About the man

I first saw Ken McCord on the cover of a 1967 Iron Man magazine, many of the top bodybuilders of the day graced the front cover of this classic strength and bodybuilding mag. The photo of Ken however was the most impressive I had seen, he had to me the ultimate physique with just the right amount of size with that classical herculean shape that seems to be lost with todays bloated over-sized bodybuilders.

There is not a lot of information on the man, but from what i could gather he had competed in the US for a number of years with his best performance being a second place in the tall mans category of the 1967 Mr America, he could very well have done more competitions but i couldn't find anything past the 67 Mr America. Ken was a hairdresser, which seems a bit out of the ordinary for a bodybuilder, I think he would have been popular with the girls at the time and it wouldn't have hurt that he was a handsome fella as well.

His stats were impressive he was 24yrs old, at a height of 6ft and weighing in at 220 pounds, with a 52 inch chest and 19 inch arms combined with a 32 inch waist made for a mighty impressive physique for the day. He could bench 425lbs, squat with over 600lbs and deadlift 585lbs. But it was that classic pose on the cover of Iron Man that had me looking for his training routines, again there is very little on this but i did find how he trained during 1966/67.

Kens 1967 four day routine

Ken trained 4 days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. The week days were split workouts so in the morning at 5.30...yep thats right 5.30 he trained upper body then at night he would do lower body, this would be done on all 3 days, no doubt the exercises would have been changed a bit.

Sundays were a basic all round light workout which would have been great for recovery. He was also a brown belt in Karate and ran 1 to 2 miles most days. Bodybuilders in those day tended to be a little more interested in being athletic.

The lifts mostly used were the basic bodybuilding movements of the day, with a variety of exercises used per body part to hit them from all angles. He also changed his routines every 4 to 6 weeks to keep shocking his muscles. 

The repetition range was around 8 to 10 but from the look of his big benches and squats etc it is obvious that he trained heavy with low reps a lot as well.

The sets in each exercise were kept to a low at around 3, however he would do 3 to 4 different exercises per muscle group to hit the targeted muscle from all angles. He also used a close grip on exercises such as incline benches, ezy bar curls and tricep presses. This would have been a great power builder as it usually puts the muscle into a peak contraction.

All in all an interesting and quite demanding routine. A classic bodybuilder from a golden era of bodybuilding.

             Some great old pics of Ken training, note high position in dumbell rows, the angle of the cable pull and the close grip in ezy curls.

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