Plague of Strength

On the heels of my porn- and vitriol-packed “NoFap” article, I thought perhaps a nice counterpoint to one of the most insidious and wrongheaded theory regarding male-female interpersonal relationships- the belief that chicks won’t fuck guys shorter than them. I’m living proof that short dudes get laid, and while I’m no Wilt Chamberlain I’ve been very consensually inside enough broads that I can say if you’re jacked and a pithy asshole, height really isn’t an impediment in pulling chicks. And I likely haven’t even touched the over numbers of the jacked, pocket-sized dude over whom I would tower like Godzilla even when he was in his prime, Chuck Vinci (b. 1933 –d. 2018) .

If you imagined the little Hobbit from the walking tree movies as a jacked Olympic weightlifter who resembled nothing so much as a Honey I Shrunk the Kids version of Sylvester Stallone in 1982, you’d picture Vinci correctly. Or a taller Verne Troyer, wearing a pelt made of muscle from victims of his vicious, drunken ankle-biting adventures after the bar on Saturday night. Though Flex Lewis has seven inches and seventy pounds on Vinci at his biggest, though you wouldn’t be able to tell if the two front squatted with one another- Lewis can only get a triple to Vinci’s double with 400lbs.

Chuck Vinci Vital Statistics

• Height: 4’10”
• Weight: 123lbs
• Number of World Records: 12
• Front Squat: 400lbs x 2
• Deadlift: 600lbs at 123
• Bench: 325lbs at 132
• Strict Curl: 155lbs at 132
• Press: 295lbs at 148; 243 at 123

Though his performance on the platform was nothing short of breathtaking, it is actually his gym lifts and casual competition numbers that really had people talking. For instance, at a York Barbell picnic in 1961, Vinci pressed 250, snatched 235, and jerked 300 pounds for a total 25 pounds over the world bantamweight record and a press 7 pounds over his own record in that lift… in the pouring fucking rain, while standing on slippery plywood. And beyond that, Chuck Vinci was a fucking unit when he took his shirt off, which is frankly the point of lifting in the first place.

And before you ask, Vinci did compete in bodybuilding a couple of times, but his tiny stature just killed him competing with open weight classes. He took a DNP at the 1955 FICH Mr. Universe competition (which was won by his Olympian teammate Tommy Kono), then took second in his class at the AAU Masters Mr USA in 1980. Not exactly a breathtaking bodybuilding record, but Vinci was competing in a time when definition was definitely a distant second to size when judges compared competitors.

Not that any of that mattered, because Chuck owned mirrors- he knew he looked damn good- and he was one of the strongest men under 150lbs this side of Maxick. The last American male to pull in a gold medal for weightlifting in the Olympics, Chuck’s bonafides were solid as fuck whenever he entered a new gym, and the man had enough swagger to warrant him mention for being the best candidate for an <150lb Macho Man.

The man was essentially destined to be a badass, as he was basically Joe Pesci from Goodfellas, but built like the Italian Stallion. Born in the blue-collar brawler-filled inner city of Cleveland in 1933, Vinci was the son of Italian immigrants at a time in which we were at war with Italy… and the man had a learning disability to boot. By the time he was a teenager, the lilliputian Adonis everyone perceived to be dumber than a sack of hammers dropped out of eighth grade to become a fucking steelworker. At that age, I was still memorizing random shit out of the encyclopedia to live up to this weird “Human Dictionary” rep I had in middle school and was fight fighting kids over GI Joes at lunch, not dropping out of tween daycare to pursue the manliest career on the fucking planet.

Unlike the vast majority of us, I would think he already had two years of lifting under his belt by the time he was 14. Small for his age but always interested in fitness, at the age of 12 he began to try to lift his brother’s 105lb barbell. Though he couldn’t pull it past weight height, Vinci persisted in trying, and lifted it overhead easily before his fourteenth birthday (which is fucking insane- a bodyweight plus strict press at 14).

By the age of 15, Chuck Vinci was an apprentice steelworker and began training at the Central YMCA in Cleveland. That’s not to say he was a member of the motherfucker- he didn’t have money for the fee to join, so he scaled the wall into the Y’s property and sneaked in the back door of the weight room.

“He soon became a favorite of the weight room denizens, who admired both his emerging strength and phenomenal endurance. While others might perform several exercises and go home. Vinci would train for hours, performing virtually every weight training exercise in the book. 

