Plague of Strength

Ah, the internet- on the one hand, a boon to humanity by placing an unimaginable amount of information and pornography at one’s fingertips, while on the other hand a megaphone for the least intelligent, least well educated, saddest, useless, violently dogmatic, and unimaginative troglodytes by which they can pollute the zeitgeist with their cretinous thoughts.  By far and away the worst cesspools in which these halfwits congregate are messageboards, on which people with absolutely no justification for holding an opinion about anything feel free to spew their idiocy to the detriment of their fellow man, and it was here that the concept of a manlet was born.  Variously described as a man shorter than 6′, 5’7″, or 5’5″, and usually described as weighing under 200 lbs, manlets have become the whipping boys of the chubby internet warriors of lifting messageboards, who assert (wrongly) that anyone of those dimensions could not possibly know what they’re talking about in regards to lifting.

Why this phenomenon began is a mystery I highly doubt anyone cares enough to resolve.  It could be the propensity for neophytes obsessed with having ripped abs at a bodyweight that would shame an Olsen twin into eating to ask stupid questions of their equally clueless peers, or perhaps it’s the result of rampant outrage by people who are both weak and fat at the audacity one might have to simply be weak rather than fat, or it could simply be the outgrowth of the repeatedly discredited theory of the Napoleonic complex.  Whatever the source of the manlet concept, however, it’s high time one of us jacked dwarves climbed atop a stepladder and reasserted the dominance over strength sports we’ve rightly held for much of human history.

The dominance we’ve held, you ask?  Pish posh!  Short motherfuckers have never dominated strength sports, have they?  As it happens, yeah, we kind of have- it’s just that no one’s noticed because you can’t see us.  Here’s a short list of “manlets” of note:

First of all I laugh…
Mr. Olympias:

1977-1979 Frank Zane 5’7″, 185 lbs.  In spite of the fact that he was skinny and only trained for aesthetics (though he did do one proto-powerlifting meet in the 1960s and hit a 425 deadlift, 285 bench press and 155 curl weighing 175), Zane was still capable of hitting 375 for ten on the squat, reps with 220 on seated behind the neck presses, and high rep dips with a couple of plates strapped to his waist.  Certainly these aren’t massive strength feats, but they would generally tend to indicate he was far more skilled a lifter than the vast majority of internet message board chumps.

1976, 1981 Franco Columbo 5’3″, 185 lbs.  If you don’t know who Franco is, you might want to just find a nice place to lay down and die.  Well, read this first, then go die. 

1982 Chris Dickerson 5’5″, 189 lbs.  Frankly, I have no idea how strong Dickerson was- there isn’t much information online about it.  What I can tell you, however, is that dude trained more on your average Tuesday than most lifters do in a week- according to the anti-broscientists of the interwebs, Dickerson shouldn’t have lived past the first Thursday of a training cycle.

1983 Samir Bannout, 5’5″, 193 lbs.  Feel free to call Samir Bannout a bitch.  He was a decent oly lifter and rocked insanely strict bent over rows with 315 for sets of 20.  If there’s a lifter on the internet who’s ever even attempted a set like that with that weight and “calls out manlets” on the regular, I’ll eat my fucking laptop

Strongmen:

Maxick 5’3″, 147 lbs.  Everyone worth a shit already knows who Maxick is, which virtually gurantees the dipshits on message boards don’t.  School those stupid sons of bitches.

Hermann Saxon 5’8″, 168 lbs and Kurt Saxon 5’8″, 170 lbs.  Though you’d vener know from their bodyweights, these motherfuckers could eat.  Training for hours a day burned a lot of calories, and they ate even more than they lifted, it seemed.  Both of these guys were massively strong, trained and performed with Arthur Saxon, and were accomplish acrobats and wrestlers as well- Hermann could jump forward or backward over a dining table at will.    Who gives a fuck what they weighed?  They were out-drinking, out-eating, out-fucking, and out-lifting everyone else on the planet for years.

Joe “The Mighty Atom” Greenstein 5’4″, 140 lbs.  Bizarrely attired and overly hirsute Joe Greenstein is apparently one of the most famous strongmen of the 20th century, though I don’t think I’ve ever heard his name mentioned in any conversation about strongmen.  Nevertheless, this tiny little Jewish immigrant drew huge crowds for his feats of strength, and both survived a gunshot wound to the forehead (his skull didn’t even crack) and beat down 18 Nazis simultaneously armed with nothing but a baseball bat and a bellyfull of hate.  Dat Bear Jew rage.

