COAN The Man, The Myth, The Method: The Life, Times & Training of The Greatest Powerlifter of All-Time

by Marty Gallagher

COAN The Man, The Myth, The Method, Chronicles the life of the greatest powerlifter of all-time, Ed Coan. Follow along as this book presents the personal life, competitive career, training philosophies, and some miscellaneous ramblings relevant to understand the mindset of this champion. This book will entertain you and challenge you to push yourself harder in your everyday life or athletic endeavors. Never before has the world seen the lifts that Coan produced. His simple and methodical approach gives testament to his laser sharp focus and mental ability to achieve what once was thought impossible."If you want to gain massive muscular size, walk - no, make that run - to the book store and buy this book the moment you finish reading this unqualified endorsement. It's about time someone came out with a serious book on powerlifting. Since the dawning of modern bodybuilding era to the present day, our greatest champions, men like Grimek, Pearl, Park, Oliva, Arnold, Columbo, Yates and Coleman have used powerlifting training strategies to provide them the raw muscular bulk they eventually honed and chiseled into the final finished physical product. Powerlifting tactics give the serious bodybuilder seam-busting size. Ed Coan is the gratest powerlifter who ever walked the face of the earth and the clear, concise powerlifting advice he dispenses in this book are a God-send to bodybuilders world-wide. I give this book my highest recommendation." - Joe Weider, Trainer of Champions since 1936"Ed Coan is not only the strongest powerlifter to ever live but he is also a quality individual. Ed helped me get my start as a powerlifter, strength coach and as a professional strongman. I owe a great deal to Ed. Thank you" - Mark Philippi, CSCS - Head Strength Coach UNLV"This book is indispensable reading for any one who lifts weights, or wants to. No matter what level of training you're at, the story of Ed Coan's phenomenal career, his simple and disciplined plan of attack is a total inspiration and damn good way to get strong. I have learned a lot from the big man. His form and his technique are flawless. They will help you lift heavy, and more importantly, safely for years to come. Ed's heart is that of a warrior and true champion. Read the story, learn the lessons and report to your local gym frequently." - Henry Rollins, Musician and Writer"I knew of Ed Coan because of his greatness in powerlifting long before I met him in 1989 at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago and we have been friends ever since. Ed will go down as one of the best powerlifters to ever live, and he has the world records to prove it. He is a legend and his feats of strength are simply amazing!" - Scott Steiner, Pro-Wrestler"As a powerlifter and true champion Ed Coan is simply the best"- Dorian Yates, 6 time Mr. Olympia

Genres: Biography

441 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 27, 2015

Reviews

[Tom Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read on one of the greatest - comes with instruction manual

Ed Coan is one of the greatest powerlifters ever and this book details why...in painstaking detail, event by event. Although the history of Coan's individual competitions gets long, this book includes the workout regimen Coan followed to achieve his incredible strength. This part is pure gold.

[Casan Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty solid

There’s not many books on powerlifting and even fewer that are decent reads. For these reasons, I graded this on a curve. If you’re a meathead and/or powerlifter, you’ll probably enjoy it. If you don’t know much about powerlifting, you probably won’t.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost no one has ever been as good at what they do as Ed Coan was. Even the so-called all-time greats like Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali or Pele end up falling short. That's not to take anything away from their individual accomplishments, it's just to clarify how impossible it is to be that much better than everyone else at what you do. Roger Federer was arguably the most dominant player in the history of tennis and yet, there were players who did not fear him and who beat him with some regularity (Rafa on clay being the obvious example). That's usually how it goes.

But during his 16 year run in the sport of powerlifting, Ed Coan was a nearly perpetual victim of something called the "Coan Effect", which means that when he announced his weight class for a tournament, the people in that weight class would scatter into whatever weight class was closest to them that did not involve having to compete against Ed Coan. Starvation diets and mass bulking programs were common. Whole tournaments shifted when Ed Coan changed weight classes. He was, as much as anyone, the center force from which all gravity in the sport is derived. I'm not kidding when I say that people dropped out of competitions to avoid competing against him. He really was that good.

So why haven't you heard of him? Mostly because his sport wasn't played on prime time television, his jerseys were not shilled by Champion or his shoes turned into a status symbol. Setting over 71 World Records just isn't good enough for mainstream fame. That's fair enough. I'm sure off in some corner somewhere, you could find the world's greatest cup-stacker being totally ignored by the press despite her obvious prowess. It's a cruel world like that, because it means we don't really appreciate greatness or mastery the way we pretend to. Oh sure, we admire greatness if it's in a few select categories but if it's outside of that, it's not that interesting to us. Most people can probably tell you who the greatest investor of all time is (Warren Buffet) but how many can tell you who the greatest insurance salesman of all time was? Our relationship to mastery in any field is a tricky one. We like to watch greatness, but we absolutely love to destroy (or see destroyed) that same person. It wasn't always this way. Babe Ruth wouldn't last through a day of popularity in the modern world before some blogger who couldn't find a baseball diamond with google maps would be posting some tripe about how he was really mean to short people (or some other thing) and that would be the start of the firestorm that would pull his whole career down. We have a complicated relationship with mastery, to be sure.

