Australian Story
I meet all kinds of people through this website. I hesitate to accept lots of Facebook friend requests (it’s getting harder to tell a creeper from his profile picture), but I’m glad I accepted Tom’s. Tom is an Australian, ginger version of Brent Kim. Except Tom is taller. And is nothing like Brent except for his internet trolling ability.
In any case, he told a compelling story on his Facebook status the other day. I deemed it good enough to share. Behold…
February 10 at 2:00am:
I got to the gym today and as I was walking to the door I saw a hawk fly across my path. I walked over to where he’d been and saw what was left of the rooster that used to reside in a pen next to the gym (R.I.P. Blacky). I walked in to the gym and started warming up.
February 10 at 2:03am:
Later on, I went to put some water in my shaker for my PWO Shake (2 scoops waxy maize, 1.5 scoops WPC) and noticed there was a little frog in the sink drain. I undid the u-bend and Australia’s strongest powerlifter took him from me and placed him in the little garden beside the entry. I went back in to finish my chins.
February 10 at 2:04am:
Finally, as I was getting ready to leave I was notified by another mate that a goanna had arrived and decided that Blacky’s remains looked to be a delicious meal. We all stood around for 5-10 minutes and watched a goanna eat his dinner. After this, I went and collected my gear and drove home.
Goanna
The tone of this story makes me think of this video. Later in the comments, some guy (presumably Australian) said that it sounded like a Pokemon episode. Australia sounds interesting, no?
St. Patrick’s Day Sale
The 70’s Big Store is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day by offering a 17% discount on orders $35 or more. Make sure to use the coupon codes:
Additionally, the “original logo” is now available on a green shirt so that you can look excessively manly while you get excessively drunk on March 17th. Win-win. Australians also celebrate St. Patty’s Day.
Question of the Day
Do you have any sweet lifting stories from a country not in north America?
That’s not a knife, THIS is a knife.
No, that’s a spoon.
I see you’ve played knifey spoony before.
i’ve lifted a few times in a gym in Belize with no glass in the windows that’s right on the water with plates and bars so rusty they ruined my clothes.
The Dango Ate My Baybay
In the fall of 2007 I was living in London. During one lifting session at CrossFit London (which at the time was the cul de sac behind the owner’s house in Stratford, which is kind of ghetto,) Andrew (the owner) went into his house and came out with mugs of tea for everyone. I found this extremely amusing.
Going to be honest. I didn’t understand that story.
“Most of the time it’s just chill out, bean bags, cushions, that kind of thing. My teaching methods are…I guess experimental, and I go crazy sometimes–I just let loose.”
Well I spent lots of time lifting in a tent on a company FOB in Baghdad. Nice and hot, with the occasional spider or scorpion. Watched our XO deadlift over 600 pounds in a platoon competition we had one day, which left our cheap ass bar bent beyond repair. That guy was an animal! He ate Iraqi children that we gathered up on patrol just to satisfy his hunger. He was around 6’2″ 275.
I think the point was, Nicola, that he trained in an environment few others get to train in. Firstly, he trains with the strongest guy in Australia and in addition to this a bunch of cool stuff happened (rescuing the frog/seeing the hawk+goanna) while he was smashing weights.
@StillGrowing
Pump ya’ brakes kid, that man is a national treasure.
@DCROOKS
You know that’s a true story? A dingo ate that lady’s baby.
hilarious “George Washington” video.
no sweet lifting stories from other countries.
Western Ireland 2004 i drove into the cinder driveway of a small pub for breakfast at 7am. As I came in from the main road i noticed two burly men lifting what appeared to be a carcass in a plastic bag. Using nice form, they heaved it up and into the dumpster without much effort. I promptly returned to my shitty little rental vehicle and sped back out to said main road.
jordan, were you lifting in a prison?
I soon as I read this post I knew it was Tom Vale, I remember reading it myself on Facebook yesterday, indeed very strange but it can be par for the course in Australia.
We had a lifter try to out yoke walk a common snake-neck tortoise that strolled by the gym one time. That tortoise could yoke walk about 17 times its body weight vs 2.25 times for the mere 70’s Big human.
Reptilian fauna= 70’s Big
That shirt moderately reminds me of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”, at first glass. I’ve no idea why.
I was once involved in a pull-up contest on a remote island owned by the australian military off the eastern coast of australia. Only there was no pull-up bar, just a tree branch. I won.
Not foreign, but might as well have been.
I once drove over 2 hours to a gym in north central Texas. When I got there, there were two guys lifting, one huge dude named Chris was doing rack pulls and the other, Mike, was doing good mornings. Chris walked over to Mike and asked, “what are you doing there?” Mike responded with a puzzled look on his face (paraphrasing), “Good mornings, they are a fairly common powerlifting movement.” Then a guy named Justin taught me how to squat while Chris stared at me like a creep.
That place was crazy.
This story is top notch.
–Justin
Not a very cool story but, I just got my squat technique fixed by the Danish national powerlifting team coach. Check the vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIlJgGlxeCQ
Set one and three is with the new technique. Set two is with old technique. He basically just told me to point my feet straight ahead.
Oh, and I just ordered a slow cooker. Time to make some delicious Texas Chili!
Justin, do you have any guides available for the T-shirt sizes?
Yep, they are available right there on spreadshirt.com.
–Justin
I’m not the only one who read the story in an australian accent right?
^Well, I did too, but I’m Australian. Does that still count?
Is this Tom fellow lifting in a gym, or a fricking zoo?!
Don’t be fooled, though, folks – I don’t doubt what Tom said happened, but most trips to the gym in Australia aren’t like a National Geographic doco. Oh, and there aren’t kangaroos roaming the streets…
Sapper is clearly an imposter. There are definitely kangaroos roaming the streets.