Pat Robertson, Power-Man!

[Doug]

DOUG writes:
I saw on James Randi's wonderful website (www.randi.org) that Pat "Stoppin' those Hurricanes!" Robertson has a special "age-defying" shake, the recipe of which is on one of his websites.

It works so well for him, he claims that he can leg-press one ton. Yes, 2,000 pounds. He is 76 years old, but by the power of shakes and Jesus, he can outdo us all.

Go here to see him leg-press 1,000 pounds.

However, note his form. He is only moving the weight about 8 inches. I didn't count one legitimate leg-press.

See here for a roast of Pat Robertson's claim.

As CBS Sportsline's Clay Travis reported earlier this week, there's no way the 76-year-old Robertson broke the leg press record—by more than 600 pounds—of a former Florida State quarterback. Check out this video, in which Robertson claims he's legpressing 1,000 pounds. It appears as if 16 plates are loaded on the machine. Four of them look like 100-pound plates, and the rest are 45s. That adds up to 940 pounds. What else are you fibbing about, Pat?

And:

Most leg press machines are constructed as either a sled angled at 45 degrees or a lever. (There are some that use cables, too.) In all cases, some of the weight gets borne by the machine. You may be loading 400 pounds, but your muscles are feeling only 200.

In addition, if Pat Robertson is claiming to do 2,000 pounds, where did the weight fit? The machine was full of plates at half that weight. I didn't see any larger weights being used. The article above makes a similar point.

And another fellow has this to say about it:

There is no way on earth Robertson leg presses 2,000 pounds. That would mean a 76-year-old man broke the all-time Florida State University leg press record by 665 pounds over Dan Kendra. 665 pounds. Further, when he set the record, they had to modify the leg press machine to fit 1,335 pounds of weight. Plus, Kendra's capillaries in his eyes burst. Burst. Where in the world did Robertson even find a machine that could hold 2,000 pounds at one time? And how does he still have vision?

[Savonarola]

If the sled is angled at 45°, then the amount of weight on the racks needs to be multiplied by cos(45°) to get a more accurate representation of the weight he's actually pressing.

940lbs*cos(45°) = ~665lbs

Even ignoring the resistance of the machine, he could legitimately claim only 665lbs.

But that's not all. As Doug points out, his legs barely move. (In fact, he's using his hands to push on his quads. While the effect of the hands may be small on a relative scale, it's what weightlifters would call "cheating.") The fact that he doesn't even do full reps is particularly damning. Any healthy person his size and age would probably be able to "leg press" a comparable weight in that fashion.

I once took a weightlifting course in college, and by the end of the semester I could squat 400 pounds. (For anyone who doesn't know, a squat is an upright, vertical lift of the body plus additional weight using the legs.) (This happened to be the max of the machine.) (Okay, okay, so it was an incline squat instead of a straight squat, which made it easier. I'm not a real bodybuilder, I just play one on TV (like Pat).) Add my body weight at the time, compensating for the fact that the lower legs don't move much, and that's pretty close to 600 pounds. The difference is that a real squat is a full rep (in my case, with supervision/approval of technique by the instructor) that was not a mere unlocking of the knees. That was some time ago, but I'll challenge ol' Patty to a squat contest any day of the week (and twice on Sunday, even though he's not allowed to work on the sabbath).

But what should we expect? He's such an intellectual lightweight, we can't expect him to be a physical powerhouse.

[Doug]

I once took a weightlifting course in college, and by the end of the semester I could squat 400 pounds.

DOUG
I took a weightlifting course too, and I followed bodybuilding closely for years. I knew Robertson was lying even before seeing him cheat. I bet that Pat Robertson couldn't do a real squat of 250 pounds.

And remember, he's cheating on the weight in order to hype his magic drink. It's not just some idle gym talk. He's hawking something by lying.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

He's been selling miracles for years. So what's another one? I guess he's decided the Catholics have a point in handing out something you can touch (& taste).