Always the dead or uncles!

[king crusher]

yeah anyone that is even sort of athletic can do the #1, most people i give the 1 to can do it but NO ONE has got my 2 down.

and i had a guy tell me that his dad one day got soooo mad at him and his brother for crashing his honda goldwing motorcycle that the dad .....ready for this. picked up the goldwing and thru it into the back of the pickup truck....ALONE.

LOL A GOLDWING IS FRICKIN HUGE.

i laughed and said not possible.

[mcham]

Ha... just realised I have my own uncle stories

Apparently my uncle was once driving along when he came upon a telegraph pole that had fallen across the road - the thick wooden type - and he lifted it by one end and dragged it off the road. I have no idea if this is true or not... but the story got repeated enough times.

He was not a big guy, but very very strong for his size. I also got told he used to do bench presses with a homemade barbell made from a bar and 2 x 44 gallon drums filled with concrete. This may be true.. no idea how much this would weigh.

[Octogen]

By my rough calculation a barbell with 2 x 44 gallon drums of WATER would weigh 872lb or approx 396 kilos.

Concrete is many times denser than water so either they were smaller drums or your uncle is the stand out winner of this thread

[mcham]

As with lots of these sorts of stories... probably partly true... i.e. smaller drums, not fully filled and the telegraph pole was probably pushed/rolled just enough to get his car past.... who knows... he died a few years ago, so I can't ask him

[Darco]

I mess around with 5 gallon buckets of concrete that weight about 175lbs a piece, so assuming we have the same type of concrete, each drum would weight a little over 1500 lbs......so a 3000 Lb bench for reps is quite decent.

[bencrush]

Another inmate "trick" I hear quite often when eavesdropping on an inmate telling another inmate or group of people about his so-called "lifts" is if they're not impessed enough with his "300 bench" (while weighing 130 pounds;) he'll pause and say, "That was for X number of reps though, not just once." The guy usually telling this story is almost always the one that I've seen trying to string 10 pushups together...in a row! And of course I know that pushup performance doesn't translate to bench press, but dang. That one usually brings me close to tears. And it's always some bizarre poundage and number. Like 329 for 7? No kilo plates in the pen...for that matter, see below.

Most state pens don't have any free weights, at least in Kansas. These guys come in all the time and try to tell me about their 300+, 400+, 500+ benches. Then of course when I call them on the fact that there ARE no free weights in such and such prison, they tell me, "Oh yeah, that was on a machine...but I had a dude that weighed 300 pounds standing on top of the stack also."

But there are of course the "honest" inmates that are somewhat grounded in reality. If they're around when the above guy starts talking about his "785 pound bench on a smith machine" (That is true-I had one guy tell me that), the honest guy questions them as to where they found free weights at such and such prison. They usually say that he must have been there after or before them, didn't he know he's being silly.

And apparently everyone who's ever been to the pen knows of the mythical man who can "bench 700 pounds...like 18 or 19 times!" All while smoking, giving another inmate a tattoo, and drinking a full bottle of whiskey---Did I forgot to mention that was ONE HANDED?

[Sybersnott]

I have to say... this thread has probably been one of THE most entertaining threads that I've ever read on this forum!!

I give it the Sybersnott SEAL OF APPROVAL.

[jad]

Most state pens don't have any free weights, at least in Kansas.

Yeah...It would take a lot of water to make a weight bag of some of those poundages mentioned and good luck attaching it to a stack or smith bar.

Edited June 5, 2004 by jad

[foggymountainmuscle]

It always bothered me when people see two different numbers on the universal machine and say one is pounds and the other must be kilograms. On top of that they think pounds is the smaller number sometimes.

I've met a few "200 pound benchers" that couldn't do working sets of 135 on a barbell. I myself can push out well over 300 (smaller number) bench on those things and I'm currently working with 205! Heck if I really could have standing pressed 275 my freshman year like I did on that machine I'd be like famous or something. Even lifters with little experience know these numbers are smoke, but some take them to be just as good as free weights.

[Zevich]

No joke: I knew a man who was a plumber who

claimed he could judo chop a 24" pipe wrench and

break it into two pieces. When he was younger, of

course, not when he was telling me about it.

I have spent 36 years in Judo and have yet to learn the "judo chop". Is it anything like a pork chop?

[JustinH]

I have to put in some of my own stories I've heard.

My uncle said he remembers picking up 500 pound logs and putting them over his shoulder then throwing them. He also told me about how one of his friends could pick up the front end of his small pickup truck with one hand(in highschool). Another story he told me was about my grandpa lifting these 700 or so pound drums onto a pallete, I guess then some guy told him that they had a machine to put them on the pallete(my grandpa was around 140 pounds or less at the time). I told him he was full of it for all those stories.

I was also told by a guy at the gym that he thinks his uncle could close the #3 and he had a whole bunch of old strong grippers(his uncle did some kind of labour job).

Oh ya and I can bench 755 pounds for 27 reps, squat 1500 pounds rock bottom(only 3 times), deadlift a bus hanging from a building, rep the #4 38 times, and bend a 3 inch thick 3 inch long bar.

Also talking about grip strength, there is this one guy(at my gym) that's about 6'5'' or taller and weighs about 300 pounds or so(not muscular). Anyways this guy can pinch 2 35's off the ground for a few seconds but can't close my #1 CoC. He has huge hands and has a strong handshake. I think guys with big hands give the strongest handshakes because they can grip your hand a certain way.

[david42018]

reminds me of the guy at Home Depot who asked me why I bent nails because it was "stupid", all I needed for hand strength was "Pushups man, lots and lots of pushups". He was dead serious.

[Sybersnott]

all I needed for hand strength was "Pushups man, lots and lots of pushups"

Oh, so THAT'S the secret!

