I’ve read before of a lightweight Irishman in the 1940s or 1950s who was tremendously strong.
Aside from Popeye forearms he didn’t look like much. Tall for his weight, skinny, didn’t look ripped either, a normal built light bloke.
He had a long period, the better part of a year, where all he did was train, eat, and sleep as he was capable through some life circumstance to live without an income.
(Training with the inheritance left by his mother? A flat and some cash. My recollection is hazy here. He may have moved onto his mother’s couch and spent his inheritance from another.)
He did little aside from pressing and pulling if my memory serves.
I can’t recall reading anything of him squatting, just the clean & press, bench, deadlift, and rack pull + axle stuff.
He’d alternate press day and pull days and do 100 singles. Yes you read that right, 100 singles, and they’d be in the 90% area of his 1rm.
It didn’t sound like he warmed up. Straight into heavy singles. Workouts would often take 4-6 hours, resting minutes between reps, he’d eat lightly before, maybe drink a little milk during, eat one feast immediately following, and then go to sleep.
A good clean and press, a good bench (surprisingly so what with his skinny build and long Bob Peoples length arms), past 3x bw deadlifting, it may have been around 4x bw, and the only picture I’d ever seen of the man was holding a stubby railroad axle, a super fat bar basically rack pull with a mixed grip and again over 3x bodyweight.
It came to an end, he was regularly sleeping 20 hours a day unable to eat and sleep enough combined with the long rest period 100 singles workouts each and every day.
(In what I’d read of him he stated he could really only train the 100 singles with long rests between reps, that he could only eat a meaningful amount after the days training was done, as the weight increased he found himself sleeping more and more, and when sleep was at a 20 hour requirement he didn’t have time to train fully without missing necessary eating or sleeping.)
My understanding is he basically quit lifting when income became necessary again, picking up a factory job to pay newly required rent and continued groceries.
A sad ending maybe, but the anecdote opened my eyes to what the human body is capable of when one truly pushes while basing their life around lifting heavy to the exclusion of all else.
He was sleeping on a living room couch through this, of this detail I am fully certain. I recall him speaking of this being a detail not in favor of his continued recuperation what with living rooms being an often trafficked and noisy area.
I must say he did quite well during this period of sleeping on a couch in someone else’s flat in an urban Irish slum.
Train your way. Make your gains…
-J