Mikhail Koklyaev is an impressive human being. He is crazy strong in every lift you can think of, powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting. Watch the following demonstration where he does a 270kg behind-the-neck jerk, deadlifts 400kg for a triple, does a 290kg NO HAND squat, and a 190kg snatch. Egad.
His best snatch is 210kg and his best clean and jerk is 250kg. Those numbers would put him among the best in the world in the super heavyweight category, and if he trained the lifts exclusively he probably could win a gold medal. Look at this video of him push pressing 220kg (to clarify, that’s 484 lbs.):
He also has some pretty damn good powerlifting numbers. His bests are a 365kg squat, a 240kg bench, and a 415kg deadlift — all raw. In pounds that is 803, 528, and 913! He could be a top contender in powerlifting too! Here is a video of him deadlifting 415kg:
Koklyaev is a good strongman competitor — he finished on the podium for all the IFSA World Championships and has done well at the Arnold Strongman Classic (5 finishes in the top 5) and has won a lot of Strongman Champions League in Russia. Plus, he’s got some other skills. You can see more of Koklyaev’s domination of the iron at his YouTube channel.
I founds Mark Felix’s YouTube channel on accident and the video that caught my attention was a “rehab deadlift” at 340kg. The info said, “Should be back up to 400kg next month.” Good god. My interest was piqued.
Felix, as he likes to be called, is one bad mofo. He’s 6’4″, around 300 pounds, has 21.5″ arms, and 31″ thighs. The former bodybuilder began competing in strongman in 2003 at 37 years old and is a regular entrant for the World’s Strongest Man competition. He also is a two time World Champion in the Rolling Thunder competition with a one handed lift of 301 pounds on the fat, rotating handle. That’s 26 pounds more than the second highest ever.
I don’t know much about Felix aside from the fact that he’s a large, strong behemoth who was born in Grenada and now lives in the UK. He seems to be a really cool guy; he’s married with kids and is always smiling or giving a thumbs up at the end of his videos.
This is probably my favorite video of Felix. He’s training his grip, and he picks the implements up and stands there kind of awkwardly. What he does next made me laugh.
Over the last two days I watched all of Felix’s videos. His brute strength and power is amazing and he trains with intensity in everything he does. These qualities have helped him come in 4th in the World Strongest Man competition (2006, 7th place in 2007), win the aforementioned Rolling Thunder competition twice (2008, ’09), as well as place in the top three of various other strength competitions such as World Strongest Man Super Series, Europe’s Strongest Man, All-American Strongman Challenge, Britain’s Strongest man, IFSA British Championships, England’s Strongest Man, etc.
To appreciate his shear gargantuan size, watch the following atlas stone video. You’ll notice he routinely competes in a kilt (and was excited about a new kilt arriving in the mail on his Twitter page).
Felix only puts out one kind of effort when training: MAXIMAL. Two videos in particular display this very well. The first video consists of strongman training — barrel tossing in particular. Felix makes short work of tossing 10 kegs over a height of about 10 to 12 feet. The second video pits Felix against another super heavyweight Highland Games competitor in the pole push. No, perverts, it isn’t a “no homo” situation — it’s kind of like sumo wrestling, but instead of pushing the opponent, the hold and push against the same caber. Felix and his nemesis battle it out for an entire minute. It’s exhausting to watch.
Mark Felix is still going strong at the age of 44. He sets a good example by training hard, being massive, and being a nice guy. I hope that he has many more competitive years ahead of him. You can read more about his training and diet here.
I have to say that I love Brent’s articles on inspirational lifters. I’m also fond of the heroes of 70’s Big. Doug Young would make any guy and girl wet between the legs and Pisarenko sported a ‘stache that would make Ron Jeremy envious. It’s no wonder why both men are co-captains of the 70’s Big Hall of Fame. But, if I had to a pick a hero that inspired me beyond measure to train hard, it would be Sergey Litvinov.
Before I go into why Sergey Litvinov would be the first defense against Zombies, as well why he should be inducted into the 70’s Big Hall of Fame, let me give a bit of background on the man and how I came to know about him.
Litvinov is the subject of an article written by Dan John that I immediately took to heart when it was first published years back. I sincerely doubt Dan John embellished any in his article, but even if he did, I don’t care. It has inspired literally scores of people to try to emulate the same caliber of athleticism that was described in this article which can be found here. Go ahead. Google “litvinov” or “litvinov workout” and the first hit will be Dan John’s article on T-Nation as well as other related sites.
If you are too lazy to read the article, Litvinov was a gold medal winning hammer thrower that inspired American Discus Thrower John Powell to switch up his training regiment through his observations of Litvinov’s training. Dan John described the standard Litvinov workout to be very simple but extremely tough.
Try this on for size:
“Eight reps of front squats with 405 lbs., immediately followed by a 75-second 400-meter run. Repeat this little combination for a total of three times and go home, thank you. Let’s just stop here and marvel at what Powell observed. A 196 lbs. man front squatted 405… eight times!”
