Hugh Jackman DLs 400lbs

Off Topic
61

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
High school athletics are hilarious right now. Trust me, though, the parents don’t need you to do a bunch of silly crap. I’ve had several come to me because I get them significantly stronger than their coaches do, which then gets them more attention. No need for any frill.[/quote]
There’s another element to this that I have seen though. Kids talk, and kids are fucking stupid. When little Billy Badass squats 500 a foot high and has a back spotter and two side spotters pushing him up with all their might so he’s not crushed and then saying “THAT WAS ALL YOU BRO I DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING NICE SQUAT NEW PR!” Stupid fucking Billy actually believes that he can squat 500. I shit you not, these kids delude themselves like nothing I’ve ever seen.

And the problem is they tell their parents, they tell their friends, they tell the kids from other schools. And now you can’t have someone do a legitimate 300lb squat, because their parents would say “Well I heard little Billy Badass was squatting 500. Why isn’t my son doing that? Your trainers are shit! Your gym is shit! You’re not getting any more of my money.” And the kids themselves will lose confidence thinking everyone is massively stronger than them. You can’t have the kids from one school benching 350 while kids from another school only bench 200 (even if one is actually legit and the other is not).

And so the trainers I see just let it go on this way. It’s just a big fucking circle jerk where everyone thinks they are literally hundreds of pounds stronger than they are just so that no one appears to be weaker either to each other or the parents or the coaches. Fuck reality.

I feel sorry for the boys really. One of them wanted to work in with me and my training partner on bench one day, which I happily obliged. He swore up and down that he was a 315 bencher. So we got to our 225 warmup and he struggles to bounce the bar off his chest 4 times. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He seems genuinely confused as to why he couldn’t bench more. Why didn’t the spotter have his hands on the bar? Why did this weight feel so much heavier than before? “Uh, I’m just not feelin it today.” He said, and left. What’s worse, his dad looked pissed that his son couldn’t do that too. He’s just as deluded as his son.

I can’t even tell you how many fucking twigs I’ve seen at the gym tell me their best squat is like 530 or whatever. I’ve gone to my car and gotten my checkbook and told them “I swear to Christ I will write you a check for $1,000.00 if you can squat 500lbs today.” No takers.

62

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
High school athletics are hilarious right now. Trust me, though, the parents don’t need you to do a bunch of silly crap. I’ve had several come to me because I get them significantly stronger than their coaches do, which then gets them more attention. No need for any frill.[/quote]
There’s another element to this that I have seen though. Kids talk, and kids are fucking stupid. When little Billy Badass squats 500 a foot high and has a back spotter and two side spotters pushing him up with all their might so he’s not crushed and then saying “THAT WAS ALL YOU BRO I DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING NICE SQUAT NEW PR!” Stupid fucking Billy actually believes that he can squat 500. I shit you not, these kids delude themselves like nothing I’ve ever seen.

And the problem is they tell their parents, they tell their friends, they tell the kids from other schools. And now you can’t have someone do a legitimate 300lb squat, because their parents would say “Well I heard little Billy Badass was squatting 500. Why isn’t my son doing that? Your trainers are shit! Your gym is shit! You’re not getting any more of my money.” And the kids themselves will lose confidence thinking everyone is massively stronger than them. You can’t have the kids from one school benching 350 while kids from another school only bench 200 (even if one is actually legit and the other is not).

And so the trainers I see just let it go on this way. It’s just a big fucking circle jerk where everyone thinks they are literally hundreds of pounds stronger than they are just so that no one appears to be weaker either to each other or the parents or the coaches. Fuck reality.

I feel sorry for the boys really. One of them wanted to work in with me and my training partner on bench one day, which I happily obliged. He swore up and down that he was a 315 bencher. So we got to our 225 warmup and he struggles to bounce the bar off his chest 4 times. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He seems genuinely confused as to why he couldn’t bench more. Why didn’t the spotter have his hands on the bar? Why did this weight feel so much heavier than before? “Uh, I’m just not feelin it today.” He said, and left. What’s worse, his dad looked pissed that his son couldn’t do that too. He’s just as deluded as his son.

I can’t even tell you how many fucking twigs I’ve seen at the gym tell me their best squat is like 530 or whatever. I’ve gone to my car and gotten my checkbook and told them “I swear to Christ I will write you a check for $1,000.00 if you can squat 500lbs today.” No takers.[/quote]

This is where the DL CAN save the day, it’s much more absolute and you rarely have spotters helping (i’m sure it’s happened).

You squat 530 huh? Whats your DL?

“275”

uh-huh, just as I had suspected…

63

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
This is where the DL CAN save the day, it’s much more absolute and you rarely have spotters helping (i’m sure it’s happened).

You squat 530 huh? Whats your DL?

“275”

uh-huh, just as I had suspected…
[/quote]
EXACTLY!

It’s really hard to fake a deadlift. That’s why they practically never do them lol.