I'll get started right away.

[mossman]

yea frickin right.....i been in karate for years, we do hundreds of pushups a week, and we didnt gain a damn thing gripwise from them.....well then again the people that work at home depot are natural geniuses

[foggymountainmuscle]

I'm reluctant to mention the purpose of anything I buy from hardware stores. Things just go easier that way.

[Timmy]

Ahhh, another great thread to revive!

[kelby]

will i have a partner who can move a little ford ranger. left it up and move it. he does it with ford taurus cars etc. he did reps with the number one. and he cleaned and jert two fifty, picked up a over three hundred pound dudes slammed and then knocked him out. (big guy asked for it). he is very gifted my partner. i always try and get him to train with me, but he like to party and impress girls. he also took a physical test, (he is a fire fighter for north) and he squeezed over two hundred pounds on a grip thing. so i think there are natural people out there. maybe one i amillion can close the thrrees.

[superfeemiman]

What a great thread!

I think another part of reason people exaggerate other people's numbers is because they want to make themselves look better. It's like some 120 pound guy saying: "Uncle Rusty could squat over 900, for lotsa' reps in fact. Well I'm not strong at all, I mean tried to do half what he did, and it was as hard as hell just to do 5 reps!"

[climber511]

I got one for ya all. I was in the sporting goods store in the mall in the bigger town close to us. Got to talking to a guy there and he got to telling me about his friends workout partner. This guy could bench 500#, deadlift 700# and squat 700#. He can close all them gripper things like nothing, bends steel bars like nothing - holds all the World Records in just about everything there is. So I ask who his friend is - well, he's a policeman down in Crooksville, named Joey Carr. I lose it all over the guy, laughing, tears running down my cheeks - the guy thinks I off my rocker by now. I finally get control of myself - I"M Joey Carr's workout partner. True story.

[gripuru]

I love this kinds of threads regarding believers and scepticals to the theme.

As i want to work with themes related to strength this month iam going to travel to the farm of my cousin and see what gripper can unskilled labourers close, what sledge they can lever, what block weight can they do, what strength in their hand shakes they have, etc.

I also going to talk with some people who work in a stone quarry with sledge hammers.

I think some stories are true and some others are fake, with the pass of the years people exagerate the story more and more and finally yhe story is more difficult to believe, like the Angus MacAskill story of his anchor lift.

[royceman]

I told my dad I was getting into grippers and what level I am at.He tells me that he has a friend that i bet could close the #4.

I say no way is that possible, he says bring your gripers over and I'll call him.

So his friend Tom shows up, big dude with a big hand, thats right one arm, one hand.

Dad says this guy has the strongest hand he has ever seen because he has only one and it has had to work twice as hard all his life.

I hand him the one and he closes it but pops all his knuckles at the same time, then i hand him a 2 and he gets it about an inch away from close.

I grab the 2 and get it about 1/4 of an inch away from close.

They both just stare at me and Tom's eyes just bugged out.

I tell them I am just starting and really i am pretty weak on crush grip and my pinch strength is pathetic.

Now of course my dad gives me a buch of crap for being stronger than a handicapped dude. Can't win I guess.

[bender]

Excellent post! This topic is just weird, and it’s made me think quite a bit about why people do this.

When I was in college, I worked summers back in my home town at a hospital, and I ran into mostly the mothers of many of my high-school friends. Being a shaven-headed, 230 goatee dude, people remembered me. We would catch up on what was going on, and these mothers would make up stats for their sons, claiming their chubby little son was still lifting weights and was doing incredible things. In every situation it happened, I never mentioned anything about lifting. It was all them.

Every time I was confused, why a person would want to talk some one up to be so much greater than they are. It must be pride. The pride or honor of defending a person, to make the person or “that one guy” that you know, seem a bit better than the person you’re talking to.

With grippers, I can relate to the “in my prime” comments. I don’t understand this one. After the initial squeeze fails, it’s some times followed by that odd “Well, when I was playing baseball, my writs were super-strong, I could have closed this (gripper) back then”. And baseball season was 4 months ago…

Again, it’s a defense of the ego, of pride and honor. Not many people are big enough to say “I’m not strong enough to do that”. It seems many of the people on this board are not story tellers, and instead are the few who say “I’m not strong enough, YET!”, and then set goals and achieve them through hard work.

It’s our sense of duty to achieving our goals that blocks out the “excuse” or the childish defense of our “ego”. Instead, it’s through will, discipline and action that we accomplish the task at hand, to fill in the weakness such that the next time we encounter that situation, we have the strength, training and practice to accomplish it.

Eh… At least that’s me.

[menace3000]

I too....have an uncle...

[bunchofbananas]

This one is an extremely common one for me:

If i leave the grippers anywhere someone undoubtedly picks one up. What they always do is start squeezing it for reps without it even touching the handles.

They'll just be standing there with the trainer or something and i see them try and close it but when they get to the point where they can close it up to (like parallel) they'll then pump out a few reps from open to parallel a few times as if to convince anyone watching them that they can rep it and closing it all the way isn't the aim!?!?

It's always annoying when some people have the excuse of 'yeh, well i don't like practice with them everyday'

(they also use the word practice as if it's just a matter of perfecting a technique or something.)

Another one, which doesn't annoy me or anything, is if i give a gripper to someone to try and close, they'll get it as far as possible with one hand then try and press it all the way closed with the other hand as if by instinct. Then if it does touch they seem to feel a sense of accomplishment having closed it. (excluding the fact they used two hands)

[Alexander]

Well, there is a difference between a tough handshake and closing a gripper but i am sure in general people 30 years ago were stronger(in the fingers and hands) because of working so hard(especially working on a farm);my dad was much stronger in the hand and finger when me and probably he could close a #3 but he never was interested in trying it!