Stumpy Raynes 5’4″, 300 lbs.  I wonder how long a keyboard warrior would live after calling Stumpy a “manlet” to his face.  Stumpy competed at 242 in powerlifting (posting a solid 836 squat and 814 deadlift), qualified for the WSM on his first attempt and finished in 10th place in 2001, in spite of the fact he is too short to see over any of the boxes for the stone load, rocks a 363 Log Lift and a 385 Apollon’s Axle, and has a pile of bodybuilding medals.  One might say that he didn’t do much as a strongman, but his 10th place finish in 2001 is basically on par with Spudd Webb’s win at the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk competition, given the massive handicap his height gave him. 

Olympic Weightlifters:

John Grimek 5’8″, 195 lbs.  John “The Fucking Manlet” Grimek- Again, if you don’t know, you ought to.  
Pyrros Dimas 5’8″, 181 lbs.  As a Greek Albanian, one would have expected Dimas to have a long and unremarkable career as an unemployed car thief with a penchant for chugging olive oil.  Instead of going into what seems to be the only lines of work available to Greeks and Albanians, however, Dimas decided to get off his ass and set some records in Olympic weightlifting, collecting three golds and a bronze in four consecutive Olympics

Naim Süleymanoğlu 4’10”, 137 lbs.  Chain-smoking Turkish weightlifting juggernaut Süleymanoğlu earned himself the nickname “Pocket Hercules” in his quest to nab three golds in Olympic weightlfting over three Olympics for two different countries.  Tiny, swarth, and covered in that uniquely southern European hair shirt, Süleymanoğlu is a diminutive legend with whom no one can fuck.

Kim Un Guk 5’2″, 137 lbs.  North Korea’s worth about as much to the world as a hobo’s boot used by gay foot fetishist homeless men as a cum receptacle, but Kim Un Guk is an exception to the DPRK’s nearly flawless record of making Transnistria seem like a coveted vacation destination.  In the last Olympics, Guk’s first, Guk managed to set a world record total while tying the World Record and setting a new Olympic Record in the snatch.

Powerlifters:

Larry Pacifico 5’6″ 198 lbs – 242 lbs.  Larry Pacifico, at 5’6″ and 198 lbs, is not going to earn any cred on Bodybuilding.com, but that’s cool- he’s just a manlet to whom Bill Kazmaier referred as a “god” of powerlifting.  One of the greatest lifters ever, Pacifico was an unstoppable beast on the platform and remains a world record holder in the total at 242 lbs… in spite of the horrible tragedy that was his height, apparently.

Ernie Frantz 5’5″ 165-220lbs.  The founder of the APF and possessor of one of the best sets of calves in history, Frantz was still pulling 600 in competition at age 70 and squatted 516 at age 74.  To call him a beast simply wouldn’t do the man justice- he’s more like a demigod.  
   
Other manlets of note:

Danny Padilla, 5’2″, 190lbs at his heaviest.  Danny trained 6 days a week with massive volume and extremely short rests.  He’s been caught on video squatting 405 for sets of twelve weighing under 190, and benched 450 when he was closer to 180 lbs.  Yeah, sounds like something that motherfucker ought to be ashamed of.  If he sucked any harder he’d likely spend all of his time in his parents’ basement talking shit on Bodybuilding.com.

Eddie Robinson, 5’6″, 220lbs.  Like Padilla and Platz, Robinson began his career as a powerlifter, and was a fucking good one.  At one point, Robinson held world records in the bench press as a teenager, hitting 575 and 610 on the bench rocking nothing thicker than a t-shirt.  Apparently Robinson hated bodybuilding, but it was the only way for him to get paid to lift, so he set about becoming a staple in Weider mags for ten years… mostly for training like a total psychopath.

Tom Platz, 5’8″ 195lbs.  Platz began his career as a powerlifter and won the State Championships in Michigan in powerlifting’s hypercompetitive late 1970s scene.  Thereafter, he became well known for his squatting prowess after learning to squat under the great Norbert Schmansky and constantly training legs with olympic weightlifters.  Platz was hugely strong for a sub 200 lifter– during his precontest prep for the 1986 Mr. Olympia, Platz busted out a set of 15 reps with 635 without knee wraps or a suit, and reportedly had a 765 single at one point.  I suppose this means we can just toss out the “no one under 200 lbs knows shit about training” bit, right?

