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AP

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joe,

i just read your factoid in flex about franco, well done.

he is one of my favorite bodybuilders and certainly one of the strongest of all time. i have seen a picture of him bending a bar in his teeth- do you have any info on the thickness/difficulty of this bend?

also do you have any knowledge about his powerlifting totals i know he was some where around 500b 650dead and 500+?sq (holding onto a heavy deadlift is surely grip related) i have heard that he was close to a 10 x bodyweight total...i'd be thankful for any info...

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I'm not Joe Roark, but hopefully this info will be of some interest: Franco could deadlift around 730lb, bench around 450 and squat 650 as a 181/198lb'er (according to a Musclemag Star Profile interview with him in 1996) and has held world powerlifting records since 1972 (don't know what federation). If necessary I could dig out this interview and firm up on the numbers of his claims.

I don't know about specific grip ability but the fact that he held onto the Sandow under attack from Platz and Callendar in 1981 showed a very strong pinch grip :-)

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I had heard that he was the first lifter under 200lbs to bench 500, i don't know if this is true or not and your other #'s seem about right- if he had been able to do these in a contest he would have totaled over 10 x his bodyweight - amazing! but also (staying grip related ;) ) i have a picture of him in flex bending a bar in his mouth and a friend of mine had actually seen this done - anyway flex kind of implied that the bar had been tampered with to make it easy to bend (which kind of offended me) i am curious about how difficult this bend truely was...

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Guest woody36

Ap,

     look here for info.

http://www.columbu.com/training/titles.html

http://www.columbu.com/photos/ironbar.html

Theres a pic on his site of him bending what looks like

concrete rebar,regarding the bending the bar in the teeth

if i remember from memory it appeared to be no more than

1/2inch diameter and shouldn't have posed a problem

for him.

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Regarding Columbu's strength feats:

In Factoids, we concentrate mostly on bodybuilding.

Franco's powerlifting feats I will leave to those who

know the subject better; same for bending metal,

though I will say that documentation should be provided

for both venues, as can be done in bodybuilding.

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