At just 19 years old, Megan Fisher was in a car accident that left her as a below knee amputee. Five years later, with the help of a prosthetic leg, she competed in her first XTERRA World Championship (off-road triathlon race).

In her own words,

“I don’t let things stop me anymore. I try not to use excuses, and almost more importantly, I try not to let people use excuses around me. I don’t want people to give me an excuse to quit, and I don’t want them to have an excuse to quit, because if I’m going, you better go.”

Take a look at her inspiring story below.

Here is a young woman who almost died in an accident, lost her foot, yet still refused to quit.  She is now participating in events that most able bodied men and women could only dream of completing.

Her story is a nice match for the Lance Armstrong quote below:

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?”

Megan’s refusal to quit and instead keep fighting is something that we can all learn from, regardless of our own individual circumstances.

Below is yet another example of the human body’s ability to display strength with age.  The video that you will see was recorded in 2007.  Within the video comments, the lifter (Mike Brown) recently stated that he is 67 years old and still going strong.  Three weeks ago he pressed 115 pound dumbbells for 8 reps.  Below you can see him repping 120 pound dumbbells.

Minutes after posting this video to my Facebook page, a 17 year old asked me if the weights were real.  He stated that he’s been lifting for 6 months and cannot imagine how a 67 year old could display such strength.  I then explained to him that one of the best supplements for strength is time.  Consistency is close behind.  If you are consistent and diligent, the gains will come.  And if you stay busy, you’ll retain the qualities that you’ve worked so hard to develop.

A few weeks or months is just a blink of an eye when you focus on the big picture.  Truly impressive feats of strength take time (years, not weeks or months).

As for age, it’s just a number.  You could be old at 35 or young at 65.  It’s up to you to decide.

Below is a video that tells the inspiring story of cancer survivor Sean Swarner.  I highly recommend taking ten minutes out of your day to watch the entire video.  As a two time cancer survivor, Sean’s story is as inspiring as any.

As stated within Sean’s personal website:

Sean’s accomplishments would be impressive for anyone.  The fact that he’s done what he has after dealing with such adversity makes his achievements infinitely more impressive.

His story makes it difficult to take any excuse seriously.   No matter how bad of a day you are having, it could be worse.  Sean stared death in the eyes and has now accomplished feats that many can only dream of performing.  Hats off to him for the inspiration.  He’s certainly inspired me.

Ross

William A. Pullum does not garner nearly as much attention as he should. His name isn’t the first that comes to mind when thinking back to former strength athletes and competitive lifters. Names such as Arthur Saxon, Eugen Sandow, Louis Cyr, George Hackenschmidt, and Hermann Goerner are much more common. Clearly, these individuals were  extremely impressive, but Pullum’s story is as inspiring as any. He was not as big as those listed previously, but was among the best ever from a pound for pound standpoint.

Pullum was undefeated as a competitive weightlifter. He remained the undisputed 9-stone weightlifter for 15 years. During this time, he established over 200 records. I could fill an entire page with Pullum’s impressive feats of strength. At 112 pounds, he performed a Two Hands Anyhow lift of 204 pounds. At 126 pounds, he performed a right hand Clean and Bent Press of 177 pounds. He later performed a Two Hands Anyhow lift of 272 pounds. This was all done at a bodyweight of less than 130 pounds. What makes these feats even more impressive however is that Pullum was ill throughout much of his childhood. As a youngster, he overcame pulmonary tuberculosis, meningitis, and peritonitis before he ever touched a free weight.

Thus, here we have an individual who was small in stature and burdened with frequent sickness as a youngster, who then joined a weight lifting club and went on to become one of the greatest pound for pound lifters ever. Yet even his own lifting accomplishments only tell a fraction of the story. William A. Pullum was also an extremely accomplished instructor. His Camberwell Weight Lifting Club was world famous, known for producing countless lifting champions throughout the 20th century.

When an accomplished lifter goes on to produce a long list of champions, it becomes clear that his own success as a lifter wasn’t by accident. Pullum was a hard working student of the game. He was known for his technical mastery of the competitive lifts. His knowledge was then transferred to his students, leading many of them to become future champions.

Considering his success as an athlete and coach, it makes sense to listen to what the man had to say about lifting. For those interested, you can read his two well known books by following the links below. These books are sold elsewhere on the web, but you can read the entire contents freely at the Sandowplus site.

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The more detailed of the two books is listed first.

Weight Lifting Made Easy and Interesting

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How To Use A Barbell is blurry in spots and lacks the illustrations of the book above, but is still worth a look.  Even the blurriest pages can still be read without too much difficulty.

How To Use A Barbell

A few years ago, I posted a story about how I came across several hundred pounds of discarded dumbbells (original entry). I’m guessing that the weights were originally disposed of due to excessive rust.  Below is a picture that was taken before they were cleaned.

Fortunately, I was able to clean up the weights and add a fresh coat of paint.  To the casual observer today, the weights appear to be new.

Simple Instructions

Below are weight restoration instructions that were recently posted to my forum. The original source of this information is the Shenandoah homemade equipment site (excellent resource). I didn’t have these instructions two years ago, but I actually followed a very similar approach when restoring my weights.

I’ve summarized the original instructions with the bullet points below:

• Clean the weights with a hose and wire brush to remove any loose rust and grime.
• Dry the weights and then place them in a large container filled with Coca-Cola.  Several days is recommended (the original poster did so for 4 days). He also recommended swishing the weights within the soda once each day.
• Remove the weights and then clean them under a hose once more. Use the wire brush again to remove any remaining rust that has been loosened by the soda.
• WD-40 can also be used to assist
• Finish by spraying the weights with a quality rust paint product. Rust-Oleum is one well known brand.

Here are the original plates:

Next, you can see the pan that was filled with soda:

Lastly, you can see the end result:

As you can see, it is quite possible to restore an old weight set.  The use of soda may appear odd at first glance, but it was actually recommended to me by someone who worked at Home Depot.  I too thought it was a strange, but it did assist in the process.  I was a bit impatient however, so I only left them in the soda for approximately 40 hours.  I’m guessing another day or two (as suggested above) would have saved me some scrubbing.

Summary

Old weight sets are a common item at many tag sales.  If you come across a rusty set, there is a good chance that you can bring it back to life.  With the rising cost of iron, a restored set can be a real steal.

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Update

After posting this entry, the following comment was added by one reader.  In case the comment goes unnoticed, I will add it here:

A good “rust stop” paint can go on after wire brushing off the loose stuff, no Coke-soaking needed. Eastwood auto supplies sells one that I like, but there are many out there that chemically lock in existing rust so it won’t spread. A little more expensive than Rust-Oleum, but much faster.

http://www.rustencapsulator.com

If you really want to kill the rust, replace the Coke-soak with a 10-minute treatment with Naval Jelly:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GKW2Q4

Does the same thing, only much faster. Wear gloves!

Your local auto parts store will most likely carry things like this, especially if they do anything with restoration or classic cars. Talk to the folks there; they’ll probably steer you right.