Talk:Paul Anderson (weightlifter)

inspiration

during my high school football years in late 1950's, paul anderson was in the news often and an inspiration, not only to me, but to many kids, and his lifting feats amazing...

and that led on many of us to be much stronger than normal...

and, esp amazing was his not being injured by lifting these amazingly heavier amounts, which i still don't understand ... as e.g 6,000 lb back lift ????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.194.80.116 (talk) 15:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No documentation of 627 bench press

I see this same claim other places, always with no documentation. Paul was certainly a strong guy and was the best Olympic lifter of his day, there's also a lot of legend attached to him. Another Wikipedia article on Progression of the bench press world record shows the first bench over 600 pounds occurring in '67, which I believe was well after Anderson's competitive lifting days. Certainly he could have continued to work out but I challenge anyone to show any genuine documentation of this lift...or some of the other non-competition lifts mentioned for that matter.

I find this article http://www.bobwhelan.com/history/panderson.html with statements attributed to Paul in which he says:

"The 627-pound bench press is a little slight of what I've actually done. I could only pinpoint this particular lift when asked about it. If I am not mistaken, I did this either on Muscle Beach or with a group from the beach that gathered at my residence in Los Angeles."

So not only is there no photo or film documentation, he can't even specify exactly when or where he supposedly did the lift. This doesn't constitute documentation.Henrydeutschendorf (talk) 06:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Only the 3 Olympic lifts and the total under official records in the PRs section is 100% accurate/ can be proved. Everything else is exaggerated. Nir007H (talk) 10:12, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

backlift may have been closer to 5000 pounds

I don't know much about this source but it makes a fair argument:

http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/IGH/IGH0603/IGH0603m.pdf

©Geni (talk) 23:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

this entry from the same asks more http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/IGH/IGH0701/IGH0701e.pdf Dave Rave (talk) 08:29, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Personal records

Hello @The Pittsburgher, thanks a lot for further developing this section. Can you help me to clarify below points:

930 lb (421.8 kg) squat: Do you know the source for this 1965 Silver Spring, Maryland exhibition? It has been there in Wikipedia for a while but I'm pretty sure it and 1965 Dallas, Texas exhibition is about the same lift. I think we should keep only one of them, and my recommendation also is 'Dallas, Texas' as mentioned in the source.

Rest of the squats: It is obvious that the 1,206.5 lb (547.3 kg) claim & John Grimek's 900 lb (408.2 kg) for 10 were definitely 'not to depth'. Casey's 800 lb (362.9 kg) for 10 is believable, and I think we should add a remark on the depth uncertainty for the first two.

1976 Don Reinhoudt's 934.5 lb (423.9 kg) squat: What exactly were the knee specification (wraps/ sleeves) on this lift?

Kono's near 1,000 lb (453.6 kg) for reps deadlift: Too ambiguous in my opinion. How much near? 990? 950? 900? 850? How many reps? 2, 3, 5, 10? The 820 lb (371.9 kg) max is also a claim and the actual WR didn't reach 820 until 1971. Having Kono's statement questions the credibility of 'Assisted deadlift (using metal hooks attached to the wrists) – 1,000 lb (453.6 kg)' in my opinion. I suggest to add a clause 'this number can be anywhere from 820 to 1000 and the rep range can also be anywhere from 2 and upwards'.

Push press: I believe the 545–600 lb (247.2–272.2 kg) range is definitely starting from an 'elevated position', and we should mention that based on the tree suspension footage. Don't you agree that the numbers are way above what was officially proved including self claimed ones which are most probably the actual numbers off the top of chest/ shoulders?

Silver dollar safe squat: The Strongest Man in History's calculation is not just a mere estimation. They used the weight of the coins used those days, the number 15k and the dimensions of the safes and showed that if the 2 safe's were filled completely, the weight would have been 4209 lb.

Bottomline is most of the numbers are having far too much of a weight range and plenty of room for exaggeration. The max's and rep ranges do not correlate to each other. Too much of ambiguity. There's a reason why Guinness also took down the Back lift. I strongly insist to keep 'Claims' instead of Unofficial Records as the sub heading. Nir007H (talk) 10:05, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Nir007H, I appreciate the time you've been putting in to these articles and would definitely like to help out. As you can see, one of the biggest problems researching feats of strength from this era is that many aren't well documented and that there's been a significant "grapevine" effect wherein multiple retellings cause the facts to become distorted. This is somewhat true for Reinhoudt and especially true for Paul. Regarding the following:

Paul's 930 lb squat: It appears you might be right, that it was at Dallas rather than Silver Spring. This version of the page (https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Paul_Anderson_(weightlifter)&oldid=518917676) added by Yozkopf on 20 October 2012 is the earliest mention. In the article I linked (Bruce Wilhelm's on Scribd), there's an insert by Randall Strossen where he explains that Paul went straight from 820 to 930 lbs, and that it was at a powerlifting contest. No location is mentioned, only that it was in 1965. This indicates that the weight was indeed known with some precision.

