Review of
Strongman:The Doug Hepburn Story
by Tom Thurston
Mighty
Doug Hepburn
The road to bodybuilding success is rarely walked with a clubfoot,
but that’s the way Doug Hepburn started out.
On September 16, 1926, Douglas Ivan Hepburn was born at Vancouver
(BC, Canada) General Hospital with a deformity to his right ankle
and foot. He had as well a vision distortion called severe
alternating squint and a pointed head, caused by forceps-pulling.
While his head soon returned to a naturally round shape on its own,
Hepburn’s other impairments required surgical intervention. From the
age of three, operations and casts were a feature of his childhood
and youth, as were such hurtful nicknames as gimp, hop-along and
wall-eyes.
But Doug Hepburn was a strong boy. He withstood those jibes and he
even competed in sports at Kitsilano High School. About that time,
he took up weightlifting at the Vancouver YMCA. And by l8, Hepburn
weighed 200 lbs, could bench press 260, squat 340, and two-hand curl
140. In weight-training and bodybuilding young Doug Hepburn had
found his avenue of accomplishment.
The last of the tedious and painful operations to correct his
physical disabilities were finished then, and, though still a
teenager, in the gym Hepburn “stumbled upon” – his words – the
training technique of using heavy weights in 10 sets of three
repetitions, which became a feature of his rapid growth in size and
strength. This routine, Hepburn says, qualifies him as the
“Grandfather of Modern Powerlifting.”
Hepburn went on to gold medals in weightlifting, first in 1953 at
world championships in Stockholm and again in 1954 at the British
Empire Games. When men the likes of Joe Weider extolled Doug Hepburn
as the world’s strongest man, they meant not just when they were
talking, but of all time.
These achievements over adversity are told in Strongman: The Doug
Hepburn Story. This new book, a biography written by Tom Thurston,
takes the form of a conversational, first-person narrative, which
makes both enjoyable and inspirational reading. Hepburn has an
even-tempered appreciation of his successes as an athlete without
disregarding his foibles as a man.
Besides strength sports, Hepburn had other talents and
accomplishments. He also had other hardships and shortcomings
besides those already mentioned.
Like his father and stepfather, Hepburn battled with alcoholism.
Drink and depression sank him after his triumphs of the 1950s. He
turned to a career in professional wrestling, a job choice more
forgiving of his addiction and personal problems. Confused and
depleted, Hepburn barely noticed the opportunities for legitimate
championships anymore.
Demons confronted with the help medically administered LSD at a
Hollywood clinic made a crisis and turning-point for him. In 1963,
Hepburn returned to Vancouver. Briefly he settled into a $40-a-month
flophouse, but with friends and the stamina and strength of
character he had shown as a boy and young man, got back onto his
feet financially and soon opened a gym.
He was only 37 and he was like a new man, making a new life, but
salvaging what he could from his past experience. Part of his
experience was with addiction, and Hepburn became an ardent advocate
of drug-free athletics. He opposed – and says he never used –
steroids.
In his later life, Hepburn designed and built sports and fitness
equipment, including an all-in-one “universal” machine and a
one-hand curl device called the Dynatron. He wrote and promoted two
training programs based on his own practice and experience,
extolling them as the “exact” systems he used when preparing to win
his medals in 1953 and 1954. Hepburn even embarked on a career as a
singer and recorded a Christmas song, which – I’m told – is still
played on the radio seasonally in Canada. But, perhaps because of
the abusive and alcoholic examples of his father and stepfather,
Doug Hepburn never married.
There’s a lot of hard luck story in Strongman, but, in the end, it’s
a story hard not to like.
©2004 Walter Wadas
Title: Strongman: The Doug Hepburn
Story
Author: Tom Thurston
Pub.: Ronsdale Press, Vancouver, BC, Canada
ISBN: 1553820095
Etc.: 296 pages, softcover, $19.95 (Canadian)
