Monday, November 22, 2004
Bendin, Tearing and Breaking: a Day of Fun and Frolic
by Dr. Ken Leistner
I am used to a lot of things others aren't. Having had the advantage of numerous "life" experiences that others haven't due to accident the time, location, and circumstances of birth and growing up, I've been lucky. I've met and seen so many of the Iron Game's greats, have been friendly and trained with historical names of the sport, and been on the ground floor of many of the events that altered the fitness industry. All of that however, did not quite prepare me for Steve Weiner and Pat Povialitis coming to the house and doing what has become "their thing."
Steve Weiner bends a frying pan.
Dr Ken. is impressed.
I don't socialize and especially don't care to attend the various gatherings of strongmen. I speak to many of the fellows, many visit the house during any year, and I maintain a correspondence with long time friends and associates that include Pat Casey, Hugh Cassiday, Bill Starr, and others of their stature, fellows who were truly great and added something positive to the weight sports. After all, who writes as well or informatively as Bill Starr? Who arguably remains the greatest bench presser of all time if not Pat Casey? I could go on but when I heard about the show that Pat and Steve put on at the Annual Olde Timer's dinner, and the reports of many who had attended, I felt that much of what they had done might have been under appreciated. I also wanted to see if for myself.
Pat Povilaitis bends a nail in this very cool sequence.
Atomic Athletic and Iron Mind are two companies who have been in the forefront of the revitalization of basic, hard, "old fashioned" training and of course, grip and forearm strength development. This includes feats of hand and grip strength as Roger LaPointe and Dr. Randy Strossen are the respective owners of the aforementioned companies and enjoy and respect hand strength related events. Randy in fact has started a cottage industry of grip feats and Roger's stones are the standard for guys who want to test themselves in the confines of their home gyms or driveways. Pat and Steve are two all around strongmen who just don't look the part. Steve is a financial analyst and at approximately 245 pounds and perhaps a shade less than six foot in height, looks like a, well, Wall Street type of punky guy, maybe a stocky punky guy in a three-piece suit. Pat? As one of my patients said on Sunday, "He looks like a taller version of you" which is to say, he is lean and trim but doesn't look as if he could lift more than a day's worth of physical labor. Neither guy is bulging with muscle under normal circumstances. However, if you know what you're looking at, its truly a different story. Pat is all tendon and sinew and when he picks anything up, "stuff" jumps all over his body as those tendons and muscles stand out in bold relief. Steve's forearms are thick as are the joints in his upper extremities and the handshake gives it away. Both are exceptionally strong and work the basic large muscle groups with standard exercises but really specialize in hand and forearm maneuvers. Simply put, these guys do things and make it appear effortless to the extent that the uninitiated just might not get "it, it being that their feats are difficult for the most highly trained weightmen, even those who specialize in grip strength.
Steve weiner easily bends some rebar.
John Wood and his dad Kim are long time friends of our family and while Kim is an unknown to many in the game because he doesn't put himself in the forefront, he has made frightening lifts and demonstrated a level of hand and grip strength that to the few of us who have witnessed it, put him up with any of the legends. John is my choice, and that of many, to at some point perhaps wear the mantle of "strongest grip ever", at least the potential, know how, and willingness to work at it are certainly present. Pat and Steve are right up near the top and I think they have no received proper notice because they both make their feats appear to be "too easily done" and many in the game just can't relate to some of the things they do.
Pat is a bending machine.
What then, do they do? Well, its tough to bend Randy's Iron Mind red nail and few in fact, can do it legitimately. My grandfather had enormous hand strength, typical of his very difficult upbringing in Poland and lifetime work as a blacksmith's apprentice, blacksmith, and ironworker. He bent and broke nails and bolts as "something to do, a parlor trick to amuse the guys at work. Randy's red nail is the standard for commercially purchased products of this type and few can bend them as quickly and easily, if at all, as Steve and Pat. Few can roll up an untreated, "unfixed" straight-from-the-store frying pan but Steve went to the local WalMart and bought three-packs of small, medium, and large ones and just tore through twenty-two of them. Imagine "doing" twenty-two in the course of forty-five minutes or so, while also performing quite a few other feats of hand and grip power. Pat bends horseshows into hearts, or rips at them until the really big and thick ones are as straight as they are going to get. As if all of these events are not difficult enough, especially when performed one after the other with no rest, Steve and Pat do them while supporting up to 160 or 180 pounds with an Iron Mind neck harness, the weights swinging from their heads. Just using the harness in that manner requires great body control and neck and upper back strength so that you don't injure the cervical spine area, yet these guys are supporting this weight while going through their grip feats.
Steve Weiner folds up frying pan like a taco.
Imagine if you can, taking the Atomic Athletic 275 pound stone and supporting it in the your lap in a deep squat position, and holding that stone under control while bending the red nails and mangling horseshoes in that deep squat. This is the type of thing that brought thirty-nine guests, many of them adolescent football players from Malverne and Valley Stream Central high schools brought by the local coach and a number of our trainees and patients (including strongmen in their own right such as Pat Susco and his budding strongman son Rickey) to our garage and driveway to witness Steve and Pat's performance. We could have had one hundred and thirty nine guests but turned down requests to watch the two men work as we wanted to limit it to some of the local youths that we serve through the Lakeview Youth Federation and patients who have supported our work with their generous giving of time and money. Additionally, we couldn't fit many more than that into the kitchen for bagels, orange juice, and for some of the young men who stayed and were just awed by what they saw, pizza.
This could be the most intense sequence of photos ever.
Kathy and I can't thank Pat and Steve enough for the time, effort, and energy expenditure they gave to help raise money for LYF. Laree and Dave Draper were kind enough to take donations via Paypal on their website which allowed me to bubble wrap and ship pans and bent horseshoes (and nothing says "I love you" quite like a horseshoe bent into the shape of a heart!) with photos of the bending of specific items to those nice enough to make their donations for the benefit of the young people in our area. If you have the opportunity to see them tear and bend and roll these items, you have to make the time and effort to do so. That these are drug-free athletes who do this for fun and satisfaction, as an end result of their training, and want to share it for reasons having nothing to do with self-aggrandizement, makes the experience even better. I always appreciate the work done and products produced by Dr. Strossen and Roger and the opportunity it gives our strength community to get back to real, old time, exciting, and result producing training.
It takes a lot to impress Dr. Ken.
Steve and Pat did it in style.
Let's hear it for these guys!
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