Pat Robertson's leg-pressing claim draws skeptics

Dallas Morning News ^ | 5/26/06

[steveo]

Chuck can do that................................with his middle leg.

Many of us his age can do the same. However he probably could cook breakfast, smoke a cigar and change a tire at the same time.

[Biblebelter]

Two major tenets of my Christian beliefs are humility and honesty.

[Old_Mil]

The left despises anyone who professes to be a real Christian...

Pat is smeared constantly in the media... True, however I think we're getting to the point where we can safely say that Pat Robertson is being smeared by the media because he is a Cartoon Christian.

[Cap'n Crunch]

Maybe Pat borrowed some of Barry Bonds' famous "Flax Seed Oil."

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[COBOL2Java]

I thought Tim Russert was the Toad! :0)

[TitansAFC]

Okay, just watched the video.

Let me say this: I weight lift, and I do so with as much commitment as I am able. Unfortunately, not enough to body build, hence I lift to get stronger, not to look good. I think I have a good build however, and I am pleased with my progress of three years of lifting.

My observation of the video is this. If that is how he did the "leg press," then I have little doubt he could lift "2,000 pounds" once. Look at the reps, folks - he barely moves his legs down to a bent-knee position. He is also using his hands to push his knees down to assist in straightening his legs.

I had thought originally that this was a misprint, but now I see that it is simply the exaggerated results that come with incomplete repetitions.

I have a maximum bench press of 315 pounds. That's free weights, with correct form. If I were to use a machine to take away the element of balance, I could easily do 350 pounds. I have done 335 pounds - about a year ago in this scenario - several reps. If I were to bring the weight down only 30% of the way to my chest, I could do 400 pounds. What am I getting at? This:

If you use a machine to eliminate the element of balancing the weight, and you use your hands to help straighten your knees, and you only go down 30% of the way that you are SUPPOSED to go down in a rep, you can drastically increase the amount of weight you do.

I issue this challenge to you all: Do a leg press exactly as Pat did it. Go down just as far, and use your hands to help. I EMPHATICALLY declare right now that most guys who try this WILL be able to "leg press" more than 1,000 pounds. This is not a correct leg press; his knees should come all the way down almost against his chest, and then back to full extension. If you watch the video, he goes down a few inches, then back up again.

This is just a misunderstanding by Pat, et al. YES, you can "leg press" a LOT of weight if you use those little "cheats" to do so. Just lay under the bumper of your several-thousand-pound car and see how easy it is to get some lift. So I want to tell you all that I have LITTLE doubt that he was able to do one rep of 2,000 pounds doing it the way I saw on the video. But it is not a real leg press of 2,000 pounds - and he is not correctly doing full leg presses of the 1,000 pounds on the video. This is just bad weightlifting, with the exaggerated numbers that come with incomplete reps.

[Moral Hazard]

"this reminds me of the claims of kim jung-il to have memorized every phone number in DPRK"

Both of them?

[Blogger]

He may be a nut, but he may also have pressed 2000 pounds.