Asking the 70’s Big community and any willing individual for a hand!

And there is a Press challenge for you!

this is Alex

Hey guys,

Some of you may remember me from a year or so ago when I competed at the 2012 Arnold Raw Challenge with Mike and Chris. My name is Alex Battaglino and I’m Mike’s younger brother. Back when I was living in Texas with Mike I competed in powerlifting with many of the fan favorites on the site, though I was never was directly involved with posting.

Recently my brother had posted an article and challenge regarding Van Hatfield’s daughter Bre, many of you (including myself) submitted videos and pictures in response, and showed tremendous support for a very worthy cause. Well it seems that the time has come once again to ask for support and assistance to another worthy cause, that directly affects a brother lifter!

To keep a long story somewhat short my lady friend, who also happens to share my name, has had a personal hardship fall upon her family. Her cousin Ricky Fullana was involved in a motor vehicle accident which has left him in very rough shape. Without getting into much detail all involved know that he has a very long road of recovery ahead of him, and is currently in intensive care at a local hospital. Ricky is a strong, athletic, and intelligent young man, he is in need of your support in any way that we may be able to offer it.

this is Ricky

One thing that I must mention is that Ricky’s father Jimmy is an avid powerlifter. At the age of 50 years young he became seriously involved in training and competing, and embodying everything that 70’s Big stands for. He, like many of us, shares a passion for getting under the bar, blocking out everything else, and getting stronger. As a man with a wife and four children he still finds his way to the gym to train and keep getting stronger.

Today when I was at the hospital visiting his son and family, Jimmy came from his son’s room, strong as a rock and sat down with all of us. Not wanting to dwell on any negative thoughts, he and I began talking about training, lifting, different training modalities, how to get stronger etc. Even in the face of adversity this man continues to have passion and drive for the sport of powerlifting. I think it would be great if the 70’s Big community showed our strength and support for his son, that needs our prayers and well wishes. This site is a community of strong individuals and with our support we can help Ricky, as young man with much to accomplish, overcome a tremendous obstacle. Show support for Ricky here, and let us all share our thoughts and prayers with this young man, and his family.

It wouldn’t be a 70’s Big charitable donation without a bit of challenge, so post a video of you going for a 1RM/3RM/5RM Press (or however many reps you are inclined to do), and be sure to include a sign with the saying “Stay Strong Ricky”.

Robert Oberst is a Professional Strongman that recently represented the U.S. in Sanya, China at the 2013 World’s Strongest Man. Official results are not available, but remember, Google is your friend…

Mike: Tell us a bit about yourself.

Robert: Robert Oberst, 28 years old, 400 lbs, 6’8”, and I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California.

Mike: Have you always been into strength sports? (you look like you may have played football)

Robert: I got into strength sports a little less than 2 years ago. Before that I played football for what seemed like FOREVER!!

Mike: How did you get into strongman?

Robert: I first got into strongman through my buddy Evan. We were working security at a bar together and it’s all he’d ever talk about so I decided to try it with him one day and LOVED it.

Mike: What kind of training split do you have between gym lifts and strongman events? And what are some of your PR’s?

Robert: My training split is pretty normal. 3 days in a regular gym and one long day of events, but when I was training for worlds I did an extra day of events. As for PR’s, you gotta sweat in a gym with me to get that info.

Mike: Where do you train? Do you train alone, with a steady group of people?

Robert: I train at a local gym in Hanford, CA and do events at my or a buddies house. Just recently my dad retired and is at all my training sessions and I usually have at least one more guy, my buddy Aram.

Mike: What is your diet like?  

Robert: Nathan Payton does my diet and it’s basically a lot of clean protein. I eat 3 1/2 pounds of meat a day. If you wanna know what else I eat you gotta ask Nathan.

Mike: You’ve risen pretty quickly in strongman, what do you attribute that to?

Robert: There are several reasons I’ve risen so fast in the ranks of strongman. Obviously I work my butt off. You’ve gotta earn it cuz it won’t be handed to you. I also have the greatest support anyone could ever ask for. My family is obsessed with my success and always willing to do anything to help including supporting me when nobody else will. My wife has been stronger than I can ever dream to be. She takes care of everything and never slows down for a second. She’s so supportive and involved that she has more nervousness for shows than I do. When a show ends it takes her longer to recover than me!

Mike: Other than winning World’s Strongest Man, what are your goals in the sport?

Robert: I haven’t set super high goals for now. All I want is to be the strongest man who ever walked the earth.

Mike: If you could give any advice to anyone wanting to turn strongman from a hobby into a lifestyle, what would you tell them?

Robert: There’s too much talent now in this sport to half ass it, so if you aren’t sure or you just wanna do enough to look cool online DON’T cuz you’re only in the way.

Mike: What percentage of your power comes from your beard? In a one-on-one fight, would your beard defeat Andrew Palmer’s?

Robert: I’d say whatever power doesn’t come from my family comes from the beard. Easily 40-50%. My beard has been taking Andrews beards lunch money since it was a 5 o’clock shadow!

Mike does a 10set of rack deadlifts for Believe in Bre

Paul Sousa believes in Bre with this strip set of deads

 
Here is Careen and Patrick, video courtesy of the interwebs

You can donate here. Remember, we are always trying to stick it to cancer.

If you missed out Mike talked about prepping atlas stone molds on the FB page. Check out the video here. Make sure you guys try out other strength related sports. It can be exciting and refreshing. Many of our 70’s Big members such as Paul, Mark, and Gina have all tried their hand in strongman.

It is PR Friday so let us know if you had any updates with weights lifted, competitions slain, and chainsaws swung over-head. We also want to see pictures of you guys rocking a 70’s Big tank-top. Submit your pics to AC@70sbig.com

PR Friday rolls around yet again. This week, AC gave us a quick update on the site (w/ text from Brent), and continued his Wednesday Interview Series with Callahan.

Also, Mike would like to share this challenge with the community, for a good cause:

Van Hatfield’s (2004 America’s Strongest Man) daughter Bre is undergoing Intense Chemotherapy treatments for bone cancer. Information for donations is available through the link. Additionally, “all of you that donate, we would ask that you video yourself doing deadlift for reps. You can use any implement or amount of weight. In the picture include a sign that says, “Believe in Bre”. Send a link to admin@americanstrongman.com.” I know a lot of us deadlift towards the end of the week, so I’ll post a reminder up on Friday morning. I’m going to do block pulls for reps on Saturday. http://americanstrongman.com/?p=4709

Since the 70’s Big community always seems to come through huge for charitable causes like this, I’m sure we can make a big difference again. Share your deadlift videos on the 70’s Big facebook page (or tag 70’s Big) and we’ll post them up next week here on the site.

We also got a bunch of “pressing things overhead” submissions this week:

Matthijs writes: “On vacation with parents of the girlfriend,this happened”

Mike gets some pressing in while at work serving in the Coast Guard

Justin built his own log, and shows off the finished product by pressing it overhead

And then, we have this. A reader with the email name “Fat Lenny”, sent us a video of him pressing his couch at home. I don’t even know where to begin, so I’ll leave this one as a caption contest for the comments: