‘A Lifetime in Powerlifting Well Spent: Ernie Frantz,’ Powerlifting USA, June (2010), 61-64

You know, powerlifting should really have its own glitzy award show like the actors do. If this event was ever televised, I believe it would be a huge hit, unlike the sorry spectacle being delivered these days on network TV.

I don’t know about you, but I rarely, if ever, watch the Academy Awards anymore. Somehow, my fond childhood memories of sitting in front of the then brand-new Sylvania Color TV in my parents’ living room watching the greats—John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and Sophia Loren—battle it out in such classics as Ben Hur, Casablanca and The Godfather do not quite match up with trying to follow the current Hollywood “crowd.”

Most of today’s stars seem to have as many mug shots on file with the LAPD as they do publicity shots with their agents. And the current “show,” hosted by an ever-changing array of comedic pretenders turned political pundits (some fresh out of rehab), can never match up to the legendary genius of Bob Hope.

In those days, the Oscars were about 60 minutes long and didn’t waste a lot of time getting right down to the meat of the issue: best actor, best actress, and, of course, best picture. Now? Too long. Too boring. Too many half-out-of-it Hollywood nitwits (and their hangers-on) painfully reading something as simple as “And the nominees for Foreign Documentary are…” from a Teleprompter. Some, by the way, make it pretty obvious that they may have actually flunked 4th-grade reading. Great role models, huh.

And PLEASE, please don’t get me started on the fake, nauseating “smiles” from the losers in the audience. Are they really that glad they lost (again)? Are they smiling and clapping for the other guy because, after all, they are just thrilled to have wasted three years of their lives on a total bomb of a movie, publicity campaign, filming on location in some god-forsaken hellhole complete with the requisite 5 AM wakeup calls, lousy food, and sadistic director? Do they all think that the winner didn’t somehow resort to the usual backstabbing, begging and bribery all too typical in Hollywood? Of course they do!

Why can’t these folks act more normal—like, say, some disgruntled high school football coach on the sideline after an obviously botched call by an incompetent ref—rather than trying to look like good sports? You know, scream a lot, sulk some, and generally throw a fit. Better yet, why can’t they act like some freaked-up powerlifter who just got jobbed out of a world record squat? I would love it, and I bet the world would too, if once, just once, some nominee would mouth the F-word, the S-word and Son of a B-word and generally just cuss up a storm when the camera pans to them after they lose. Maybe the loser could simply give the middle finger to the camera and then proceed to deck the winner out of his Armani tux. Now that’s entertainment!

But for all of this Hollywood mumbo jumbo, there is one award that these folks give out each time that actually has some real meaning, and one that the powerlifting world would consider emulating. I am, of course, referring to their Lifetime Achievement Award, which the movie folks call the Academy Honorary Award, given to the real superstars and true icons of the industry for a lifetime’s work, both in and out of the film industry. Such luminaries as Bob Hope, Cary Grant, Robert Redford, Deborah Kerr and others have won this after, in many cases, over a half-century of work and achievement. Few of these awards were given to the TMZ.com-generated “flavor of the month” reality show morons or the ones with the most hits on Twitter, Facebook or sleazy grocery-store tabloid covers.

Which brings me to this point. In my humble opinion, actors and powerlifters have more in common than meets the eye. Stop and think about it: there are the real actors—the De Niros, the Streeps, the Pacinos, and the one guy that I believe exemplifies acting excellence, Clint Eastwood—and there are the legion (upon legion) of fakes, one-shot wonders, Internet superstars and complete scam artists. Just like there are the real icons of powerlifting—the Ed Coans, the Louie Simmons, the Mike Bridges—as well as the legion of fakes, one-hit wonders, Internet superstars and, yes, complete and utter scam artists.

I think that real actors are, in their own way, as talented and driven as any lifetime world-class powerlifter and are as far removed from the MySpace, Twitter and Facebook crew as the world-class lifter is from the backyard “scam” lifters. The real actors take pride in developing their craft, nurturing their roles, and immersing themselves totally in them. Anyone remember De Niro gaining and losing 100 lb. to play a young, then aging Jake La Motta in the 1980 film Raging Bull (best actor – De Niro, best director – Martin Scorsese)? How about the number and variety of roles the great Meryl Streep played? She is known for her meticulous preparation, endless hours practicing her craft, and pinpoint attention to detail for one purpose—to achieve the maximum performance, each and every time, regardless of the size of role or the scope of the film.