Paul DID perform an exhibition at the Silver Spring Boys' Club - Marty Gallagher reports in both his book ([1]) and this article ([2]) that he was in the audience when Paul clean and pressed 420 lb (190.5 kg) and squatted 900 lbs (408 kg) for 5 reps in socks. Gallagher's only relevant discrepancy is that his accounts do not agree whether this was in 1965 or 1966.

I agree with the page change here, and will also add the Silver Spring exhibition.

A 1,200 lb squat and 900 lb for 10 reps?: A 1,200 lb full squat is, in my opinion, not believable. It would be creeping up on 4x bodyweight for a Superheavyweight lifter, something you normally see only in lighter divisions. Based on Paul's training routine this is a clear case of partial ROM squats being misconstrued as full squats.

The 900 for 10 claim comes from John Grimek, himself a very respected figure in the "Iron Game." But Grimek couldn't even remember what decade he saw it in. Gallagher's 900 for 5 in socks is the only feat that comes close, and even then it's 5 reps vs 10. Moreover, Paul seemed to like squatting in socks or even barefoot - see his 762 lb record and other images on Google; even here he took off his boots for this squat set - so it's not certain how much if anything Paul got from squatting in shoes. It's also worth mentioning that to my knowledge Paul himself only claimed 800 for 10.

Paul's training routine: Gallagher lists the training routine I added as being from around 1955. I think the timeline on this should be taken somewhat loosely and was going to amend it today. For one thing, squatting 900 for 2 reps that early is a little much, even for him: Jim Murray's article, "Superman from the South" had Paul's best single in early 1954 as 820 lbs, while later that year he broke several ribs and suffered a hip injury in a car accident (Dominic Morais and Jan Todd, "Lifting the Iron Curtain" in "Iron Game History" Vol. 12 No. 2, page 25). The inclusion of heavy bench press training narrows it down to two possible time periods: 1955-57 and 1965 (Per Paul and Terry Todd, those were the only times Paul regularly trained the bench). The article you posted by Charles Poliquin references the same training routine, but states that it dated from "after [Paul's] Olympic lifting career," i.e., after November-December 1956.

Taking Paul's statement in his autobiography that he trained at 95% intensity, it implies he was capable of something in this ballpark at the time he was hitting those numbers in training:

• Squat: ~950 lbs
• Overhead press ~425 lbs
• Push press ~490 lbs
• Bench press ~575 lbs
• Deadlift ~850 lbs

(Calculation is made on the basis of taking a 1rm from the top set and then assuming Paul could do 2 reps with that weight. The numbers actually correspond quite well to many of Paul's more well documented lifts, for example, he did 2 reps of 424 lbs in the clean and press in 1958 and just missed a 3rd. He also push pressed 500 lbs the year before in 1957.)

For comparison, Jeff Everson wrote in 1985 that in his prime (early 60s) Paul started his routine with 3 sets of 10 at 600 lbs before moving up to 800-850 for sets of 4-6, followed by half squats at 1200 and quarter squats at 1500. Everson estimated that in a powerlifting setting Anderson would have done 900-600-780.

Reinhoudt's 934 squat: Based on the info I have, Reinhoudt squatted 934.5 raw at Findlay Ohio on April 10, 1976. In his interview with Power Magazine, this lift is said to have been done without wraps (really Ace bandages, whose supportive effect was probably closer to modern sleeves). On Reinhoudt's main wiki article the lift is also given as "without wraps," but the link in the citation only says 'raw without a suit.' This YouTube video shows Reinhoudt squatting 934, but he's clearly wearing knee wraps here. The reason I didn't change it is because Don had several (3 or 4) meets where he totalled over 2,350 lbs raw, and I'm not sure this was the only time he squatted that weight.

The video, incidentally, is different from Don's total of 2,420 (915 squat, 610 bench, 895 deadlift). On that occasion the deadlift was found to be 9.5 pounds underweight, and so the referees subtracted 9.5 lbs from his other lifts as well, making the revised total 2,391.5 lbs.

Kono's anecdote: Wilhelm does not mention when the lift happened or under what setup. I think 820 lbs is too low relative to the 1000 lb claim; Kono would have just specified it. The only other specific I have is that in 1992 Steve Neece wrote an article criticizing Anderson's (and others) claims, one of which is a 960 lb (435.5 kg) equipped deadlift. (Randall Strossen fired back at this in Wilhelm's article, calling Neece's article "poorly researched.").

