This is inspired by the “What’s Your Idea Of Strong” thread that’s going on.
I figured we could share some stories about impressive feats and/or individuals that train in your gym.
I’ve got a few:
-I mentioned this in another thread but there was a big guy at my gym who’s bench workout was 3 sets of 20 reps at 315, with a minute rest between sets. Guy was huge!
-I saw a chick doing clap push ups in the gym today. First time I’ve ever seen a girl doing proper form push ups, let alone clap push ups. After a few sets of that she did some snatch grip high pulls. You could tell she knew what she was doing in the gym; she certainly looked the part.
-I trained for a while with an old powerlifter dude who did farmers walks with 50k in each hand. Doesn’t sound too impressive til you realise he did it pinching two 25k plates together per hand, and was well into his 60s.
-I trained a couple of times with a Swedish Chick, 22 years old at the time but had a 160k deadlift at 60k bodyweight. When she deadlifted all the dudes in the gym hung their head in shame. Me and her had an arm wrestle once and she came embarrassingly close to winning!
-I also knew a dude called Ozi who used to front squat 225k for stupidly high reps, go play basketball for 2 hours then come straight back and deadlift 275. The gym was an all day thing for him, 6 days a week. Said he would’ve trained on Sundays too but he didn’t think it was right to train on the “holy day.” He had the best physique I’ve ever seen in person.
Those are mine, there’s probably more that’ll occur to me later. I’m sure other people that train in hardcore gyms have much more impressive stories to share…
Saw a small guy, 165 I would guess, ramp up to a set of 10 at 315 on bench. I was fairly impressed there considering he didn’t even look like he was struggling.
There’s an elderly British couple at my gym that used to be an acrobatics team in the former half of the 20th century, they’re far upwards of pension age, they come in three days a week in the early mornings, take up a reasonably sized hardwood floor area reserved for spinning classes and such, and spend a couple of hours practicing handstands, handstand pushups from high aerobic boxes, and dual balancing feats.
Way out of their prime and can still do amazing gymnastic/acrobatic feats, over time the male has lost his ability to do a full planche, but he can still hold a solid split planche for a few seconds. When I was sick of hanging leg raises, he taught me how to do Dragon Flags and now they’re my mainstay.
I’ve forgotten the exact name of their act, but the owner of my gym has an old poster of it behind the desk, I’ll be able to find it on Monday.
[quote]bpick86 wrote:
Saw a small guy, 165 I would guess, ramp up to a set of 10 at 315 on bench. I was fairly impressed there considering he didn’t even look like he was struggling. [/quote]
We did deadlifts before church this past Sunday. It’s a good time for me because nobody is in there and we can make as much noise as we want. Finished the first set and a dude I have never seen walks in and comes to where we all deadlift. He is maybe 180 soaking weight but in really good shape. He asks to work in and we tell him we are going heavy. He says great. We go all the way up to 545 and he fell out at 495, doing that for like 3 reps. I was like, wow.
This morning. Done, walking out from locker room through cardio area toward front door to go to work. Woman doing this stair stepper machine doing these hamstring flutter kick-outs in yoga pants (best invention ever btw). It was perhaps the finest ass I have ever seen on a white girl. Thought I was gonna have to go back to the locker room.
Might not sound impressive, but watched this guy, big guy about 210, unrack 315 and step out like he was going to do front squats, than just start pressing it over his head (military style) no leg drive what so ever, banged of 6 reps, than a couple push presses, no belt no wraps, awesome, he was a member, quietest guy ever, used to just walk in the gym, talk to no one, and just do crazy shit, saw him close grippin 500lb for reps one time, real nice guy see him fixin pot holes around town, built like a farmer, all my years around gyms, never seen no one like him, tried to talk him into PL comp, he kind of mumbles with his head down, says he’s not that strong, and he hates crowds, than quietly slides out back door of gym, awesome, like to understand his motivation.
I got to watch FST7 - 2 get filmed one time when I was working out at Armbrust in Denver. Hell, I may even be in it. That was really cool. I saw a lot of pros come and go and got to consistently watch them and what they did. No individual stories but I thought it was pretty neat.
***Funny side story - After only being a part of Armbrust for about ~2 weeks (having just moved to Colorado,) my lifting partner and I were going to the gym to work out. When we got there and were parking, we saw a little kid in the windows dancing in an empty posing room by himself, and were laughing about it. After we began to warm up, one of the employees came up to us and asked us if we drove a certain car. Lo and behold - the car was mine. He looked at me and said:
“Yeah, dude, you parked in Phil Heaths’ spot and he’s super pissed.”
Oh fuck my ass. Went out there, tail between my legs and moved my car. Apparently, because of the little dancing kid we totally missed the gigantic sign that said THIS SPOT RESERVED FOR MR. OLYMPIA PHIL HEATH - ALL OTHERS WILL BE CRUSHED!
[quote]SSC wrote:
I got to watch FST7 - 2 get filmed one time when I was working out at Armbrust in Denver. Hell, I may even be in it. That was really cool. I saw a lot of pros come and go and got to consistently watch them and what they did. No individual stories but I thought it was pretty neat.
***Funny side story - After only being a part of Armbrust for about ~2 weeks (having just moved to Colorado,) my lifting partner and I were going to the gym to work out. When we got there and were parking, we saw a little kid in the windows dancing in an empty posing room by himself, and were laughing about it. After we began to warm up, one of the employees came up to us and asked us if we drove a certain car. Lo and behold - the car was mine. He looked at me and said:
“Yeah, dude, you parked in Phil Heaths’ spot and he’s super pissed.”
