Strongest Guy in the Gym

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
21

[quote]anonymous_burn wrote:

[quote]Chris87 wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
I am pretty sure some of my records still stand at the college I attended. My 340 power clean and 700 deadlift are still there. I squatted 655 and thats the highest for a d-linemen but an olinemen got 725 shortly after I was done playing. I had the best bench for about 15 minutes. I think the records stands now around 455.[/quote]

Thats some strong shit.

I gota question for Storm, since you played college ball. It seems like power clean numbers for football players seem to top off in the mid 300 range. I hear of a lot of guys hitting 300 or 315, a few guys from my high school team were able to get there, but I’ve never heard of a football player getting close to 400. It just strikes me as odd, because in high school, I knew several people who got up to 300 or so on bench, or 400 or so on squat, yet those numbers go up significantly for college players, but the power clean doesn’t really go up much.

My question is, is there some sort of limiting factor that keeps college players from getting up towards that 400 range? I know football players have been known to have less then great form on power cleans, but there’s plenty of ball players without great form on the other lifts who still progress, your thoughts?[/quote]

Since we’re talking anecdotally, I know a guy that went to school with Brian Urlacher and he said that he power cleaned 400+ pretty regularly.[/quote]

The limiting factor in my experience, is dogshit form. For the most part, football players have terrible lifting technique on, well, everything.

Another big reason is the correlation of the lift to the sport. There is very little. True its explosive, the bar has to move fast or you miss the lift, but the transfer to increasing performance on the feild is very little. People argue this shit all the time and I am not trying to start anything, I am just saying, if power cleans are so important for quantifying an athletes football ability, why is it not tested in the NFL combine? Better question, why aren’t our USA olympic weightlifters also our best NFL players? Because the correlation is zero.

Anyway, I’m sure someone could hit it if they tried really hard and trained specifically for it but football is too much of a technical sport, requiring mastery of MANY skills to be any good at it, to focus on just one thing… that probably is not helping anyway.

That being said, the most I’ve every heard of any cleaning is Owen Schmidt at West Virginia got something like 520. I don’t know how legit that is because out best American Record on the clean and jerk is only 514. But, who the hell knows.

22

a strongman at my gym holds all the records with a 510 pound closegrip all raw, and a 750 deadlift (only belt and straps). The dude is crazy strong and he weighs about 275 pounds

23

[quote]dalle wrote:
a strongman at my gym holds all the records with a 510 pound closegrip all raw, and a 750 deadlift (only belt and straps). The dude is crazy strong and he weighs about 275 pounds [/quote]

Doesn’t squat though?

24

[quote]Dissection wrote:

[quote]dalle wrote:
a strongman at my gym holds all the records with a 510 pound closegrip all raw, and a 750 deadlift (only belt and straps). The dude is crazy strong and he weighs about 275 pounds [/quote]

Doesn’t squat though?[/quote]

Not all strongman competitions include a squat (like a powerlifting squat) event, so no need to keep track of it, most likely.

25

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:

[quote]anonymous_burn wrote:

[quote]Chris87 wrote:

[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
I am pretty sure some of my records still stand at the college I attended. My 340 power clean and 700 deadlift are still there. I squatted 655 and thats the highest for a d-linemen but an olinemen got 725 shortly after I was done playing. I had the best bench for about 15 minutes. I think the records stands now around 455.[/quote]

Thats some strong shit.

I gota question for Storm, since you played college ball. It seems like power clean numbers for football players seem to top off in the mid 300 range. I hear of a lot of guys hitting 300 or 315, a few guys from my high school team were able to get there, but I’ve never heard of a football player getting close to 400. It just strikes me as odd, because in high school, I knew several people who got up to 300 or so on bench, or 400 or so on squat, yet those numbers go up significantly for college players, but the power clean doesn’t really go up much.

My question is, is there some sort of limiting factor that keeps college players from getting up towards that 400 range? I know football players have been known to have less then great form on power cleans, but there’s plenty of ball players without great form on the other lifts who still progress, your thoughts?[/quote]

Since we’re talking anecdotally, I know a guy that went to school with Brian Urlacher and he said that he power cleaned 400+ pretty regularly.[/quote]

The limiting factor in my experience, is dogshit form. For the most part, football players have terrible lifting technique on, well, everything.

Another big reason is the correlation of the lift to the sport. There is very little. True its explosive, the bar has to move fast or you miss the lift, but the transfer to increasing performance on the feild is very little. People argue this shit all the time and I am not trying to start anything, I am just saying, if power cleans are so important for quantifying an athletes football ability, why is it not tested in the NFL combine? Better question, why aren’t our USA olympic weightlifters also our best NFL players? Because the correlation is zero.

Anyway, I’m sure someone could hit it if they tried really hard and trained specifically for it but football is too much of a technical sport, requiring mastery of MANY skills to be any good at it, to focus on just one thing… that probably is not helping anyway.

