That Big Weak Guy

and

God damnit man, how are you always so damn quotable?

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When someone has a ridiculous lift like this that only a few trained men in the world will ever be able to do, he’s a genetic mutant and will definitely be strong in most other lifts as well. But in Internetland, we will have idiots going,“Oh yeah? How much can he squat?”

This would be similar to my definition of strong.

I find it tends to be the definition among big and strong dudes. At contests, the guys who are strong stand out from the guys that are good, and very rarely someone is both and they are dangerous.

I gotta admit, I always cheer for the strong guy. They’re more fun to watch. I remember hearing a story of some jacked out of mind bodybuilder trying an axle clean and press for the first time who basically just cheat curled it to chest and press it from there. Some stupid heavy weigh, would have loved to see it live.

strongest, the person that wins

Thought I’d bring up this articles that I figured might be relevant(kinda).

Assuming the guesstimations are even remotely correct, 1 in 100-300 American men benching 300lbs and 1 in 1000(±250) men in the world benching 225lbs. Wouldn’t most of the T-Nation members be considered strong?

Like what tons of people have pointed out, normal people(who don’t lift) have no concept of what strong truly is and therefore why does it even matter what the average populace thinks? Oh and big is just way more subjective. I’m pretty sure if you were 6’8(and not underweight), you’d probably think most people aren’t particularly big.

I’d like to think that most of us are in this to transcend the average. As far as I’m concerned, their opinion is irrelevant. If anything, time spent listening to their crap is time better spent somewhere else.

I’m gonna keep this response short. It took me 10 years of training, albeit inconsistent training, to get to a 315 bench press. So for some, that number can take quite a bit of work. Maybe it’s not so hard for others, but it was hard for me. And out of all the lifts, I practiced that one more than anything (I’ve been benching MUCH longer than squatting regularly).

In my current gym, there’s only 1 guy who can hold is own with me when it comes to raw strength, and he’s about 50 lbs heavier. At least from what I’ve seen, I’ve never been there early AM. There may be a real beast or 2 who comes in then. But I’m certainly not the biggest guy at my gym (obviously.) As a side note, at the other gym I train at, which is a Metroflex location in DFW, I am certainly not the strongest guy, in any lift. Far from it. But I can certainly hold my own there, and my powerlifting numbers hold up very well there. I might be the strongest guy under 200 lbs there. And my current bests are about a 550 unwrapped squat, 600 deadlift, 390 bench press.

I think it’s reasonable to say that, if you’re lifting at a ‘1 in 100’ range, you can call yourself strong in the ‘real world’. I think by T Nation standards, you probably need to be bench pressing closer to 400 than 300 to be considered strong. A 400 bench isn’t particularly common on these boards, but 300 is.

I think it’s also important to note that just because large people aren’t lifting heavy in compound movements, doesn’t mean they can’t.
Also, I challenge anyone to do five sets of flies, five sets of an incline press machine, then attempt to match their personal best in the bench press.

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Oh definitely, I would say it wouldn’t be wrong to say that we’re the one’s with the skewed perspectives since we’re the minority.

Interesting thread, kinda nostalgic in a way.

It’s fun trying to figure out who is who’s sock puppet on some of these, but I have seen so many fruitcakes on here since 99’ that its getting harder to tell the players without a scorecard.

One thing I will interject is…at least people kept it civil for the most part, when the good Professor was here it would have turned into a bloodbath.

Oh and link to the wizard thread that everybody and their mother kept quoting?

Carry on.

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Necroing since it seems people have been talking shit about my weak ass for years.

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Weird thread. It almost makes me wonder what people say about me behind my back after I finish a set of rear lateral raises with 12 lb purple DBs (no joke). I haven’t lifted “heavy” in years.

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So that’s why I couldn’t find the purple dumbbells today.

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Reading through this is like opening a time capsule. What an exciting era we lived through of 5x5 master programs and small strong dudes beating up big weak guys.

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Those are mine.

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Wow, I must have glossed over this thread way back when… shame -lol

S

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I hid them behind the 120s. I knew you’d never look there.

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I can’t believe I skimmed the majority of this thread before realizing it was 2 years old.

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