64

[quote]carbiduis wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:
High school athletics are hilarious right now. Trust me, though, the parents don’t need you to do a bunch of silly crap. I’ve had several come to me because I get them significantly stronger than their coaches do, which then gets them more attention. No need for any frill.[/quote]
There’s another element to this that I have seen though. Kids talk, and kids are fucking stupid. When little Billy Badass squats 500 a foot high and has a back spotter and two side spotters pushing him up with all their might so he’s not crushed and then saying “THAT WAS ALL YOU BRO I DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING NICE SQUAT NEW PR!” Stupid fucking Billy actually believes that he can squat 500. I shit you not, these kids delude themselves like nothing I’ve ever seen.

And the problem is they tell their parents, they tell their friends, they tell the kids from other schools. And now you can’t have someone do a legitimate 300lb squat, because their parents would say “Well I heard little Billy Badass was squatting 500. Why isn’t my son doing that? Your trainers are shit! Your gym is shit! You’re not getting any more of my money.” And the kids themselves will lose confidence thinking everyone is massively stronger than them. You can’t have the kids from one school benching 350 while kids from another school only bench 200 (even if one is actually legit and the other is not).

And so the trainers I see just let it go on this way. It’s just a big fucking circle jerk where everyone thinks they are literally hundreds of pounds stronger than they are just so that no one appears to be weaker either to each other or the parents or the coaches. Fuck reality.

I feel sorry for the boys really. One of them wanted to work in with me and my training partner on bench one day, which I happily obliged. He swore up and down that he was a 315 bencher. So we got to our 225 warmup and he struggles to bounce the bar off his chest 4 times. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He seems genuinely confused as to why he couldn’t bench more. Why didn’t the spotter have his hands on the bar? Why did this weight feel so much heavier than before? “Uh, I’m just not feelin it today.” He said, and left. What’s worse, his dad looked pissed that his son couldn’t do that too. He’s just as deluded as his son.

I can’t even tell you how many fucking twigs I’ve seen at the gym tell me their best squat is like 530 or whatever. I’ve gone to my car and gotten my checkbook and told them “I swear to Christ I will write you a check for $1,000.00 if you can squat 500lbs today.” No takers.[/quote]

This is where the DL CAN save the day, it’s much more absolute and you rarely have spotters helping (i’m sure it’s happened).

You squat 530 huh? Whats your DL?

“275”

uh-huh, just as I had suspected…
[/quote]

I’d like to add that my home gym keeps paying off in ways I never imagined…

My GF’s brother was over for a cookout a few months ago. He played football in HS but now, at age 30-something, is woefully out-of shape. “How much ya bench?” came up, and I gave him my modest number (250x5 at the time, I think).

“Not bad. I did 315x3 at my buddy’s a few weeks ago”

“Oh REALLY??? Let’s go down in the basement and let me show you what I got on craigslist!”

I love it when gravity and readily available olympic weights conspire to produce awkward moments at family gatherings.

65

I second everything that csulli just said (I think you’re about my age, right? did you play ball in high school and/or college?)

Both school-employed strength coaches and private trainers will do whatever they can to inflate numbers at the expense of quality training because numbers impress their “bosses” (either the head coach, who doesn’t know anything about strength training, or the parents who are footing the bill). This is a broad generalization and does not apply everywhere…there’s a link below that tells the story of a gentleman that I played/threw against in high school who now runs a LEGIT strength-training facility, and he works with a lot of high-school athletes:

http://www2.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=344752

However, gyms like that seem to be the exception, not the rule.

My father taught me to squat when I was 8 or 9, and I did a few WNPF meets as a teenager, so I knew what a real squat was from the beginning. I always found squat max day at school a weird combination of amusing and disheartening: I’d do a legitimate squat with 300-something, then look at the next rack and watch my 160-pound teammate “squat” 425. I never saw quite what csulli said with spotters essentially lifting the weight for you (it’s not hard to imagine, just didn’t see it at my school, our coaches wouldn’t allow a lift where the spotter touched the bar to count for a max), but I saw plenty of half-squats and bounced benches.

We did power cleans in lieu of a deadlift max, so our totals would be listed as squat/bench/clean. I went something like 405/335/250 as a senior (not really sure why I was such a poor squatter; for some reason I always really enjoyed box squats, and would do lots of workouts like 10x2 box squat with 225-275 because I thought they were good football prep, but that never carried over really well to a max-weight squat, which was fine since I was training for football anyway), but I was really amused by totals that went something like “445/200/185” - a pretty common sight at our school.

66

I think what we are getting at is that Hugh Jackmann can probably squat about 325 and bench around 265 lol.

67

And we are talking as if he only did this once. He did 400 strapless for 4 pretty easy reps before the video cut off. While its not earth shattering, its still well above average for 90% of the people you see in the gym.

68

Seems to fit the new topic

69

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
I think what we are getting at is that Hugh Jackmann can probably squat about 325 and bench around 265 lol.[/quote]

lol. Fair enough.

In all seriousness, much as Spidey said earlier in the thread, it’s not like he is training for a max DL (or anything, really). He’s training to look impressive on-camera, and others are far more expert than I am in how one would go about accentuating certain features to make that the case.