That being said, the most I’ve every heard of any cleaning is Owen Schmidt at West Virginia got something like 520. I don’t know how legit that is because out best American Record on the clean and jerk is only 514. But, who the hell knows.[/quote]

Not to hijack this thread. But I have a question regarding the correlation between the powerlifts/powerclean and football/sports in general.

I am the strongest kid in my highschool. In my personal experience, strength in the weightroom and prowess on the field ar two completely different things. There have a few times in the past when I could be giving my all, yet a skinny kid who can barely bench 135, but who is a good athlete, has been able to push me around. The same thing happened to me during wrestling. I only wrestled for two years, but I would often go against a more experienced guy in practice who was 30-40 lbs lighter than me and he could feel like the strongest guy in the world on top of me.

The barbell flat bench only has so much carryover to an incline dumbell press for example. And those are two pretty similar movements. Now think about how little correlation a bench press would have when pushing someone off of you in a sport. There are so many variables that are different.

For me it seems like the best exercise for football linemen would be a heavy prowler push. It seems like thered be a lot of carry over. Football players should really start focusing on that and go for PR’s and stuff.

As far as the powerlifts go I think the squat has the most carryover to football in my experience.

Just my two cents.

26

[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:

[quote]Dissection wrote:

[quote]dalle wrote:
a strongman at my gym holds all the records with a 510 pound closegrip all raw, and a 750 deadlift (only belt and straps). The dude is crazy strong and he weighs about 275 pounds [/quote]

Doesn’t squat though?[/quote]

Not all strongman competitions include a squat (like a powerlifting squat) event, so no need to keep track of it, most likely.[/quote]

He said he held all the records, so I meant it as in do they track squats or not there?

27

[quote]Brian14 wrote:
Not to hijack this thread. But I have a question regarding the correlation between the powerlifts/powerclean and football/sports in general.

I am the strongest kid in my highschool. In my personal experience, strength in the weightroom and prowess on the field ar two completely different things. There have a few times in the past when I could be giving my all, yet a skinny kid who can barely bench 135, but who is a good athlete, has been able to push me around. The same thing happened to me during wrestling. I only wrestled for two years, but I would often go against a more experienced guy in practice who was 30-40 lbs lighter than me and he could feel like the strongest guy in the world on top of me.

The barbell flat bench only has so much carryover to an incline dumbell press for example. And those are two pretty similar movements. Now think about how little correlation a bench press would have when pushing someone off of you in a sport. There are so many variables that are different.

For me it seems like the best exercise for football linemen would be a heavy prowler push. It seems like thered be a lot of carry over. Football players should really start focusing on that and go for PR’s and stuff.

As far as the powerlifts go I think the squat has the most carryover to football in my experience.

Just my two cents.
[/quote]

Skill and strength are two separate areas. Skill for football has very little to do with strength but strength makes you a better athlete. It essentially allows you to perform your skill with more force which in turn CAN be a turning point in some peoples abilities.

A highly skilled and technical player in any sport CAN be shut down by a stronger one, and at the same time a highly skilled and technical player CAN out-play a stronger one. It’s a matter of variance. If you’re a significantly superior specimen in your sport, yet getting beat by more technically advanced people then you need to spend more time on skill work as it’ll yield better return than if you were to spend even more time getting stronger.

Or you could manage your time even better thus giving you more time to allocate towards both aspects and thus being more technically skilled and stronger than your opponent.

28

[quote]Dissection wrote:

[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:

[quote]Dissection wrote:

[quote]dalle wrote:
a strongman at my gym holds all the records with a 510 pound closegrip all raw, and a 750 deadlift (only belt and straps). The dude is crazy strong and he weighs about 275 pounds [/quote]

Doesn’t squat though?[/quote]

Not all strongman competitions include a squat (like a powerlifting squat) event, so no need to keep track of it, most likely.[/quote]

He said he held all the records, so I meant it as in do they track squats or not there?[/quote]

Ah, fair enough, I misunderstood.

29

[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:

[quote]Brian14 wrote:
Not to hijack this thread. But I have a question regarding the correlation between the powerlifts/powerclean and football/sports in general.

I am the strongest kid in my highschool. In my personal experience, strength in the weightroom and prowess on the field ar two completely different things. There have a few times in the past when I could be giving my all, yet a skinny kid who can barely bench 135, but who is a good athlete, has been able to push me around. The same thing happened to me during wrestling. I only wrestled for two years, but I would often go against a more experienced guy in practice who was 30-40 lbs lighter than me and he could feel like the strongest guy in the world on top of me.

The barbell flat bench only has so much carryover to an incline dumbell press for example. And those are two pretty similar movements. Now think about how little correlation a bench press would have when pushing someone off of you in a sport. There are so many variables that are different.

