutor's office officially announced that Gagne would not be criminally charged as a result of the death as, because of Gagne's dementia, he lacked the mental capacity necessary to have intended to harm Gutmann.

[brothersteve]

Gagne was always involved in sports; football, amateur wrestling. He was an alternate on the 48' Olympics Freestyle Wrestling team. With a small to medium bone structure, he was about 5'11" & 218 most of his career, he was always in shape himself. He did public workouts prior to some of his more notable Pro Wrasslin' bouts.

'Nature Boy' Ric Flair was trained by Verne and told of the wrestling training he Ken Patera (Olympic Weightlifter and Ric's roommate at the time), and the Iron Sheik went through. In a barn Verne had on his property with an old ring that was doused with chicken poop and sometimes snow as the roof was damaged; start with 500 squats, 500 situps, then 250 pushups. After that a 2 mile run and then the wrestling training began.

The concrete stairs were in a Minneapolis arena they went to when it was too cold and snowy to be in the barn.

[pierinifitness]

First time I heard this version.

[Deuce Gunner]

Jul 9, 2021 17:57:44 GMT pierinifitness said:

First time I heard this version.

First time I heard that account of it and I don't believe it either. That would have been some piss poor investigation if it had gone down that way. In 2009 an elder care facility would have surveillance cameras in most areas, especially the common ones. Like most incidents that you hear about from witnesses, the truth is probably somewhere towards the middle one way or another. Without the other two parts of the trinity of criminal investigation (physical evidence and subject confessions) to corroborate witness statements, they are very hard to determine facts from. Zbysko's account of it was pure hearsay and virtually worthless.

[pierinifitness]

Two real tough guys going at it - Verne Gagne versus Lou Thesz. Wouldn't want to mess with either one of them. Great vintage old school wrestling match.

[Bruce Tackett]

Did my eyes deceive me? Did I just witness a real wrestling match?!

[captkronos]

I think wrestling was already fake by then, or "scripted", even though it looked far more legitimate than the buffoonery of today. I think it became fake as early as the 1920's, though it probably was a gradual slide into the theatrics of today, or people would have never accepted it.

[Dave Reslo]

Alexander Zass mentions the matches being fixed when he was in the circus but then adds in a line about "But one time we really did wrestle for real and I was the best because I'm so strong!"

[Dave Reslo]

Here's an example of a real wrestling match, if you're wondering why they never put that on tv:

[mr potatohead]

My family never missed a Dick The Bruiser match.