Oh fuck my ass. Went out there, tail between my legs and moved my car. Apparently, because of the little dancing kid we totally missed the gigantic sign that said THIS SPOT RESERVED FOR MR. OLYMPIA PHIL HEATH - ALL OTHERS WILL BE CRUSHED!
Saw a 16 yr girl about 5’6" 130-140 squat 275x5 below parallel. When she finished…I actually applauded her and told her how impressive that really was. She then proceeded to the smith machine and loaded 335lbs for box squats. She told me she was a fitness competitor here in Mexico. It’s rare just to see anyone squatting in my gym…let alone a 16 yr old girl. Her lower body was incredible, but the upper half…Not so good. This was about 3 years ago and I have yet to see anything more impressive than that since.
[quote]Tatsu wrote:
Saw Phil Heath once… Yups, he can crush cars, lol. Did he look pissed afterwards?[/quote]
Oh yes. He was eyeing me down quite nastily. I tried to offer a retributive “sorry” nod but I could see that not flying. I remember a guy who use to post here (DOHCrazy) shouted out to him on twitter and told him to please not eat me, lol!
He replied with an “lol” and a comment about me needing new glasses or something. (I always wear glasses.) Could’ve been worse I suppose.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
aaaahahahha that is awesome[/quote]
It’s certainly cool that not many can say they parked in Mr. Olympia’s parking spot by accident - but pretty emasculating and embarrassing to say the least. Oh well, it’s a story I’ll have forever, haha.
Lived in Portland, OR for awhile. Everything about that town fucking sucks, but at the gym I went to literally everyone I ever saw squat went atg with impeccable form. Literally every single person. The fact that an entire gym’s worth of squatters actually squatted right is more impressive than any single feat of strength I’ve ever seen.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Lived in Portland, OR for awhile. Everything about that town fucking sucks, but at the gym I went to literally everyone I ever saw squat went atg with impeccable form. Literally every single person. The fact that an entire gym’s worth of squatters actually squatted right is more impressive than any single feat of strength I’ve ever seen.[/quote]
Sounds contagious
Saw my 184 lb lifting partner squat 510x5 with a belt and wraps
Also saw a 210 lb guy squat 500x8 last summer…I literally said I wanna see something cool before I go off to college, he said ill squat 500 then asked me how many times I wanted him to do it, I said 6
[quote]Tatsu wrote:
Saw Phil Heath once… Yups, he can crush cars, lol. Did he look pissed afterwards?[/quote]
Oh yes. He was eyeing me down quite nastily. I tried to offer a retributive “sorry” nod but I could see that not flying. I remember a guy who use to post here (DOHCrazy) shouted out to him on twitter and told him to please not eat me, lol!
He replied with an “lol” and a comment about me needing new glasses or something. (I always wear glasses.) Could’ve been worse I suppose.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
aaaahahahha that is awesome[/quote]
It’s certainly cool that not many can say they parked in Mr. Olympia’s parking spot by accident - but pretty emasculating and embarrassing to say the least. Oh well, it’s a story I’ll have forever, haha.[/quote]
[quote]Tatsu wrote:
Saw Phil Heath once… Yups, he can crush cars, lol. Did he look pissed afterwards?[/quote]
Oh yes. He was eyeing me down quite nastily. I tried to offer a retributive “sorry” nod but I could see that not flying. I remember a guy who use to post here (DOHCrazy) shouted out to him on twitter and told him to please not eat me, lol!
He replied with an “lol” and a comment about me needing new glasses or something. (I always wear glasses.) Could’ve been worse I suppose.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
aaaahahahha that is awesome[/quote]
It’s certainly cool that not many can say they parked in Mr. Olympia’s parking spot by accident - but pretty emasculating and embarrassing to say the least. Oh well, it’s a story I’ll have forever, haha.[/quote]
Phil Heath sounds like a dick.
[/quote]
I’ve heard quite a few stories about him apparently being a diva, actually. Who really knows what’s just casual banter and what’s legitimate - I can say I was legitimately in the wrong in this case, though it was probably exacerbated by him tren raging or something.
All I know for sure is that he has a really nice Bentley.
For an La Fitness we have some impressive guys at my gym, some of my gym friends have done the following
Back Squatted 500x8 extremely deep with no wraps or sleeves, Same guy Deadlifted 700lbs
430 Bench TnG at 180lbs
A 21 yr old from Egypt a kid named Mina pulled off some ridiculous strength feats (youtube Mina Strong Man Power) very nice kid, extremely big, the vids are from a while ago and he has lost significant weight.
PLer successfully did a BB show (youtube Paul Charland) the guy was a fat PLer (600 shirted Bench) type and got fucking shredded, really impressive how he stuck with it, changed his whole lifestyle, unfortunately he cramped up at his show and did poorly at the 2012 Bev Francis Atlantic States and placed 6th
We also have 2 IFBB pros there as well
At my old gym back home in Louisiana Ronnie Coleman would show up every once in a while I guess when his mom still lived there to visit. I guess he was hooked up with Vickie Gates back then because she was with him a couple of times. Before I met him, I thought he was taller. He’s only about 5’10" or 5’11" but probably almost that in width across his back. His quads are sick. Heck, Vickie lifts more than most dudes.