For me it seems like the best exercise for football linemen would be a heavy prowler push. It seems like thered be a lot of carry over. Football players should really start focusing on that and go for PR’s and stuff.

As far as the powerlifts go I think the squat has the most carryover to football in my experience.

Just my two cents.
[/quote]

Skill and strength are two separate areas. Skill for football has very little to do with strength but strength makes you a better athlete. It essentially allows you to perform your skill with more force which in turn CAN be a turning point in some peoples abilities.

A highly skilled and technical player in any sport CAN be shut down by a stronger one, and at the same time a highly skilled and technical player CAN out-play a stronger one. It’s a matter of variance. If you’re a significantly superior specimen in your sport, yet getting beat by more technically advanced people then you need to spend more time on skill work as it’ll yield better return than if you were to spend even more time getting stronger.

Or you could manage your time even better thus giving you more time to allocate towards both aspects and thus being more technically skilled and stronger than your opponent.[/quote]

I second what LM has to say on this. I was never the fastest player on the field (ran a 4.6/40 yd) and I NEVER got beat by faster recievers when I played. HS corner/safety. I had my technique down to a “T” and was smarter than they were. By watching film and reading my keys, I was able to anticipate what they were going to do next. I was also the smallest player (5’7-165lb) on the defensive side of the ball and was rarely out of position or in a bad spot to allow a stronger player to block me. I would often be able to “over power” them and fight off their shitty block due to having a better understanding of body positioning and natural instincts. Same goes for tackling. I played against a lot of “corn fed” type boys who were MUCH bigger than I was and I just knew how to use that strength against them and put myself in the best position for success.

With all that said, of course there were times when a guy was just TOO strong and was able to man handle me. It’s variable on a bunch of things.

You should read up on the Angry Coach’s ideas from elitefts. He talks a lot about strengthening the kids for football and not for weight training. The goal is to get them stronger and more mobile to allow them to get into better football positions with greater strength to maximize their talent. Skill work goes along with it. Economy of time plays a huge factor in all of it. If you’re the strongest, but feel you could be better with more skill work, then you must do more skill work. It’s all about your goals.

30

[quote]Brian14 wrote:

I am the strongest kid in my highschool. In my personal experience, strength in the weightroom and prowess on the field ar two completely different things. There have a few times in the past when I could be giving my all, yet a skinny kid who can barely bench 135, but who is a good athlete, has been able to push me around. The same thing happened to me during wrestling. I only wrestled for two years, but I would often go against a more experienced guy in practice who was 30-40 lbs lighter than me and he could feel like the strongest guy in the world on top of me.

The barbell flat bench only has so much carryover to an incline dumbell press for example. And those are two pretty similar movements. Now think about how little correlation a bench press would have when pushing someone off of you in a sport. There are so many variables that are different.

For me it seems like the best exercise for football linemen would be a heavy prowler push. It seems like thered be a lot of carry over. Football players should really start focusing on that and go for PR’s and stuff.

As far as the powerlifts go I think the squat has the most carryover to football in my experience.

Just my two cents.
[/quote]

Couple things, first are you really the strongest? or was that an exaggeration…
you look in good HS shape but doubtful the strongest since id assume you are 170ish

2nd: strength in wrestling is extremely important, yes technique is king but as long as your tech isnt shit you should be able to dominate if you are the strongest.
There were many matches in HS i only won because of strength, I wrestle club for the NCWA and even at Heavy weight (a light one at that 250’s) strength is an extreme advantage in regards to catching throws, getting out from bottom position, being able to ride, and sprawl explosively)

IMO the big 3 help immensely for wrestling, and believe it or not lots of bicep work for the lighter guys to help prevent someone throwing in legs

basically i think your wrestling experience was weird. yeah if you rely solely on muscle youre fucked, but realistically being stronger is what allows you to wrestle up and so on.

Football wise, here all the football players are obsessed with bench, cleans, squats. we have a RB pushing 500+ bench at 21 and sube 220 BW Storm obviously knows what hes talking about, he played ball and is a beast, but i think cleans are great for certain positions where you need that random juke style explosion.

31

dissection ; sorry i forgot to list his squat its 620 pounds raw :slight_smile: pretty good squat also, but i think his closegrip is very mean, and its a really closegrip with almost no arch.

32

[quote]Achilles of war wrote:

Couple things, first are you really the strongest? or was that an exaggeration…
you look in good HS shape but doubtful the strongest since id assume you are 170ish

2nd: strength in wrestling is extremely important, yes technique is king but as long as your tech isnt shit you should be able to dominate if you are the strongest.
There were many matches in HS i only won because of strength, I wrestle club for the NCWA and even at Heavy weight (a light one at that 250’s) strength is an extreme advantage in regards to catching throws, getting out from bottom position, being able to ride, and sprawl explosively)

IMO the big 3 help immensely for wrestling, and believe it or not lots of bicep work for the lighter guys to help prevent someone throwing in legs

basically i think your wrestling experience was weird. yeah if you rely solely on muscle youre fucked, but realistically being stronger is what allows you to wrestle up and so on.