70

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

http://www2.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=344752
[/quote]

A gym in a barn and 130 chickens. That sounds like a little slice of heaven right there.

71

[quote]csulli wrote:
I can’t even tell you how many fucking twigs I’ve seen at the gym tell me their best squat is like 530 or whatever. I’ve gone to my car and gotten my checkbook and told them “I swear to Christ I will write you a check for $1,000.00 if you can squat 500lbs today.” No takers.[/quote]
Wanna make another trip to DC?

72

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I never saw quite what csulli said with spotters essentially lifting the weight for you (it’s not hard to imagine, just didn’t see it at my school, our coaches wouldn’t allow a lift where the spotter touched the bar to count for a max), [/quote]
You can help someone on a squat by supporting their chest.

73

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I never saw quite what csulli said with spotters essentially lifting the weight for you (it’s not hard to imagine, just didn’t see it at my school, our coaches wouldn’t allow a lift where the spotter touched the bar to count for a max), [/quote]
You can help someone on a squat by supporting their chest.[/quote]

Very much so. A simple subtle pull on the shoulders at the sticking point could easily add 10% to a top weight even more if they are in wraps. And I see the arms under the shoulders spot everytime I go in a high School gym.

74

[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

http://www2.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=344752
[/quote]

A gym in a barn and 130 chickens. That sounds like a little slice of heaven right there.
[/quote]

Dude is a really awesome guy. He was two years older than me, but I played ball against him as a sophomore and then got to chat with him at a couple of track meets later on. I’m still hoping to pay his gym a visit one of these days on a trip home, but I’ve never made the time.

75

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I never saw quite what csulli said with spotters essentially lifting the weight for you (it’s not hard to imagine, just didn’t see it at my school, our coaches wouldn’t allow a lift where the spotter touched the bar to count for a max), [/quote]
You can help someone on a squat by supporting their chest.[/quote]

Oh, I agree, I wasn’t clear in my description. I know that this thing could happen. What I meant was…

The coaches WOULD disqualify a lift if the spotter touched the bar (or the lifter, in the case of a squat). They did count any bounced bench and/or high squat, as long as the bar went down and up. Pathetic. And we, still, had one of the “better” lifting programs in the county at the time because we all did work out and at least performed the core lifts - when I talked to kids from other schools, most of them did not even have team lifting sessions, nor did they have a coach giving them ANY kind of programming.

76

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I never saw quite what csulli said with spotters essentially lifting the weight for you (it’s not hard to imagine, just didn’t see it at my school, our coaches wouldn’t allow a lift where the spotter touched the bar to count for a max), [/quote]
You can help someone on a squat by supporting their chest.[/quote]

Oh, I agree, I wasn’t clear in my description. I know that this thing could happen. What I meant was…

The coaches WOULD disqualify a lift if the spotter touched the bar (or the lifter, in the case of a squat). They did count any bounced bench and/or high squat, as long as the bar went down and up. Pathetic. And we, still, had one of the “better” lifting programs in the county at the time because we all did work out and at least performed the core lifts - when I talked to kids from other schools, most of them did not even have team lifting sessions, nor did they have a coach giving them ANY kind of programming.[/quote]
I was the strongest kid in my high school and started lifting seriously about halfway through high school with no guidance. I was also under 200lbs until after high school. Let that sink in.

77

[quote]Reed wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I never saw quite what csulli said with spotters essentially lifting the weight for you (it’s not hard to imagine, just didn’t see it at my school, our coaches wouldn’t allow a lift where the spotter touched the bar to count for a max), [/quote]
You can help someone on a squat by supporting their chest.[/quote]

Very much so. A simple subtle pull on the shoulders at the sticking point could easily add 10% to a top weight even more if they are in wraps. And I see the arms under the shoulders spot everytime I go in a high School gym.[/quote]
It can get even more subtle than that. If someone is failing a squat usually all I have to do is squeeze their core in with my forearms and they shoot up like a rocket. I don’t even have to apply any upward force lol.

78

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:
I can’t even tell you how many fucking twigs I’ve seen at the gym tell me their best squat is like 530 or whatever. I’ve gone to my car and gotten my checkbook and told them “I swear to Christ I will write you a check for $1,000.00 if you can squat 500lbs today.” No takers.[/quote]
Wanna make another trip to DC?[/quote]
You back up there? My best buddy is a lawyer in DC now; I can go up there anytime.

79

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:
I can’t even tell you how many fucking twigs I’ve seen at the gym tell me their best squat is like 530 or whatever. I’ve gone to my car and gotten my checkbook and told them “I swear to Christ I will write you a check for $1,000.00 if you can squat 500lbs today.” No takers.[/quote]
Wanna make another trip to DC?[/quote]
You back up there? My best buddy is a lawyer in DC now; I can go up there anytime.[/quote]
Ah nice. Yeah I’ll be living here indefinitely.

80

[quote]CLINK wrote:
To those criticizing Jackman:

Okay, so he’s not a big deadlifter like YOU are.
Now let’s see YOU act half as good as he does.

Oh, you’re not an actor, you say?

Bingo. [/quote]

Internet high five/fist pump/chest bump.