Paul Leonard 
If you are a muscle head or a large mammal, at one point In your life you probably were a bouncer or did security in some form or another. As I wrote in my piece about Venice Beach, Arnold’s Restaurant, Schatzi on Main had numerous huge guys standing around at all times. I saw Michael …
I was born premature and weighed only 4lbs and 6 ounces. As I was born to a Catholic family, I was given my last rites and named Joseph in the event I died, which I did not. Once I stuck around I was renamed Paul. I had a normal healthy childhood, loving playing baseball, swimming, …
In life you will meet many people, some you like, a few you love, those you hate- especially as you get older, and the rest are all just passing through, pedestrian in their importance to your life. Us strength athletes are unique in that we have other individuals in our lives who leave an indelible …
With the explosion in the internet since the late 1990s, Powerlifting competitors and fans around the world have been able to see the best lifters compete and train. No Powerlifting competitor has captured the imagination of the strength community like Chuck Vogelpohl of Columbus, Ohio. Chuck was a National champion by the late 1980s, a …
This past weekend, two brothers did very well at the World Strongest Man contest with one winning and another in the top 5. This had never happened before and got me thinking about famous brothers in the world of muscle building and physical culture. In the 1980s, two brothers from Rhode Island took the bodybuilding …
I know for me, you often recall the first time you see someone who impresses the heck out of you. That was the case, when I first saw Scott Mendelson. I was a powerlifter interested in improving my bench press as well as my bookends as well. In 1996, I had officially benched 457, but …
During the decade of the 1990s, before the dawn of the Internet, a new phenomenon entered the bodybuilding world, the 400lb off season bodybuilder! Although there were a few athletes associated with this mythical figure for body mass, the most famous was Canadian IFBB professional Greg Kovacs. A YouTube video entitled Greg Kovacs- rare photos, …
I have had the honor of calling Rory Leidelmeyer a friend for over 20 years now. I last saw Rory in person in 2014 when I worked out with him and my oldest son at the Uptown Gym in Whittier, California. The way Rory spoke with Louie inspired him to no end, as Louie still …
I would assume that anyone who reads this site has seen the documentary Pumping Iron, which details that training of top bodybuilders at Golds Gym in Venice Beach in the mid 1970s, which today is referred to nostalgically as the Golden Age. This documentary was mandatory viewing for those of us who started lifting in …
In August 2014, Josh Bryant posted a 30 second YouTube clip of Tom Haviland deadlifting 710lbs. On February 25, 2015, Josh Bryant introduced the online strength community to his trainee in Australia, Tom Haviland. The short clip on Jailhouse Strong’s YouTube channel showed Tom deadlifting 760 lbs and benching 520 pounds. Over the next few …