Bottom line on this is that I think it belongs in the same category as Grimek's anecdote, i.e. "claimed but date and circumstances uncertain."

Push presses: Paul used a variety of setups and specially built pieces of equipment for his workouts, because of this we can't say definitively whether a given record was done in this way or that. (Regarding a claim of 600 lbs for three reps attributed to Bob Hise: rather than a full jerk, this was actually 600 lbs for three reps to forehead height.)

Silver Dollar safe squat: Not just the silver dollars, but the weight of the apparatus as well. Both the apparatus and the extent to which the safes were filled had to be estimated. For sure it wasn't 1100 lbs, but we don't know if it was exactly 720 either.

Claims and Unofficial Records: The reason I prefer to keep both "claims" and "unofficial records" is because some of Paul's lifts are better sourced than others. Perhaps there can be a subdivision between the two. A last bit on that, not only the backlift, but also the 1200 squat, 628 bench, and 820 deadlift were removed from Guinness due to lack of documentation. The Pittsburgher (talk) 19:58, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @The Pittsburgher, I'll carefully go trough every point you mentioned and do some amendments. Will let you know once I'm done to further fine tune. Lets work on this together. Nir007H (talk) 22:54, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

My amendments are done @The Pittsburgher. Let me know your feedback.

I believe we need that differentiation because it is unfair for other legends (I have developed personal records sections of hundreds of strength legends across different strength sports) if we keep claims of Paul under unofficial records. Some claims are blatant exaggerations and they do not tally with one rep max calculations and defies common sense. There's a reason why the claims are disputed by many individuals. For examples: Paul's claim of squatting 1206.5 raw when the current raw WR squat after six decades is 1157 by Vlad (with all the enhancements there is to the sport and athletes) is preposterous. Bob Peoples' 700+ deadlifts themselves are claims which are disputed and are not officially recognized. I can go on... Nir007H (talk) 00:56, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the edits you have made and the format of that section. Though, with Peoples' deadlift - if I recall it was weighed out to 725.75 lbs (329.2 kg) and several others were weighed out officially. I would be interested to hear the controversy on that. Also if I'm not mistaken Terry Todd rather than Peoples wrote about the 930 squat.

Back to Paul: I found an interesting angle that may have been the source of the "1000 lb deadlift;" it comes from Paul himself. In these two articles - "How I Developed my Pulling Power" and "The Big Pull," he describes how, in his words:

"I was constantly in search of more helping movements, especially for my second pull. In this search I went through many of the well-known pulling exercises such as high pulls, upright rowing, one hand pull and continental cleans. I felt that all of these had helped my pull, but I still had not found the lift to do for my second pull what the dead lift had done for the first.

As I gave this problem more thought I realized the best second pull exercise I was then doing was a continental clean. The next thought that came to mind was to work into a heavier variation of the continental clean. Putting this idea to work, I tried using weights I was only able to pull high off of my continental belt. This seemed to work, but still was not exactly what I was looking for. Then I made the greatest discovery of my lifting career. To do this exercise I made a steel belt which I will describe in the following paragraph.

The belt was made of thin spring steel and shaped to fit my girth. In front there were two hooks, also of steel, and extended downward about six inches from the bottom of the belt. They were so spaced that one was directly in front of each thigh. Then I covered the belt with leather and attached a buckle. By cinching the belt around my waist I was able to take very heavy weights from a rack onto the hooks, give a great leg heave, pull high with my arms, and then return the weight to the hooks. By repeating this assistance exercise in reps and sets I was able to handle over 1,000 pounds with the high pulling muscles."

Furthermore, he describes how it was done in more detail:

"This shrugging motion should be done by lowering the bar from three to four inches below the waist and giving as high a pull as possible, attempting something like an upright rowing motion. These should be done in high repetitions (up to 10 reps), with a weight that can be pulled 6” above the waist. The continental clean should be done off of a comfortable heavy belt, pulling the bar to the cleaning position, lowering it to the belt once more, cleaning again, repeating this movement up to about five repetitions. In another article a couple of years ago I explained how I had used a much heavier belt with heavy steel hooks to perform this movement. This heavier belt gave me the opportunity to use greater weight than could be used on a regular continental belt. Either way, a great third pull can be developed."

So, a high pull with the assistance of leg drive from 6 inches below the waist to 6 inches above the waist. It may or may not have been what Kono described, but many details (deadlift-like motion, metal hooks, 1000 lbs for reps) do line up. Kyriakos Grizzly-esque!The Pittsburgher (talk) 01:46, 26 September 2024 (UTC)