Let’s not forget that he did this 3 times total for a total of 24 squats at 405 lbs. Now, I don’t know about every one of you 70’s Big readers but I can back squat 405 lbs. for a double on a good day and front squat 315 lbs. The man did this eight times and then ran 400m in 75 seconds. 75 seconds is over 30 seconds slower than the current 400m world record, but is still faster than what most people can do. Compound the fact that the man squatted 405 lbs. eight times prior to running makes this an incredible feat. The only other bit of information about Litvinov’s training is from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Litvinov) and the entry states Litvinov was rumored to be able to muscle snatch 100kg / 220 lbs. for quick sets of 10. Now, whether that it is completely accurate or not doesn’t matter. The mythology surrounding this man was that he could MUSCLE SNATCH 100 kilos for quick SETS — not A set — of 10.
A few only slightly less plausible rumors about Litvinov’s capacity:
Milo carried the calf. Litvinov carried Milo.
Litvinov was known for his use of max effort box jumps to augment his power development. Typically he’d warm up at 24″, 48″, and then progress to the Matterhorn.
Once, Litvinov was accosted by a horde of angry lumberjacks. Rather than thrashing them thoroughly, as he clearly could have, he made a peace offering of beer and sausages. They drank and ate, and proceeded to see who could chop down trees the quickest. Thus, Timbersports, one of the manliest athletic events ever, was created.
I know that astute readers will catch on to the fact that he is below 200 lbs. Further, the picture of him in Dan John’s article shows that he is clean shaven. OK, so there’s a few things going against him. So why does he deserve to be inducted into the 70’s Big Hall of Fame?
I think we have established, to some extent, that 70’s Big is not merely about the physical appearance of your being. It is an attitude. It is about training as hard as you can to achieve tangible goals. Are you eating to facilitate your goals? Are you doing what you can to get as strong as you humanly can within the context of your every day life? Are you training intelligently to ensure long term success? That, among other things, is 70’s Big for me. Litvinov illustrates that he was willing to train hard to achieve his goals. After all, he is a two time Olympic medalist and set three world records in the hammer throw, which brings me to reasons as to why he would be the first defense against a Zombie invasion.
Assuming he had a good deal of strength in his other core lifts relative to his front squat, he embodies a good mix of strength and speed, which I feel is extremely important. Let’s say, for example, you had a comrade trapped under a heavy object and a group of Zombies were headed towards your direction. You would want to sprint over there and lift the object up to your partner and this might require a deadlift, or some semblance of a clean to get that object completely off the damsel — I mean, partner — in distress. Further, you want to be able to grab your partner and run if necessary. Let’s face it, you can’t be a skinny twit who can run miles but have a hard time carrying anything heavier than a water pack. Conversely, while huge strong men will generally not have an issue with lifting, heaving, and carrying heavy weight, zombies may overtake you for reasons stemming from bad conditioning. That is also assuming you get to your partner before keeling over from being out of breath. Either way, it’s not a good look. Litvinov could probably sprint over to you, pick you up, and set you upright. Then he would probably immediately sprint over to some type of cover, lift pieces of broken car and toss them at incoming zombies. If he had hammers with him, I’m sure he would make Thor jealous with how he could toss a hammer through multiple zombie heads.
So, I guess I am kind of going against the grain here with this nomination of The Litvi into the 70’s Big Hall of Fame. But, let’s face it. If I needed someone to pull me out of some wreckage in the middle of an urban jungle, I would want someone who had the uncanny strength AND conditioning to save me and other team members while carrying cinematic-movie-levels of ammunition and ordnance to combat the Zombie horde. He would also need to throw hammers at show stopping distances to let Zombie heads blossom and burst forth a sea of blood of brain matter. And finally, he would need to have the raw power to perform multiple Spartan kicks to punch a hole through a Zombie’s chest on any given day.
Kendrick Farris, an 85 kg American lifter, won a gold medal at the Pan-American Championships in Guatemala City, Guatemala. He hit a 159kg snatch and a 203kg clean and jerk that broke his own American record. Kendrick aims to win a gold medal at the 2012 Olympic games, and the hype is big since it’s been a while since American lifters did much in international competition. Farris’ Pan-Am total (362kg) was an improvement over the 358kg total he posted at this year’s Arnold Classic.
(not really impressed with the announcer in this video)
Kendrick went for 211 kilos on his third attempt, but apparently barely missed the jerk. It’s a bummer because he has made this lift in training as well as cleaning 218 (which would be a world record in the 85kg weight class) and barely missing the jerk. See the videos below.
You’ll notice that he squats his jerks, which is pretty damn impressive. Familiarize yourself with him now so that we can all root for him to make history in London in 2012.
Congratulations to two other American lifters who medaled at the Pan-Ams; Sarah Robles won silver in the 75+ class, and Donny Shankle won bronze in the 105 class.
Edit: Pat Judge won a bronze medal in the 105+ class. Sorry to leave you out, Pat. He missed a 218kg clean and jerk to win gold.
See the USA Weightlifting website for the results of other American lifters at the Pan-Ams.
