Eyewitness to Legendary Lifts

Eyewitness to Legendary Lifts

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It’s one thing to hear about great lifts, but it’s another to see them in person
By Charles Poliquin

Bruce Wilhelm, the first American to snatch 400 pounds, won the first World’s Strongest Man Competition in 1977. And the popularity of the event set the stage for a regular late-night feature on ESPN. Many of the events at the time required a high level of athletic ability, such as the tire toss and the tug of war. Bruce had a history of excelling in many sports, and he was able to defeat the field with 63.25, 20 points ahead of his nearest competitor. Of course, the power lifters could not accept an Olympic lifter winning this competition, and the following year they thought they had their answer to Wilhelm: Don Reinhoudt.




Reinhoudt was a physical phenom, a world powerlifting champion who could do deep squats with 937 pounds, bench press 606 and deadlift 886 pounds. He was 6 feet 3 inches and a solid 345 pounds. Don put up a challenge, but Bruce was able to edge him, 64.33 to 58. Now the strongman events have evolved with more pure strength tests, such as the farmer’s walk. Changing to these events was a good move, as many of the skills transfer well to sports, and as such more athletes will experiment with them. Also, they can’t be beat for developing total body muscular endurance, as anybody who has ever tried flipping a 400-pound tire will attest.

Strongmen and competitive lifters have done some amazing lifts, but you expect these guys to be strong. What really impresses me is big lifts made by athletes who use weight training to help them perform in their primary sports. For example, I saw a an East German javelin thrower, a woman weighing about 130 pounds, split snatch 242 pounds. And I saw a Russian wrestler bench press 540 pounds for 8 reps at a 4210 tempo, which means he lowered the bar to his chest in four seconds and then paused two seconds on the chest before pressing it to arms’ length! Now I’m certain a powerlifter, wearing supportive gear, might not raise their eyebrows at this particular press, but this was a wrestler who probably thought that supportive gear for weight training was a jockstrap.

I’d like to share with you a few strength feats that I have personally witnessed. I provide this evidence because often you hear of great athletic feats such as high school football players running 4.3 forties, and the weights they lift seem to get heavier every year. Talk is just talk, but nothing rings truer than what you see for yourself.

Back Strength
In the past, bodybuilders often competed in weightlifting competition, literally being as strong as they looked. John C. Grimek, for example, was a member of the 1936 US Weightlifting Team that competed in the Olympics and also a winner of the Mr. America, considered the most prestigious bodybuilding title at the time. Strongman Mike Dayton trained with Arnold Schwarzenegger and said Arnold could bench press over 500 pounds; and Mr. Olympia Franco Columbu was only 5'5" but could challenge the best powerlifters in the deadlift, claiming a personal best of 750 pounds. But times have changed.

Many bodybuilders have abandoned basic core strength lifts and prefer machines – some don’t even bench press. I recall one Mr. Olympia finalist whose best bench press was only about 300 pounds, a lift that many high school football players can accomplish. That’s just sad.

One bodybuilder, in fact the best bodybuilder ever, has honored the old-school tradition of being as strong as you look: eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman. I’ve seen video clips of some of his amazing feats of strength, such as dumbbell presses with 200 pounds for 12 reps, but it was something else to witness one of his workouts in person.

At this particular time, Ronnie was training at Milos Sarcev’s gym after a two-hour photo shoot. Unlike a fashion shoot with anorexic coat hangers, bodybuilding photo shoots are grueling endeavors, as you are performing nonstop isometric contractions in often a dehydrated (and hungry) state. You may look as strong as a tiger, but you feel as weak as a kitten.

But instead of going through the motions just to retain muscle mass, Ronnie proceeded to perform T-bar rows with 720 pounds (16 plates!) and, on his fourth exercise of the day, do 5 sets of 8 reps with 495 pounds on the bent-over row. Can you imagine the lower back strength needed just to maintain proper position during these exercises? When people tell me he deadlifted 800 pounds for reps, after witnessing those performances I have no doubts.