Marvin Eder, 5’7″ 190 lbs.  Eder was a strength athlete and bodybuilder at a time when no one really gave much of a shit about either, and he moved more weight than most people could possibly fucking conceive, just because fuck gravity, that’s why.  He could do a strict press with 330, bench 515 at a time when bench presses barely existed, and even at 75 years of age was still dipping with 70 lbs chained to his waist.  To call him a monster among men does the man about as much credit as calling internet warriors dickless bitches- there just isn’t enough hyperbole on the planet to adequately describe either.
  
As if that weren’t a strong enough pedigree, Chris Beardsley did some interesting regressions in an effort to determine if there was a trend in height and weight among bodybuilders.  As you can see, there really isn’t much of a strong correlation.  What you can see, however, is that fully half of the Mr. Americas in the 30 years after the invention of the television were under 200 lbs and roughly a quarter of them were also under 5’8″.

• Muscle fiber composition.  The ratio of type I to Type IIa and Type IIb muscle fibers plays a key role in a lifter’s strength (Butt).
• Muscle fiber thickness.  The number of muscle fibers appears to have far less to do with one’s strength than does the thickness of the muscle fibers (Butt).  
• Muscle length.  The longer a muscle fiber, the stronger it is (Haffajee).
• Joint angle.  The angle of joint flexion constantly changes the force curve generated by the muscle being flexed (Haffajee and Progressive).
• Speed of contraction.  The speed of contraction is going to be, in many way, dependent upon the aforementioned muscle fiber composition (Butt).
• Connective tissue (everything from the site of attachment to tendon and ligament strength and thickness).  The stronger the connective tissue, the greater load a muscle can bear (Butt).

Conversely, shit like testosterone doesn’t correlate with height at all, and neither does strength.  How anyone developed an idea to the contrary is beyond me, but it’s time to put that retarded baby back in the dumpster where the morons of the internet seem to have discovered it and held it aloft as the savior of every idiotic conversation they’ll ever have about lifting.  If anything, shorter guys have to try harder than people of average height to achieve similar gains.  As such, their opinions should actually hold more, rather than less weight.

While we’re on the subject of opinions that should hold no weight, we might as well address the tired old argument about range of motion.  This failure pile of shitty logic usually comes wrapped in more whining about “fairness” than you’d generally see on a social justice website, and is often accompanied by even less pride than the social justice warriors manage to conjure on the best of days.  Let us just put this baby to bed- having a greater range of motion is an advantage, not a disadvantage.  Greater range of motion leads to greater strength gains and more hypertrophy than short ranges of motion, which means that taller lifters actually enjoy a very distinct natural advantage over their diminutive compatriots (Pinto, Beardsley).  Once more, it’s the shorter lifters who have to work harder for the same level of gains as larger lifters, meaning they just might know more about getting strong and jacked than the skinny dipshits looming over the keyboards of their parents computers spewing ill-considered, poorly constructed diatribes about their superiority.  

Simple, right?  Shame the fucking tards of the world’s message boards haven’t gotten the message I’ve attempted to impart, but at the very least I can send you forth to battle these simpletons armed with the requisite knowledge to crush them utterly.  

Sources:
Baechle, T.R. & R.W. Earle,  Ed.. Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. Champaign: Human Kinetics Publishers, 1994. 

Cole, Adam.  Olympic Bodies: They Just Don’t Make Them Like They Used To.  NPR.  9 Aug 2012.  Web.  1 Jun 2014.  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/08/09/158448224/olympic-bodies-they-just-dont-make-them-like-they-used-to

Haffajee D, Moritz U, Svantes G.  Isometric knee extension as a function of joint angle, muscle length and motor unit activity.  Acta orthop. Scandinav. 1972;43:138-147.

The Legend of Frank Zane: An Interview With The Man Who Achieved Physical Perfection.  Simply Shredded, reprinted from Flex Magazine.  Web.  1 Jun 2014.  http://www.simplyshredded.com/the-legend-of-zane-an-interview.html

Pinto RS, Gomes N, Radaelli R, Botton CE, Brown LE, Bottaro M.  Effect of range of motion on muscle strength and thickness.  J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Aug;26(8):2140-5.

Progressive Sporting Systems.  Biomechanical Strenngth. Bodybuilding.com.  14 Sep 2004.  Web.  1 Jun 2014.