Mark Eaton lifting weights

[Jaivl]

I mean, based on those numbers, it looks like he made a pretty big jump in one year. It's definitely surprising that a dude that big was so weak from the start though. Even if he were totally untrained, I would've assumed he could've done heavier lifts.

Makes me wonder what kind of weight he was pushing when he was older and bigger.

The numbers are standard for a novice who started lifting and took it seriously, but there is one thing that's extremely impressive about this jump, he did it while dropping BF% from 18.5% to 12%, this means he was on a very strict cut, it IS very rare to produce these gains on such a cut.

Not that rare if he really hadn't touched a weight before, you can work magic on rookie gains.

[Mavrelous]

Even novices at a cut hit a massive wall, cutting from 18% to 12% is very tough, this isn't 30% to 20%, building strength while doing that, you're only going by your CNS and not really building muscle, this is extremely rare.

[henshao]

He went from 18% to 12% while staying at the same weight, muscle was being built

[giordunk]

Dude is 7'4 man... he's not meant to be good at lifting weights. Kevin Durant is listed at 240 pounds and in that weight division the most competitive people are like 5'9. I feel like most guys over like 6'7 probably have to train their bodies in very different ways from an average joe, especially if they're undergoing specialized training for a sport.

[oaktownwarriors87]

Please let those numbers be kg...

A 245 pound bench in a year for such a big man (285 pounds) is not great progress.
265 pound squat downright pathetic, but maybe he had some horrible mobility issues.

The longer your arms and legs are the harder it becomes. I'm shocked he could bench that much.