Originally Posted by
Velomancer
But what was interesting was Chris's comment that "years of carring around a big body" can give you "massive" muscles compared with "140lb pip-squeeks".
That is so true. I remember watching a video on the news, having to do with an "excessive use of force by the police" case, where there was this huge fat guy - weighed something like 450 lbs - that the police were trying to take into custody (he was high on cocaine and was causing a disturbance). This guy took on four or five cops and threw them around like they were rag dolls. They finally got the guy subdued by basically whacking the cr@p out of him with night sticks, and just piling on top of him - they tried maceing and tasering him, but he acted like he didn't even feel that - and then they handcuffed him face down. The cops were exhausted by then. The guy ended up dying in custody partially because of positional asphyxiation as well as heart failure due to the cocaine use, which was why it was on the news.
Remember, this guy was doing squats with 450 lbs every time he tied his shoes.
I've always been a big guy. I was 240 lbs in high school. I spent a bunch of years in the fire service. One of the things you do at a traffic accident, where you have to extricate victims (jaws of life stuff) is to stabilize the car. To do this, one of the tools used are called "step blocks", which are oak 2x4's bolted together in a stack so as to form "steps". To stabilize a vehicle, one firefighter has the step blocks ready to push under the frame, and another one squats down next to the car and gets hold of the wheel-well lip or something, braces his butt against the side of the car, and lifts with his legs. The first guy then shoves the step blocks under the frame. The object is to get the weight of the car off of its springs and on to the solid step blocks. I was very good at this. I could take a small car, like an 80's Toyota Corolla or a Nissan 240 or something, and get both tires on one side off of the ground.