Football wise, here all the football players are obsessed with bench, cleans, squats. we have a RB pushing 500+ bench at 21 and sube 220 BW Storm obviously knows what hes talking about, he played ball and is a beast, but i think cleans are great for certain positions where you need that random juke style explosion.

[/quote]

I agree with strength of any kind playing a huge role in wrestling, at the high school level. I didn’t have much for technique, as I didn’t join up til high school in MN, where everyone frickin starts at 5 years old haha. I beat some state placewinners by being stronger (not necessarily in PL lifts specifically, but I likely was). I even wrestled up a weight class or two quite a lot, and don’t remember wrestling anyone generally stronger than me. This led to a decent record, but I’m also mediocre at best athletically. Which leads me to football:

I think it’s more of a happy middle ground, here. Some guys are saying PL specific lifts mean zero for football, and some guys obviously think it means a lot. I think it’s very clearly somewhere in the middle. All other things equal, do you want a lineman who benches 225 for 40 reps or 10? If anything else, you know the guy that gets 40 has work ethic to get into the gym, too. And you can assume he is generally stronger, as it applies to football. On the other hand, its very clear that 225 reps aren’t a definitive factor for predicting success. Not even close.

I think an accurate analogy here could be from Madden football games. “Strength” is one attribute out of a fairly long list. Some probowlers might get by with 50 strength, and some guys with 90+ strength (out of 99 for those of you who aren’t familiar) aren’t necessarily that great. But there is plenty of correlation.

33

There’s one guy in my gym who I have seen squat 405 for reps, then I never saw him again, and another who does incline press with the 100 lb dumbbells late in the week. Other than that, there’s a couple kids that keep logs but never move up in weight, a few people who are using form that makes me worried for them (just scary to watch) or that wouldn’t pass as even a half rep, a bunch of guys on bro programs talking about muscle confusion all the time who never seem to get bigger, and a bunch of kids who just come and play around while they pass time in between their intramural basketball games and then leave and never come back.

-Zep

34

There’s no need to keep records at Quads Gym (my gym). Ed Coan would own all of them anyways.

CS

35

[quote]CSEagles1694 wrote:
There’s no need to keep records at Quads Gym (my gym). Ed Coan would own all of them anyways.

CS[/quote]

I think its always good to have a record you want to hit, Yeah Coan is a beast, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt work to be better than him. Whether or not it happens who knows.

36

[quote]Zeppelin0731 wrote:
There’s one guy in my gym who I have seen squat 405 for reps, then I never saw him again, and another who does incline press with the 100 lb dumbbells late in the week. Other than that, there’s a couple kids that keep logs but never move up in weight, a few people who are using form that makes me worried for them (just scary to watch) or that wouldn’t pass as even a half rep, a bunch of guys on bro programs talking about muscle confusion all the time who never seem to get bigger, and a bunch of kids who just come and play around while they pass time in between their intramural basketball games and then leave and never come back.

-Zep[/quote]

Where you at in Ohio, brah?

37

Gym I go to keeps meet lifts on the board for the OBB (Orlando Barbell) team. Anyone who competes can get their name on it although space has become a problem. Top 3 guys all have over 2k totals in meets and another guy moved down from Colorado and already had a 2k total. He’s doing the SPF Pro/Am next week so will probably get on the board after that.

There’s more members of the gym that can bench over 300 raw then there are that can’t. Squat probably 400 raw. Deadlift is the gym’s overall weakness and I’ve only seen a few capable of going over 500 raw.

38

[quote]Achilles of war wrote:

[quote]CSEagles1694 wrote:
There’s no need to keep records at Quads Gym (my gym). Ed Coan would own all of them anyways.

CS[/quote]

I think its always good to have a record you want to hit, Yeah Coan is a beast, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt work to be better than him. Whether or not it happens who knows.[/quote]

No one will ever be better than him. I hope to match his numbers or beat them one day in single-ply, though. Kroc beat his total in 220, but he’s not better than Coan. Never.

CS

39

off subject, I didnt know Coan was banned from ipf for failing drug tests 3 x until i recently looked up info on him.

40

Yeah I really am the strongest, despite my weight. Theres only about 2,000 kids in my highschool and hardly anyone lifts. Even the football players dont lift anywhere close to properly or consistently. And no one knows anything about nutrition.

My wrestling experience was a bit wierd. I was a freshman and weighed 160 at the time. We didnt have a 171 pounder so I had to wrestle up a weight class and often face seniors. I knew that I was stronger in the gym than nearly anyone that I faced, however I only won about 30% of my matches. I guess my technique just sucked and my heart wasn’t completely in it.