By Paul McIlroy

For the past month I've been training for something.  A very specific something.  A very, historic something.  In 1952 a man nicknamed "The Biceps From The Bronx" achieved a feat of strength which to this day has never been equalled.  On that day, Marvin Eder of the Bronx New York, completed one full parallel bar dip with himself plus 2 other men hanging off his waist/legs, the total weight added was 434lbs, this coupled with Marvin's body weight brought the grand total to roughly 632lbs or a staggering 3.17x body weight!!!!

This essentially broke 2 world records which stand to this day:

1) Most weight ever added on a parallel bar dip (434lbs)

2) Most weight ever lifted pound-for-pound on a parallel bar dip (3.17xBW)

Neither have ever been approached and the most I can find on the likes of youtube today is 330lb added for 3 reps and 2xBW for 8-10 reps (both of which are beyond outstanding, but it just shows how strong Eder really was nearly 60 years ago)!!

My personal interest in Eder stretches back as far as my childhood in the 1980's.  My older brother Damien had bodybuilding, martial arts and strength mags laying around his room, I was facinated by these from an early age.  In one such magazine (Stength Athlete, with 80's WSM competitor "Grizzley Bear" on the cover) I first came across Marvin Eder.  There were 2 pictures, one of Marvin standing face on, a physique shot, the other was a small insert showing the infamous triple body weight plus dip.  I marvelled at the fact that this guy could lift himself plus 2 other men "with just his arms".  As the years went by and I finally started stuctured strength training, I seemed to gravitate towards weighted bodyweight exercises as my base, this was partly innate and partly due to my facination with Marvin's records.

As it stands today I've become quite good at bodyweight exercises.  I hadn't trained with any degree of seriousness with them for quite a while, but in the past my personal best weight chin-up was myself (weighing 70kg) plus a 75kg dumbbell added for one completely full length rep (or 2.07xbw) and myself (weighing 70kg) plus a 70kg dumbbell for 8 full reps (or 2xbw for 8 reps) on parallel bar dips, both these lifts can be seem on youtube.

Now, I'll just lay it on the line, for the past month I've been training flat out in the quest to break Marvin Eder's dipping records.  Ideally I'd like to break both total weight added and pound-for-pound.  But realistically, Marvin weighed 90kg of pure muscle to my 70kg, 20kg of his kind of muscle equals a LOT of pressing strength, so in order to break the total weight added record I'd need to lift a massively larger multiple of my bodyweight than Marvin did.  This would be close to impossible in reality and its hard for me to get my head around at this time.

However, the pound-for-pound record is doable in my honest opinion.  For me this would mean a single rep with 150kg added to my own bodyweight for a grand total of 220kg.  This is an enormous task but one which I have undertaken and am working towards.  My previous best single would've been about 90kg+, I've never hit 100kg, so you can see the size of the task at hand.  Finding it difficult to get motivated for a goal that seems so far away was tough, so I used an online 1RM predictor to calculate what Marvin's repetitional records my have been based on his 1RM of 632lbs total weight (himself plus 2 other men).  I had particular interest in how many reps he may have been capable of with himself plus another man added who equalled his bodyweight (this was because 2xbw was a weight that I had previously repped and could see myself lifting again).

Mathmatics rarely lie when it comes to these things and it would seem that based on his single rep strength Marvin would've been capable of between 16 and 18 full length reps with double bodyweight!!!!  This is in perfect keeping with liturature on Marvin which listed training weights of 2.5xbw for 10 reps etc.  This is over double the reps that I've ever done, on my best day, LOL!  Never the less I plan to beat this repetitional record first, then beat the 2.5-2.75xbw for 10 reps, THEN go for the big 3.17xbw single.  I haven't attempted a max rep set with 2xbw since I've been back training this month but based on training weights I believe myself currently capable of about 2xbw for 10 reps (that's not bad considering I started the month way back at 1 or 2 reps with 2xbw and my best ever was 8 reps).  I hope to prove this before new years and will post a video as evidence.

When the day comes to break the 2xbw repetitional record I plan to do so in style.  I'm going to try to get the Guinness Book Of World Records interested, and the "other me" won't be boring weight plates, but none other than friend, client and 2010 Commonwealth Gold Medallist, Paddy Gallagher!!

So there you have it, I'll keep you posted on my progress.

P.S. I'd love to have been given the opportunity to have tried the 12 Week Physique Program on Marvin in his prime.

But it looks like someone may have beaten me too it LOL!! (BTW, forced reps are NOT part of the 12 Week Physique Program, nor Marvin's for that matter, these picture were taken 6 years apart).

by Paul McIlroy

I'd Like to salute the men and women that graduate from the 12 Week Physique Program.  Their's is truely a road less travelled.  The dedication required to completely reinvent yourself in 12 weeks or less deserves respect.  Each and every person who makes it to Graduation Day is an inspiration to all, especially me.  So this is MY tribute to YOU.  Just to let you know, I know what it takes to make a change as big as you've made, and to solidify how real your accomplishment truely is!!

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This actually represents what my physique looks like most of the time as my training is very abbreviated and focused on relative strength and power, not size.  It's also a very accurate representation of what my physique would've looked like 4 weeks before this "after" picture.

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Initially perturbed, I soon realised the quality of this man's advice as I continued to read further.   He spoke of cycling weights, not training to failure, the relationship between

Those that follow the 12 Week Physique transformations will remember the first (and only) 4 week transformation Chris Murtagh.

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