I’ll announce the winners of the face contest tomorrow. This video is more important. This is a video of 20 year-old Olympic weightlifter Pat Mendes squatting 363kg/800 lbs. Completely raw. He weighs 130kg/286 lbs.
As previous discussed, Pat has dual citizenship in USA and Brazil, so he’ll probably be lifting for one of these countries in the 2012 Olympics. His goal is to win gold medals and set world records — very exciting regardless of which country he lifts for.
Pat is coached by John Broz in Las Vegas. Check out the BROZKNOWS YouTube Channel for more videos of his lifters. Here is the website to Average Broz’s Gymnasium.
This is one of the most impressive lifting feats I’ve seen. This could be because posting training videos on the internet didn’t happen until recently, so we don’t have tape on guys like Pisarenko, Krastev, Dimas, or Kurlovich. In your opinion, what is the most impressive strength feat you’ve seen?
Follow the jump for another impressive vid.
26 thoughts on “More Mendes”
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Koklyaev’s behind the neck jerk in Glasgow is the most impressive thing that comes to mind.
That whole video of Koklyaev in Glasgow is pretty awesome!
Justin, surprised you haven’t done a post on Travis Ortmayer yet. Did you know that he is besties-with-testes w/ Koklyaev and also named his newborn son Mikhail after him?
—–
The Texas Stone Man would be a good topic for a post. I’ve followed him for a bit. If you watched all of the videos of “How to Eat Mongolian BBQ,” you saw big Phil eating and talking in the video. Travis called Phil while we were eating to discuss overhead work. It was a good dinner.
-Gant
I think I blew out my knee just from watching him hit bottom and rebound. When this whole Olympics thing is done he could clean up in the world of raw powerlifting, assuming his bench and deadlift are just above average. Incredibly powerful.
I read something about him a while back. If memory serves, he is the guy who wants to get paid to lift and since the USA doesn’t pay it’s amatuer athletes, he is considering lifting for Brazil even though he lives and trains in the USA>
Correct. He wants to make a living in lifting. Can’t blame him for the commitment and time he has and will put in.
–Justin
Damn it I hit the “submit” button to soon……..
If he is who I am thinking of, as strong as he is, his reasoning bothers me. Having duel citizenship should not mean duel loyalty. He lives and trains here, went to high school here, enjoys our country and everything that entails, and he is willing to lift for another country for money? Talk about a slap in the face?
I couldn’t find anything on Google to support my statements, but I’m pretty sure it was him. If not, I apologize.
You got the right guy. Back up a second and think about the possibility that he won’t make, I don’t know, $10 million in the USA, but he would if he lifted for Brazil. What would you do in that situation? Kind of hard to say, especially because you won’t have that choice.
–Justin
Is this a joke? He owes the United States a gold medal because he got a public education? Many–perhaps most–amateur athletes outside of the big sports pay their own way. A lot of our Olympians rack up significant debt to compete out of love for their sport and their country. Why the hell would any sane person do this if he didn’t have to?
-Gant
20 years old Norwegian Carl Yngvar Christensen with a 1025kg total… Brutal!
I hope this will be answered:
Justin and Brent and others as well, as OLifters, what do you do high bar or low bar or both?
Brent and I low bar. It’s important to note that I haven’t done much O-lifting since nationals and Brent has pretty much been exclusively strength training since about a year ago with some O-lifting sprinkled in. I doubt there are many other O-lifters who low bar. I think there is utility in the high bar, but the low-bar is much more important. I guess I can post about this soon.
–Justin
@KrisG – Man, you do have a puny memory and lousy reading skills. Just click the link “previous discussed” in today’s post that is just below the first video.
And, if he wants to do this at an olympic level, he invests a lot of fucking time, energy and money. The USA not suporting the athletes just shows how little they care and a lot of dumbness.
@simonsky – This has already been discussed: low bar.
Great. Just what I needed to see.
Sitting at home with an annoying cold that stops me from going to the gym.
Must.
Do.
More.
Squats.
@ simonsky,
I think most of the 70s big people use low-bar, rippetoe style squatting.
As an OL guy, I like high-bar. I would imagine it comes down to preference, but I can see how both styles have carryover to the olympic lifts.
Preference is snubbed by utility. That isn’t to say I think you’re wrong, just the reasoning is. I’ll explain sometime soon in a post.
–Justin
Dennis Cieri- monster bench presser.
198 pound lifter – best raw benches of 525lbs http://www.ironscene.com/videos/586_dennis_cieri_-_525_raw_bench_press_at_198
529.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxIhi58AyNM
… and 528.4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrS2uD84ohQ
lifetime drug free and holds many world and national records in USAPL, 100% RAW and many other feds, equipped and raw.
College GameDay highlighted Alabama’s running back, Trent Richardson, last Saturday. Apparently the guys has a
460 lb. Bench
650 lb. Squat
325 lb. Power Clean
The strength coach said he gets the weight easily, but won’t let him do more.
