Yeah because the limiting factor in the squat is the core, not the legs, that the other two exercises pretty much don’t work. Not mentioning balance, technical difficulty of the lift… When everyone can just hop on a leg press and push
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They allow a stagger grip these days, which helps too.
But hell: steel bending isn’t running a marathon, and Lou and Franco did awesome there.
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Was stagger grip not allowed, or did the contestants not think to try it? It seems sumo was allowed up until sometime in the 80s.
Didn’t Franco put the bar in his teeth? I remember the bar bending being hard to watch after Kaz hurt his bicep.
Pec. Blew it out hard. Common with bending.
I don’t remember if Franco put it in his teeth, but the comp is still on youtube.
I imagine stagger grip wasn’t permitted, as it doesn’t make for good television. But also keep in mind: there are no rules in strongman. It’s up to the promoter on that day. I know a competition coming up that has a sumo deadlift for max weight.
That’s exactly what I routinely encounter on that equipment nearly every time. Usually I ask to work in.
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IIRC, the first round he starts with the bar in his mouth. By the second round he decided it was a bad idea.
I also think back in the 70s BBers had more focus on strength in their training than now. Franco and Arnold both competed in PLing before BBing. At one point, some BBing comps had lifts included as part of the scoring.
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This is where I once again point out that acting like bodybuilder and powerlifter are DnD classes makes things silly. We are talking about specific humans here.
Jon Andersen is a professional bodybuilder. He was also a pro strongman before that. He is a strong human that is a bodybuilder, but him signing up for a bodybuilding show didn’t change his DNA.
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I think a point of the topic though would be that Jon was most likely stronger as a strongman than he was as a BBer. The training is different, and brings out different qualities.
Let’s say he signed up for a bodybuilding competition at the height of his strongman career. He is now a strongman and a bodybuilder. What changed about him?
He would then be a mediocre pro BBer which he wasn’t before.
Are you suggesting labels are meaningless? How am I supposed to know who I like if I can’t label them?
Exactly. Simply being a bodybuilder doesn’t mean anything. Its about the individual.
I get your point. However, I think the point of the thread is about averages, not individuals.
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Well in that case the average bodybuilder is strong compared to the average male
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I have no issue with that.
I think that too. It’s why I think the thread is silly.
I agree. We haven’t covered anything new. Just argued about definitions (should we compare to general pop, or pro strongman, etc…). A thread about how training for 1 rm usually increases your 1 RM would not get 78 replies in a day I would wager.
Who is the person with the biggest discrepancy between how strong they look and how strong they are?
If I had to guess I suppose I’m going with Fabio, although I have no idea what his lifts are like. Can’t be much with a name like that.
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Actually, let me do one better on why this is silly: taking averages is ridiculous, because it transposes the effect for the cause.
Bodybuilding training makes you big and not very strong. Why? Well take a look at average bodybuilders: they’re big and not that strong.
Oh, ok, cool. Just like how basketball makes you tall and lean, right? If we take a look at average basketball players, they’re tall and lean, right? It’s the training that makes them that way: not some sort of selection process, right?
No: of course not. The people that reach the highest levels of a physical activity are those that are predisposed to greatness IN said activity. Prior to that: there is a weeding out process that sorts out those that aren’t suited for the activity. Bodybuilding doesn’t give you a small waist: big waisted bodybuilders are rooted out at the low local levels. Powerlifting doesn’t give you a blocky waist: slim waisted powerlifters get weeded out. The reason there are non gangly looking weightlifters is because it’s a poor body for that type of activity. Strongman doesn’t make you 6’6 and 400lbs: the guys that couldn’t get that big didn’t make it to the open class.
This isn’t to say that SOME element of the training has impact. It certainly does. But looking at the guys at the top and extrapolating the effect of the training based off that gets silly.
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This is a point many people miss;
2 people with very similar inputs (height, waist, body fat, lifts) can look substantially different.
It seems like a totally reasonable thing to say. But some how people get it twisted…
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