Sounds eerily like the likes of Ed Coan, Chuck Vogelphol, Bob Gaynor and Bob Cortes doesn’t it—a lifetime of meticulous, hard work with strict attention to detail for that one avowed purpose, the big total. Much has been written about Ernie throughout the years, but like fine wine, the story of Ernie Frantz needs to once again be decanted and enjoyed.

I’ll start this out by saying what I believe is the obvious: Ernie has affected the sport of powerlifting more than any living human being. Ernie has done it all (and is still doing it all)—a world champion in powerlifting, successful gym owner (his gym has been in Aurora for over 40 years), inventor of a number of powerlifting gear innovations in shirt and squat suit technology, as well as specialised powerlifting equipment, founder of one of the world’s largest powerlifting federations, meet promoter on a global scale, and, the roles he cherishes above all, coach and trainer.

Ernie was born on the northwest side of Chicago and was, by his own admission, a restless youth and an indifferent student. He really didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life when Uncle Sam made that decision for him by drafting him into the Army for the Korean War. His memories of that hellish encounter so long ago are still extremely vivid. He was not only on the front lines, but ahead of the U.S. and South Korean infantry, clearing the mines the North Koreans and Chinese had laid.

The Korean War profoundly affected Ernie and taught him to value life and to make something of himself. Though not terribly religious, Ernie made a pact with himself that if he survived, he would do something with his life that would impact others. Returning to the USA and his hometown of Oswego, Illinois, Ernie made his living for years first as a police officer, then as a carpenter and building contractor. This physical labour laid the foundation for the great years to come in powerlifting.

“I think that wrestling with those heavy I-beams, hour after hour, every single day not only got me strong, but proved to me that the human body is capable of a huge amount of work. Think about it—if I told my boss that carrying the huge joists and beams tired me out so much that I could only do this activity once or twice a week, I would have been fired. Same in my training. I have proven that if properly trained with good nutrition, one can lift day after day at a high level with maximum intensity.”

Seeing his training log with heavy squats done several times a week is a testament to his unusual recuperative powers. His training hasn’t varied terribly much in all these years, and he has shied away from what he terms “faddish” or even “cultish” training. “My system is very simple: Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday concentrating on the three event lifts, and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on a variety of bodybuilding movements like lat work, curls and abs. Remember, for years I was both a bodybuilder and a lifter, although I knew eventually I would have to make the difficult decision in which direction to go—full bore.”

In 1974, Ernie was able, with the aid of a friendly taxi driver, to win the 181 class at the IPF World Championships, and then race 12 miles across town later to win runner-up to Pat Neve (another powerlifter, from Arizona) at the Mr. USA. The meet promoters weren’t very happy about this, but Ernie pulled it off, and today it still ranks as one of his most cherished memories.

Ernie quit competitive bodybuilding about 10 years later when, on a whim, he entered the 1984 Mr. Illinois with one week’s notice. Starving himself, doing endless reps of abs and curls, and literally par-broiling his skin under sun lamps, he sliced 20 lb. from his frame and left himself in what he thought was a cut-to-the-bone condition—enough to win Mr. Illinois. Alas, the judges saw it differently. A disappointing third place reinforced his thinking that you cannot be a full-time bodybuilding powerlifter—you have to choose. In his eyes, this was one of the turning points in his career, as now he was a “full-time” powerlifter, and it was all systems go. Ernie still uses the same system today that he did 30 years ago.

“It’s a template that just requires a lot of hard work on old-fashioned exercises like basic squats, heavy lockout/rack squats or walkouts, bench presses close and regular, and deadlifts sumo and regular. I have also developed two smaller movements which are the ‘shorts’ and the ‘downs’—‘shorts’ being essentially half movements from the bottom of the lift just past the sticking point, and the ‘downs’ being a controlled negative with an ultra-heavy weight. I have always thought that if you can control a huge weight, that this is the key to strength.”

Ernie has done some marvellous competition lifts but he has also done some unreal training lifts: a 900 lb. deadlift from a two-inch platform, a 1000 lb. controlled negative deadlift, a 903 squat, a raw 550 bench, 1500 lb. calf raises for sets of ten, heavy dips with 350 lb., and heavy cheat curls with around 300 lb. Even today, at the age of 75, Ernie is pushing 600 in both the squat and deadlift, and he feels that 660 is within reach for both. Many years ago, a home movie taken by the late Tom Eldridge showed Ernie squatting 720—in shorts, knee wraps and sandals! Recently, he improved his deadlift by employing a simple trick: every time he passed the power rack, he would do several sets of deadlifts from three different heights with light weights. “I didn’t count this as a workout, but just a little something extra.” The result? A 50 lb. jump in his deadlift in six months, at the age of 75.