While at the YMCA, Chuck was fortunate to meet Lt. Vince Ardito of the Cleveland police department. Vince taught Chuck how to perform the press, snatch and C&J. The young Vinci took to these lifts immediately and he was soon dreaming of a great career in weightlifting. We are not certain of the exact date of Vinci’s first competition, but he was barely 18 years of age and managed to perform lifts of approximately 150 lb. in the press and snatch and 180 lb. in the C&J, which was enough to garner him a second place.” (Hoffman).

Within two years of that meet, Vinci won the Ohio State AAU Championships with a 555 lb. total.  He went on to win the Junior Nationals later than year, then won Nationals the year after that. Vinci ended up winning seven straight Nationals in weightlifting that coincided with three Olympic golds and two silvers in the World Championships. In spite of the fact that he was one of our best Olympic weightlifters in history, it’s likely that more people know of a 123lb weightlifter who beat every non-heavyweight lifter on the team in arm wrestling in a single back-to-back matches.

“During their international trips, the US team would typically retire to a local beer hall after the a competition. The strength of the US team was well known around the world, but there were always some locals who doubted the “real strength” of weightlifters in general. Consequently, these locals often challenged the US team to an arm wrestling competition.

It was a such as moment that Chuck’s prowess as an arm wrestler could be very useful indeed.  It was at such a moment that one of the US lifters would say (in a seemingly innocent statement) ‘We are the greatest lifters in the world and have proven our strength in competition. Why should we bother with some local pretenders? But on the other hand, we are sporting men, respectful of the sincerity of our challengers. Therefore, we offer the following counterchallenge. Take our smallest and weakest man – little Chuck here – and see if you can make him work up a sweat. If you can, we will continue, but if not, please let us just enjoy our beers.’ 

Unaware of Vinci’s ability or endurance in arm wrestling, the locals always accepted this seemingly reasonable, if not boastful, challenge. They were confident they would summarily discharge the “little guy” and then go on to teach the Americans a lesson. Inevitably, one of their champions was brought to the table to wrestle Vinci. To his chagrin, Chuck was able to put him down. Attempts by several others met with the same results and the challengers soon had to admit that these weightlifters were incredibly strong. Little did they know that Chuck could have delivered the same result with most of the US team!” (Hoffman).

Vinci’s ability to pull off that sort of strength endurance and raw power came from two places- his years as a steelworker and his insane training volume. His training volume was similar to that of the modern Chinese weightlifting team, though without the rigid structure. He’d do full body sessions three to four days a week that lasted all day and consisted of the Olympic lifts, their component parts (like the squat), and a shitload of bodybuilding. And all day doesn’t mean a few long hours- it means eight hours or more in the gym at a time, pounding the shit out of the weights like he was a horny centaur at a pounding Bonnie Rotten’s stable of glorious tattooed sluts at an Evil Angel party.

“My confirmation of Chuck’s extraordinary endurance came from one of the very few men ever to have won National Championships in both weightlifting and powerlifting – Larry Mintz. Larry, a huge enthusiast of lifting, decided to take his vacation in York, PA one summer during the late 1950’s. Chuck happened to be training in York that summer. As Larry related the story, he walked into the York Barbell Company’s gym for a training session and saw that Chuck was already under way with his workout.  Larry was no slouch when it came to training endurance.

There were occasions when he packed his lunch, and went on to spend much of the day training. But Larry was startled by what he saw from Chuck.

Mintz’s workout lasted about 3 hours that day. During that period he performed the 3 competition lifts, pulls and squats. He finished off with a shower and went to get something to eat.

When Larry left the gym, Chuck was just as he had found him, still training.

Larry found a restaurant, had a meal and then decided to take in a movie before retiring for the day.

After the movie, Larry happened to walk by the Barbell Co. on his way toward his hotel. He noticed that the lights were on and he heard the clang of weights being lifted. Mintz wondered who might be lifting this late in the day. When he entered the gym he saw Chuck still training! A total period of more than 8 hours had expired. By the time he returned to NY, Larry certainly understood why Chuck Vinci was as great and as versatile lifter as he was. Chuck’s long sessions included many bodybuilding exercises, like bench presses and curls” (Hoffman).