I once saw Justin Lascek do dips between two chairs in a bar. I was impressed.
Jeezy, since when are you hanging out here??
I’ve recently converted to high bar. I still like low bar and think it has its uses, but high bar seems to have gotten my vertical moving up again after years of stagnation. I’ve argued for low bar at length, so don’t think I don’t understand that it’s a good choice, but it seems for sheer leg power high bar is treating me pretty good right now.
This may have been covered in earlier posts but I couldn’t find anything by searching.
One of the 70s Big principles is encouraging others to test themselves in competition. Do you guys have any recommendations for how someone who has never even been to a meet can find one, get signed up and train for it? I’m beginning to think I’ve got some real lifting ability/potential. I think it might be within reach to train for some sort of competition next year and put up some respectable numbers. But I don’t know where to start.
Most impressive lift I’ve ever seen:
A 68 year old man who lifts at my gym (which is a commercial fitness facility aka Weak-Sauce City, USA), who is a two-time cancer survivor and can still Deadlift 405…oh and did I mention he can no longer bend his knees, so it’s a STIFF LEG Deadlift?!? Insane.
It’s definitely the most impressive strength feat I’ve seen. And the most inspiring.
@Maslow-
Just use your google fu on whatever type of competition you are interested in competing in — Oly, PL, Highland, Strongman, etc. Most PL federations will let you “join” their federation (pay the fee) at the competition as long as you are registered in time to compete.
Gant, no it wasn’t a joke. He owes the USA some loyalty because he is an American. Again I couldn’t find it, but I believe he is an American who only has Brazilian citizenship through a parent, and has never lived as a Brazilian. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. It’s a lot more than an education vs a medal. I guess I’m in the minority now days but you couldn’t pay me enough to wear the flag of another country, whether it be a military uniform, Olympic uniform, or sanitation worker, no matter how many countries I legally had citizenship. There are a lot of ways to make a lot of money in this world working for other countries. It doesn’t make it right.
“Swat”, I didn’t read about the guy on this website, so it has nothing to do with my memory, and I missed the link to the previous post. Did you have anything to actually add to the discussion?
Justin, I did not see your response the first time, only Gants. You’re correct, I don’t have the opportunity to make $10M working for another country, but there are a lot of opportunities making in the $100K+ range for people that can do certain jobs, some of which I could do. I’d never consider doing anything that does against the interest of my country, whether a sport or anything else.
@KrisG: I don’t see how lifting for another country is “against the interest” of the USA. It’s just competing in a sport (that hardly anybody in the USA cares about, by the way), not making nuclear weapons. I know that if I could make $10 million somewhere else doing what I love, I’d damn sure do it, so long as it didn’t cause anybody else any harm.
@Maslow: If you want to find a powerlifting meet somewhere, it’s as easy as going to http://www.powerliftingwatch.com and searching for them.
Mendes doesn’t owe anything to, and shouldn’t be obligated to compete for (and probably win medals for) a country that isn’t willing to support his efforts.
I’ve always liked Suleymanoglu’s 190kg Clean and Jerk @ 60kg bodyweight from 1988.
@Maslow, i think there have been a few posts about preparing for a comp, if you look it up. and if you’re interested in PL Rygor’s got it right with powerlifting watch, otherwise North American Strongman http://nastrongman.com/ or just search… pick up the phone and call the meet director once you’ve found where you want to compete and ask questions.
as for feats of strength – training with a strongman – 420lb stone for reps to i think 48″ box was damn impressive
or benching at the gym with a 165lb guy doing 400+ for reps (yes in a shirt)
KrisG, are you high?
He’s made some huge sacrifices. He’s not pursuing higher education, he had to turn down football scholarships, and he trains hard 2x/day every day. That’s an immense price to pay for being good at a sport that nobody in the U.S. really gives a shit about. He SHOULD lift for Brazil, and he doesn’t owe America anything. America seems almost to actively undermine olympic lifting through our bastardization of fitness and strength. I was astounded when I made a trip to Colombia. Almost every commercial gym has proper weightlifting equipment and it’s almost a 3rd world country. Contrast this with our American Planet Weakness/La Fitness culture.
Why on earth would he give up being paid to lift weights just to show loyalty to a country that refused to do anything to facilitate weightlifting success?
If someone really cares, an American (or company, ala Stihl Timbersports) should bankroll his Olympic aspirations. Everything else is just idle chatter.
Americans don’t care about weightlifting, and don’t obsess about beating other countries in sports, like literally every other country, especially the non-Western ones. Not exactly a great case for government subsidy.
I have heard some of the guys mentioned (Krastev, Pisarenko, etc) in training would routinely set world records but had to scale back the amount of drugs they were on for worlds, olympics, etc.
Pat is incredible and we have the video evidence of how strong he is. I agree with KrisG’s sentiment of patriotism but the bottomline is USAW is nearly a joke and at a certain point you gotta figure you win the medal for yourself, not really your country, and if you can get paid to do that and live off your hard work, you have to take that opportunity.