This whole question of mastery and our attitude toward it is something we should think about more than we do. So, as I'm reading this book about Coan, that's what I'm thinking about.

Overall, the book itself tends to be a little overly in love with it's subject. Granted, it's hard not to be impressed, but Marty (Coan's former Coach and a lifting legend in his own right both as a coach and as a competitor) has a hard time shaping this book beyond the sentence. The sentences are good, the paragraphs are fine, but the whole underlying structure feels weak and flimsy. It feels almost like he sat down to write this book with nothing more for ammunition than "people really need to know about this guy." While I agree with him on that, it's hardly enough to shape a book around.

I like to imagine that old Marty Gallagher is hunched over his typewriter between sets and slowly whipping this thing into shape. I pretend to myself that someday a "revised edition" will come along where Marty has had a chance to smooth out all the rough edges and really get this thing flying. Given how busy he is with other books, it's pretty unlikely, but that's what I choose to imagine.

[Dachokie · Rating 3 out of 5]

COAN: The Monster

As a former powerlifter who competed in the 220 lb. class, I view Ed Coan as the Michael Jordon, Muhammed Ali or Dick Butkus of the sport … his accomplishments were (are) simply astonishing. Considering that powerlifting doesn’t get the glory of being an Olympic sport (like Olympic lifting) or the media attention of bodybuilding, a book about one of its more iconic athletes was hard for me to ignore. With COAN: THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE METHOD, Marty Gallagher provides an interesting look at Ed Coan’s life, his achievements and his training. While the book comes across overly indulgent at times and its subject is unknown to most, I consider it a worthy read for any powerlifter.

COAN is rather straightforward. Gallagher provides a biography of Ed Coan, a detailed account of his competitions and his training regimen. I found the biographical segment somewhat humorous as Coan’s entire life is centered solely on powerlifting: his “bachelor’s pad” is in his parent’s basement and there is nothing describing any type of gainful employment. Gallagher tries hard to add some flair to Coan’s rather “subdued” lifestyle, but it falls flat. To put it plainly, other than his freakish feats of strength, there isn’t really a lot of interesting stuff to reveal about the subject and the biographical stuff is simply filler. I found the book’s value i centering on the lifting itself. I enjoyed reading the recaps of Coan’s meet progression over the years (most all of them National and International championships). As someone who used to be completely absorbed into the sport, I remember seeing Coan’s phenomenal lifting records listed in issues of Powerlifting USA magazine. Seeing these incredible totals posted by a 220 lb. man that were higher than the best totals of men weighing over 100 lbs. more served as motivation for my own training. I always wondered how he progressed to such levels and this book explains every lift of every meet in full detail with added personal commentary from Coan himself. We get to see complete meet totals with individual lifts (attempts, pass and fails) that provide a clearer picture of Coan’s progression to the top of the lifting food chain. The one issue that somewhat clouds Coan’s feats is obviously the failed drug tests (and ultimate lifetime ban from the IPF) which were blamed on anything but the likely source and Gallagher treads gingerly around the issue. Regardless, a 220 lb. man squatting 961 lbs., benching 584 lbs., and deadlifting 901 lbs. is certainly impressive under any circumstance. The back end of the book is dedicated to Coan’s training philosophy, which seem to be both methodical and surprisingly casual. Gallagher peppers the book with photographs that add visual clarity to Coan’s gift of strength (mainly his squat depth).

The book is tailored for powerlifters or those who appreciate strength sports … a small, but rabidly loyal segment of the sports world. In other words, those who aren’t familiar with the sport probably will have zero interest in Ed Coan’s accomplishments (let alone his personal life). But those of us who love the sport will certainly appreciate the recap of Coan’s lifting prowess (70+ world records and a competition history of 15 1st place finishes and a single 3rd place finish in national/international championship meets). If you a fan of powerlifting, this is certainly a book you can appreciate.

[Jamaal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure inspiration

I ready this book before my first powerlifting meet. It is a great investment full of valuable training wisdom, The G.O.A.T.'s subtle beginnings and rise to power. A must have for any strength enthusiast.

[Craig Cecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insights into the greatest powerlifter of all time. There are lessons here for even the average trainer.