One of the standards of upper back strength is the pull-up. I like this strength feat because unlike the pulldown, you can’t cheat – in fact, you often see guys in the gym handle the entire weight stack on a pulldown machine but struggle mightily trying to perform a single pull-up (facing such potential embarrassment is why they often avoid them). The pull-up is a standard, and one athlete who has set the bar in pulling himself over a bar is André Benoît.

A PICP level 5 coach, André is a luger who has competed in the Olympics and many world championships. Weighing 170 pounds and making the exercise even more difficult by using a wide grip, André did three pull-ups with 120 pounds strapped around his waist! If you have any doubts about how difficult this exercise is, try performing just one repetition – but first sign a waiver that releases me from any liability and states that performance of this exercise can result in serious injury or even death!

Pectoral Strength
I like the incline bench press, even more so than the bench press, for training athletes. In fact, one poll of top coaches and exercise scientists identified the three most effective exercises for athletes as the power snatch, front squat and incline bench press.

One of the most impressive incline bench press performances I ever saw was by Dennis “The Menace” James, a bodybuilder from Heidelberg, Germany, who placed fourth in the 2003 Mr. Olympia and who was trained by Milos Sarcev. Dennis’ competition bodyweight is 255-260 pounds, and I saw him perform several sets of multiple reps in the incline press with 495 pounds. Again, no bench suit or other special supportive gear – just raw power and lots of it.

Upper Arm Strength
Due to insertions of the arms, often bodybuilders with large arms are surprisingly weak in curling exercises. Many of the best wrist wrestlers don’t lift weights and have relatively small arm size, relying on speed and technique to get an edge. However, I saw three bodybuilders who certainly didn’t have this problem:

Amateur bodybuilder Gabe McLure performing one-arm Scott curls with 112.5 pounds for reps.
Mr. Universe André Maillé performing six strict reps with 225 pounds on the standing barbell curls, before stepping out on stage for a guest pose.
Mr. Universe winner André Charest doing decline triceps extensions with a pair of 120-pound dumbbells.
Leg Strength
Earlier I mentioned front squats, and you don’t get much more impressive than Olympic bobsledder Ian Danney, another PICP level 5 coach.

One reason I like the front squat, and respect them, is that they tend to squat deeper than back squats. And since I worked with Ian, I made certain he squatted deep: “leave-a-stain-on-the-platform” deep. So how strong was he? At a bodyweight of just 172 pounds, Ian squatted 440 pounds for two reps. Then there was two-man bobsledder Pierre Lueders, an Olympic champion, who weighed 220 pounds and could front squat 462 pounds. Finally, Felix Belczyk and Cary Mullen were World Cup medalists in downhill skiing. Felix weighed 191 pounds and Cary weighed 200 pounds, and both front squatted 352 pounds.

I teach my athletes to squat all the way down. One of my long track speed skaters was Kevin Scott, who broke the 1000-meter record in 1994 and won the gold medal in the same event at the World Sprint Championships. Weighing about 205 pounds, Kevin squatted – again, all the way down – 462 pounds!

Another was David Boston, who was nicknamed “The Machine!” The NFL’s leading receiver in 2001, David lifted weights that even the strongest linemen would struggle with. In one workout he demonstrated one of the most amazing demonstrations of hamstring strength I have ever seen, lifting the entire weight stack on a heavy-duty Atlantis leg curl machine – oh, and did I mention he did this with one leg?!

Finally, there is world speed skating champion Nathalie Lambert, a world champion in short track skating I coached. Nathalie could do front split squats with 198 pounds for 5 reps. I remember once that there was this guy at our gym who desperately wanted to know when I was training Nathalie. I asked if he wanted to meet her, and he said no – he just didn’t want to work out at the same time as Natalie did because she intimidated him!

It has been my honor to see so many of these extraordinary athletes in action. Many more are coming up, and I’ll be watching for the next great feat of strength.