Nor did Vinci take advice from anyone about anything. The man did what he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted. When the coach of the weightlifting team, legend Bob Hoffman, told him that “if you had two pounds less pectorals, you could add two pounds somewhere else on your body which would make you an even greater lifter” (Hoffman). Chuck Vinci scoffed at Hoffman’s advice- he wasn’t about to let anyone show his ass up on the bench just to put a little extra onto his total for weightlifting. He already dominated that sport and needed to spread his wings to let everyone in the strength world he was the baddest motherfucker on the block not named John Grimek.

“At a time when there wasn’t much money in weightlifting, [Chuck Vinci] lifted his heart out for the glory of it, I suppose. There was hardly anything else.”

– John Terpak

This even extended to his attempts. For world record attempts at the time, lifters could take as many as they wanted. At the Eastern Olympic Trials in 1956, Vinci made eight attempts on a world record clean and jerk (which meant ten attempts on that lift total) before finally nailing the jerk and locking it out for a new world record. Nor did that destroy him for future competitions, as he competed six days later and hit a new record total. The man’s gym workload was so insane he didn’t mind taking 10 max attempts in fifteen minutes, and his desire to win was so strong he managed to succeed after six failed attempts in a row.

After taking silver at the 1960 Olympics, it looked like Vinci’s run had ended. Embroiled in what was apparently an emotionally devastating and acrimonious divorce (cue the alt-right saddies bemoaning the plight of Papa John), the dude didn’t compete in 1962 or 63. By the time that shit had blown over, Vinci was again ready to attack the platform but suffered a horrible back injury in training. Though he missed the cutoff to make the Olympic team, he still managed a solid total at a trial a couple of weeks later. Though everyone was by then convinced that Vinci’s career had ended, he competed once more, and broke the 800lb total barrier for the first time while setting a new American record in the press (Dreschler).

Nor did he quit lifting after quitting compeition- Vinci was in it for the love of it, not for the fame or the sport itself. He made a halfhearted attempt to make the Olympic team in 1976, and made an easy 198 snatch at that time without regular training and at 43, so he retained a lot of strength. He continued hitting the gym for a few hours a day, three days a week, until heart surgery at the age of 79 slowed him down a bit. Declaring “I’m going to do it for the rest of my life,” after surgery, Vinci continued training in some capacity until his death last year, at age 85 (English).

A beast, by any reckoning. Although he famously protested that he didn’t party or even drink early in his career, the US Olympic weightlifting team in the 50’s was like Mötley Crüe in the 90s- they were inside more women every year than an OBGYN and partied their fucking asses off. If you’ll recall, two of Vinci’s teammates (and the other lightweight lifters on the team) were involved in the sex scandal that got Muscle Beach shut down, and Bob Hoffman blamed the end of their run of dominance over the Russians entirely on their obsession with pussy, booze, and weed. In other words, he and two other near midgets were pulling the hottest women in America for a solid decade.

Thus, any idea that a dude can’t get laid or end up with rad chicks due to his height are retarded- and science agrees.

“In conclusion, we have shown that all previously documented preference patterns for partner height are at least qualitatively realised in actual pairings. We note, however, that compared to random mating the magnitude of these effects was generally low, suggesting that mating preferences were only partially realised. These results are in line with a recent study that showed that traits considered strongly related to attractiveness, such as height, are not necessarily strongly related to actual pairing” (Stulp).

And irrespective of any of that shit, if you’re not strict pressing 295, you probably should be, because two dudes in the above pic did so while weighing under 150 seventy years ago, and we can’t have Silent Generation motherfuckers outlifting us, now can we?

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Sources:

Dreschler, Arthur.  Remembering Chuck Vinci: America’s Human Dynamo.  USA Weightlifting.  22 Jun 2018.  Web.  13 Fri 2019.  https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Weightlifting/Features/2018/June/22/Remembering-Chuck-Vinci-Americas-Human-Dynamo

English, Nick.  Olympic Weightlifting Champion Chuck Vinci Dead At 85.  BarBend.  14 Jun 2018.  Web.  13 Dec 2019.  https://barbend.com/olympic-weightlifting-chuck-vinci-obituary/

Hoffman, Bob.  The art of weighlifting- the press (1958).  The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  10 Nov 2010.  Web.  13 Dec 2019.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2010/11/art-of-press-bob-hoffman.html

Stulp G, Buunk AP, Pollet TV, Nettle D, Verhulst S.  Are Human Mating Preferences with Respect to Height Reflected in Actual Pairings?  PLoS One. 2013;8(1):e54186. 

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