Strength Oldschool: Viewing image Alexeev in his back yard - Strength Oldschool

Vasily Alexeev (or Alekseyev or Alekseev or any of up to dozen spelling's of his name) was and probably still is regarded as the greatest weightlifter of all time. Okay, so purist lifting polls sometimes put Tommy Kono first, or rate David Rigert higher, but I am talking about the public outside of lifting as well. Most non-lifters have no idea who Rigert was (in the west that is, in Russia he was famous)but most people remember that massive russian with the huge belly.

I think it's safe to say Alexeev was a one-off and we won't see the likes of him again.Many times in the past statements like that have been made about other lifters, for example Joe Weider in the early 1950's predicting that Doug Hepburn would set records that would stand for 100 years - shortly after Paul Anderson appeared and then quite a few iron game luminaries thought he would be the ultimate record holder. By the mid-1960's Vlasov and Zhabotinsky of the Soviet Union had surpassed Paul's olympic lifts (to be fair Paul was the king of sheer brute strength such as squats, backlifts etc. but his technique on the olympic lifts was crude compared to the russians so he could not fully express his strength on the overhead lifts).Moving to the present day Alexeev's records have fallen too, yet he is still unique and will never be duplicated. What is so different about him? Well, a few facts from his life will reveal that.

Vasily was born in 1942 in Pokrovo Schischkino in Russia. As an adult he enjoyed vodka having been introduced to it at an early age by his father who was a liquor distiller, but knew his limits and never drank enough to jeopardise his training. As an excellent volleyball player in 1960 he started lifting weights at the Forestry Institute near Archangel.He was 6 feet tall and weighed 90kg at the time and his volleyball coach recognised his potential and steered him onto the olympic three (clean and press was contested alongwith snatch and jerk until 1972).His 1961 three-lift total of 315kg was the beginning of a steady rise in power after he married a girl named Olympiade and had 2 sons and relocated twice, finally settling in the mining town of Shakhty.1965 total 400kg, 1966 total 470kg and 1968 total 540kg all this having been achieved after recovery from a career-threatening back injury.

Alexeev had received coaching advice from Rudolf Plukfelder, a great lifter and coach to David Rigert but decided to follow his own ideas and trained himself from 1968 onwards. Like the great Paul Anderson some of Vasily's training methods were innovative and completely different to the accepted way to train at the time.He often used barbell complexes with moderate weights to help add bodymass, practised many different exercises in the gym (Louie Simmon's Westside conjugate training method is very similar to Vasily's training principles)and even rolled barbells into a river to practise snatchs against water resistance! ON 24th January 1970 at the Soviet junior championships Alexeev showed the world his new method's results by setting 4 world records and adding 55kg to his previous best, to reach a total of 595kg!Then in March did it again to total 600kg.

Now Alexeev took off,breaking 26 world records in 1970, followed by a further 21 in 1971.Along the way he picked up an aura of invincibility which shattered his opponents. For example, in the 1972 Olympic games Rudolf Mang, Ken Patera and Serge Reding were serious threats - Alexeev even admitted Reding was stronger in training than he was, and russian coaches felt Patera was stronger too. BUT in the contest nerves destroyed the opposition, Patera and Reding bombing out of the contest, and Mang totalled 30kg less than his best as Alexeev easily broke all the olympic records. After this contest the clean and press was dropped from competitions.

Vasily remained unbeaten until the 1978 world championships where a severe hip injury prevented him from performing the jerk.By this time he had been world champion 6 times and Olympic champion twice - his second Olympics he was under pressure from new snatch and total record holder Plachov and new jerk record holder Gerd Bonk, but once again his rivals wilted before him. First Plachov withdrew from the contest, then Bonk lifted well below his best, allowing Alexeev to win with an easy jerk of 230kg.Vasily then jumped to the world record 255kg jerk and made it!At this time he was 6feet 2 inches tall, weighed 150kg and had a 62 inch waist!!

AND now he has gone, here is why I think he is unique.

His first world record press 210.5kg, his final press record 235.5kg.
First snatch record 177kg, final best 190kg
First jerk record 221.5kg, final record 256kg
Just look at the gains he made at world record level as he made 80 world records in his career! Has anyone come close to so many records and such a huge increase in weight lifted? Today's greats set the occasional snatch record but jerk records are few and far between. The 2011 Superheavy winner set a world snatch mark of 214kg but his jerk? 250kg - less than Vasily did 35 years ago! And the world record jerk stands at 263kg, only 7kg more than Vasily's best.And believe it or not,a very reliable source years ago says he saw Alexeev training jerks taking the bar off squat stands, and he jerked 270kg! And did it comfortably!

I cannot see any modern lifter raising the records by as much as Vasily did, or coming close to his number of records, so I will risk saying he was truly a one-off, never to be repeated competitor who will never be forgotten. And I did not even mention he was the first to clean and jerk 500lbs!

Magnus

I remember one of the major stations checking in on Alexeev a few years after he retired. He was at home. For exercise he was "splitting wood." He would tap a peice with an axe so that he could get his fingers in it and then rip the peice apart with brute strength. Made it look easy. Ive tried it and its not easy! he then treated the newsfolk to a great home cooked meal. He seemed content at home.

I also recall all the times I watched him compete on tv. A great champion as you have described. God bless his family on the loss. Ken