Not picking a fight, just stating a couple of things realted to several posts, so don’t take this as a personal attack Chris.
Most Strongmen have done Powerlifting. Magnus Ver and Riku Kiri were each some kind of European champion. Torfi Olafson, Hugo Gerard, and on and on. Up until recently at least you are dealing with a lot of guys that move from PL to Strongman. Sometimes it was because of a drug suspension in PL. In the 90’s, it was often due to a suspension. Any decent PLer can walk into a Strongman show and do extremely well, possibly dominate, on the Log Press. It is the easiest one for them to pick up actually. You would think the squat or DL would be, but they are different enough in Strongman to screw up the PLers intially.
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It’s a lot harder to C&J 600 than DL 900 or pull reps with 700. 500 would be a fairer comparison number.
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We’re not supposed to be comparing them by looking at what they can do within those sports - it’s a general theory that when some sports pay millions and other sports pay nothing, that the strongest people will gravitate towards those sports. He just keeps saying they’re not strong because they can’t powerlift a lot, and I’m saying, look, here are other demonstrations of strength that fit well into the definition of strength, they just have trained their entire lives for a completely different purpose.
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I genuinely have no idea why your response to me is so centered around the NFL when I made zero mention of that organization.
@zeptrey You completely understood correctly. It’s a concept most folks in the Iron Game get. It’s why Mark Henry, as one of the strongest humans to ever walk the planet, became a wrestler. Kaz and Arcidi too for that matter. And now Braun Stroman (no idea if I spelled that right)
Because he’s lazy. He crashed and burned at O-lifting, and Terry Todd couldn’t keep him interested in lifting even when he tailored a contest to him.
I don’t totally disagree with everything you said, I’m just making a different point.
We were talking more about dominating the whole sport and break all the records without actually training much for it, but I see what you mean.
Actually I don’t believe anyone has C&J’d 600, the WR is 582, but then you would have to see how much the guy can pull to solve this question. I’m betting he hasn’t pulled 900, and he doesn’t need to either.
Well, with football players I would agree that most aren’t the strongest because they aren’t training specifically for strength and other abilities are just a important if not more so, they need different set of skills. Ray Williams is stronger now than when he was playing football, but he has even less chance of making the NFL now.
Powerlifting is just the one sport where very little aside from strength (absolute strength) is relevant. You need some mobility as well, but nothing major. Strongman requires a lot of aerobic capacity for certain events, as well as agility in some cases, speed strength (stuff like keg toss), and repetition strength which is irrelevant for PL. You could say strongmen need to be more well rounded in terms of physical ability than powerlifters.
I think it happened under untested conditions that are no longer in the books, but that was my tongue in cheek point. There exists a representative number of 900 pullers in the world, but not 600 lb C&J.
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My point was that while a 600 C&J might be damn near impossible it doesn’t really correlate to deadlift strength, which is why it doesn’t make sense to compare athletes from different sports.
This debate here reminds me of some little kids, “yeah, well my dad can beat up your dad!”.
True. I picked elite football players as an example because, of the sports that actually offer some chance of great financial reward, football is the most dependent on strength, hence the importance of strength coaches for any elite program.
Everyone is lazy: that’s the point. Working harder to make less money appeals to very few.
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Given what I know (Not a ton) about what would go into managing to C&J 600, I’d give the dude a fair shot at being able to pull 900, but not vice-versa, so in his example the 600 C&J would be stronger. Changing the number to 500 makes it a wash comparison. I would say I have a much better shot at pulling 900 han the C&J with either number.
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But as you observed in your own example, it’s a poor choice due to a variety of factors.
What you did is a textbook strawman: you presented my argument as though it were something else and then demolished it. That is arguing in bad faith dude.
That comment wasn’t directed at you in particular, just the last part of this thread where we are comparing different sports.
Yeah, we’re not really doing apples to apples comparisons here, so we’re just sorting of making educated guesses that probably aren’t testable (or at least won’t get tested) in the real world. Kind of like asking “What if Ali had fought Mike Tyson?” You could debate that one forever (though I’d put my money on Tyson any day of the week).
Not exactly. Actually I was trying to find the best example of a sport to test your hypothesis that the strongest guys aren’t in powerlifting but in other sports where real financial benefits can be obtained. At least that’s what I understood your argument to be. If I misstated it, I apologize.
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I’m just gonna aspire for it lol. If I ever manage to peak properly I could at least see a 250 bench. Maybe some years down the line I might get brave enough to get a little saucy and give myself at least an edge up towards the 300s. Never know.
?? err …he chose to take an opportunity to become a millionaire, do something super fun and provide for his family over persevering in a sport that the US sucks balls and the competition are on state sponsored doping programs! Tough choice.
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No worries dude. It happens.
Back to the point:
If a 350lb bench is possible for lets say 90% of men, whats the best way to get there?
At what point(s) have people found hard and what training did you have to do to break through plateaus?
Whats the best training frequency and what exercises helped you with what?
A little bit off subject, but I wonder how many top competitors sometimes just bail on training?
Coach/trainer “Come on, man. It’s time to train.”.
Top big strong dude “Nope. Want a snack and a nap.”.
Coach “But the world’s…”.
Dude “Nope. Snack&nap.”.
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