Balance Blog

Once again, Balance Gym Kalorama member, Bob Vastine, proved you can do anything you can set your mind to, with enough hard work and training of course. As Vastine approached his 72nd birthday last month, he decided he needed a birthday challenge. “I need goals, Vastine said. “This was a new kind of goal.”

His birthday wish? To lift 50,000 pounds in 72 minutes with a bench press and rack pull (raised deadlift). To achieve this goal, Vastine reached out to his Balance trainers, Jim Bathurst and Josh Courage, to get to work. (Read about how Vastine managed to lift more than 53,000 pounds by clicking the “Read More” button below)

To achieve a pain-free bench press, Bathurst began with an intensive stretching routine for his shoulders and lower body.”He was having severe pain in his lower back and knees, prior to the challenge,” Bathurst explained. “We improved his thoracic mobility and scapular stability to get his bench press pain free.  We had to aggressively stretch his quads and IT band and get back healthy internal and external rotation in his hips by working on the TFL and Glute med.

In the meantime, Vastine was also working with Courage on rack pulls. “I was actually pretty nervious coming into it,” said Courage. “Two-and-a-half weeks prior, he wasn’t able to get past six rounds on the rack pull alone.Then, with the focused conditioning, building some confidence, setting a specific rest period, and
weightlifting period — we really built up his confidence.”

Courage focused Vastine’s training on basic rack pulls, with different loads and different rest periods. “I put a lot of conditioning work in too and paid close attention to his heart rate.”

On Nov. 24, it was go time.

Bathurst and Courage estimated that that he would need to perform 15 sets of a 185 rack pull and a 135 bench press with a 60 second rest between exercises and a 30 second prep time for each as well. With an average 4 minutes a set, they would be able to hit 15 sets in 60 minutes; 49,500 pounds, 500 shy of the goal. At that point they would increase the weight to 190 pound pull and a 140 pound bench.

However, after only 11 sets, things were going so well, they decided to increase each lift by 10 pounds and perform 5 more sets.

With many Balance staff and trainers watching, Vastine met his goal! And then some! Vastine managed to lift 53,800 pounds in only 54 minutes and 32 seconds!

“I feel terrific,” Vastines said minutes after his victory.”In spite of the fact I was overcoming back pain and shoulder pain. You really can do anything you put your mind to — with great help from my buddies at Balance.”