He had surgery a while back where two titanium ball joints were placed in his shoulders, so heavy benching is out. Still, Ernie is unabashed about the pride he holds for his legion of powerlifters throughout the years—names like Ed Coan, Bill Nichols, Noel Levario, Jose Garcia, Jason Patrick (all 1000 lb. squatters), legendary women lifters like his wife of over 35 years Diane Frantz, Nancy Dangerfield, Maris Sternberg, Stephanie van DeWeghe, Sydney Thoms, and many others through the last 30-plus years. “I’ll put up hard cash and I bet that my guys will out-squat anyone around, especially when you consider proper depth in the ‘pocket.’ Lotta guys claim big squats but let’s get real, most of the really big squats today are six inches high, but since they don’t want to get their feelings hurt, they join the federations that allow this sort of stuff.” Like I said, shy he is not.

Ernie has always been a kind-hearted individual, and I bet most people do not know this—that he has taken out, on more than one occasion, personal loans to pay for lifters’ travel expenses, as far away as Maui and Soviet Russia. “The Russia trip (back in the early 80s) was difficult, but I told everyone that it would be like camping out—a lot of ‘roughing it.’” That meet pitted Ernie’s USA team against the fledgling Soviet team, many of whom were ex-weightlifters. Ernie’s team won all the weight classes, except the 242s where Craig Tokarski was narrowly beaten by his Soviet counterpart.

He also financed a trip to Maui, including shipping tons of heavy equipment—racks, benches, and bars—at an astronomical cost. After the meet, he donated this gear to the local high school. Finally, Ernie purchased (again out of his own funds) trophies for master lifters who had travelled from foreign countries to come to a competition. Ernie has always had a soft spot for someone down on his luck, and there were many times when a lifter or friend found a few extra bucks in his pocket thanks to Ernie. There have even been several people, who shall remain unnamed for the purposes of this article, who literally stole from him, but were always forgiven. “My mother, rest her soul, probably would have been a nun if she didn’t marry and start our family—she was that godly. She taught me well that you need to leave this earth with no ill will toward anyone, and that to forgive is very special.” Amen to that one.

Ernie’s desire to help others began during his time in law enforcement. He worked tirelessly with the Illinois prison system and, through lifting and gymnastics, helped turn around the lives of many hard cases. He still finds it amazing that a lot of prisons removed barbells and weightlifting from recreation yards, and believes that this may be one contributing factor in the rise of prison violence. “A lot of these guys had nothing but their lifting. Lifting gave them a sense of meaning and pride. Now what? All they think about is how to kill each other or get high.”

Many of Ernie’s lifters throughout the years have come from difficult backgrounds, and he cannot count the number of lifters—and now their sons and nephews—he has trained and kept from sinking into the abyss of gang life and crime. His current crop of youngsters make up the nucleus of his C.R.E.D.O. organisation, a foundation he started to help the young overcome childhood obesity through exercise, and not just powerlifting. These kids are infinitely blessed to have an icon of the sport take such a keen interest in their wellbeing with no thought of personal financial gain.

“Ron, I could have made a lot of money as a personal trainer. I had some big business types offer me upwards of $75 an hour (in the 80s) to go to Chicago and train them, but I declined because I felt it was my life’s work to help kids and others who could never afford it.” Ernie has always been for the “people,” and his formation of the APF and the AMPF was predicated on a “lifters first” attitude. He had one too many run-ins with tyrannical judges looking to bomb out folks, and decided that was that. There are thousands of lifters who have their careers today thanks to him.

By the way, I think Ernie and Clint Eastwood, my favourite actor, would be good buddies if they ever had a chance to meet. In fact, I can just see Clint being spotted by Ernie in one of their Saturday all-day lifting marathons: “Go ahead, make my day—call me high.” More importantly, Clint would have recognised in Ernie all of the same characteristics that made him a global icon in the film industry—aggressiveness, attention to detail, willingness to give back to the community, and a wide array of talents not just limited to performing.

Ernie has indeed affected this sport more than any living individual, and I for one dread the day when we won’t have him around anymore. He represents a living, breathing link to the history of both bodybuilding and powerlifting. His achievements and contributions to the sport, his family, his friends, his neighbours, and the endless array of young people—some teetering on the brink of a life of crime who were pulled back by Ernie and his power team—are far too many to be recounted.

Let’s just say this: Ernie Frantz, bravo to you, sir. A lifetime in powerlifting well spent.