Plague of Strength, Philadelphia, PA (2026)

10/16/2026

Emmanuel Ogbole had planned to be a football player but was recruited into basketball at age 18 due to his incredible potential, despite never having played the game.

Ogbole is 24-years-old, 2.08m & 117kg (6'10" 260lbs) with only 6% body fat, & had intended to play in - he didn't consider American football until age 18, when he started getting recruited for basketball & caught the attention of scouts all over Africa.

US football didn't interest him but basketball did, so Ogbole moved from Nigeria to the US after only 3 years of practice & played center for a year of junior college & 3 years at .

Because he didn't go viral until after the age kids in West Africa begin training to play US sports, Ogbole is currently the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed on his behalf by to get him another year of college eligibility, a move that's supported by Georgia, Oklahoma, & Tennessee (who are all interested in signing him), & has already generated a tentative scholarship offer from .

What might surprise you is that his potential was developed almost entirely without lifting weights, which he didn't do until he arrived in the US.

"When I first lifted a weight- bench press, they saw I wasn't good at it and they were like: 'You never lifted weights?'... It was so funny."

People in Nigeria are often incredibly fit because their traditional diet is phenomenally nutritious & well-balanced, & ultra-hype, acrobatic dance is one of the cornerstones of their culture- being fit is a natural outgrowth of being a part of Nigerian culture.

Dance has been described as being "as important in life as eating & breathing" & is the source of Nigerians' jumping abilities, crazy footspeed, & "natural" acrobatic skill, not genetics.

And any Nigerian will tell you that the source of their muscularity & strength is West African food, which NFL legend Christian Okoye famously fed his college teammates & made them so strong they only lost 2 games in his last 2 years.

Bang that link in my profile & grab Plague of Strength's Lifting Method to learn why you need to dance, stretch, swim, & do calisthenics as much as you lift to achieve your best physique!

10/15/2026

Antía Jácome is super jacked because she's been canoeing at every possible opportunity for 14 years, & she's a phenomenal reminder that the best bodies on Earth are primarily built with general exercise with the addition of some weights, rather than the other way around.

is 26-years-old, 1.62m (5'4") tall, walks around at 61-62kg (135-137lbs), competes at 59kg (130lbs), & is a 2x European Champion & 4x World Silver medalist in canoe who competes solo, in pairs, & as part a 4-person crews in 200m & 500m races.

Jácome has benched 115kg (254lbs) in training & obviously spends a lot of time in the gym, but her willingness to pound the weights can be as much of a detriment as it is a benefit, as she's been known to go way too hard & burn herself out before big competitions.

Just as American fighters & wrestlers famously lose fights & matches due to training with far more brutal but infrequent methods than Russian wrestlers & Cuban fighters (who mostly play in training, save their intensity for actual competition, & rarely get burned out), Jácome's original coaches used

"a training style that was very damaging. Those coaches were brutal; it was as if they saw us as objects, & you ended up doing the work out of obligation. Now I'm enjoying paddling, competing, training- everything."

You might think winning comes easy to someone built like Jácome, she's hardly got the ideal build for her sport- where most people have a 1:1 ratio of height to wingspan, her arms are 10cm (4") shorter than her height, which drastically shortens her stroke.

To overcome that deficit, Jácome works with a team of canoeing & strength & conditioning coaches, alongside a nutritionist & 2 psychologists, & the results have been nothing but phenomenal for the young paddle athlete.

Most important, she believes, is staying focused on what's important to ensure she doesn't burn out again from brutal gym workouts "because the most important part of this sport is on the water."

Don't fall into the trap of thinking gym work replaces skill work- they're supposed to complement each other. Bang that link in my profile to read more about it in Plague of Strength's Lifting Method!

10/14/2026

Florent Manaudou's physique should be your wake-up call to mimicking swimming motions in the gym- bodybuilders from the 1920s-1960s did pullovers to mimic swimming so they could get the same huge, well-defined pecs & massive ribcage of Tarzan, played by Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller.

is a sculpted 1.99m & 99kg (6'6" & 218lbs), which would be incredibly light if he was a muscle-bound lifter, but because his muscle is super mobile it is also incredibly three dimensional, which makes him look much heavier than he is.

Manaudou's muscle comes primarily from the insane number of hours he spends in the pool, as the 34yo Olympic champ in 50m freestyle didn't start lifting until 17 months before he won gold.

Even then, it was only 3 x 90 minute sessions full body workouts consisting of plyometrics, calisthenics, basic weight lifting (squat, bench, row, etc), & unique exercises like prone rows, laying face-down on a high bench.

Prior to entering his Olympic prep, Manaudou mostly trained distance in all 4 strokes, but as the Olympics approached, he added "dryland" training for the 1st time (gym & road work) & a more powerful straight-armed technique, which resulted in Olympic gold & 1 of the greatest physiques in Olympic history.

People tend to use bent-arm 2-handed pullovers, but if you go back to the beginning, the 1925 Best Built Man on Earth & unofficial Light- & Middleweight Weightlifting champ of the 1920s & 1930s always did the Alternate Pullover.

Sig Klein (Pic 6) loved this exercise, became the strongest man on Earth to prove that he wasn't weak despite only training for aesthetics.

Klein lifted stuff only heavyweight strongmen could using high (12-20) rep circuit training based on exercises no one does anymore (but should) like:

- Pushup to Handstand Pushup (on bench for greater depth)
- Tiger Bends
- Alternate Pullover
- Clean & Press (with 35kg (75lb) dumbbells x 12 reps)
- Standing & Lying Straight Arm Flyes

Try these with residential clay bricks or 2kg (5lb) dumbbells for 3 x 1 minute rounds before working up to concrete bricks or 4kg (10lbs) dumbbells & grab my book Plague of Strength's Lifting Method to learn more!

10/13/2026

Khadr El-Touni & his enormous arms crushed the N***s in weightlifting, simultaneously disproving every theory about genetic & racial superiority & sport scientists' long-held belief that large biceps are a detriment to weightlifters, & kicking off 5 decades of Egyptian excellence in weightlifting & a worldwide obsession for building biceps among weightlifters.

El-Touni was a 1.65m & 75kg (5'5" 165lbs) Egyptian weightlifter who hit such huge numbers in training that the world called him a liar until he showed up at the 1936 Nazi-hosted Olympic Games in Berlin, where he:

- demolished the records in all 3 lifts (Clean & Jerk, Sn**ch, & Press)
- exceeded the total of the 82kg (181lb) gold medalist by 15kg (33lbs)
- dragged the N***s at every opportunity for getting their asses kicked by a bunch of "Untermensch."
- would have landed him Bronze medals in the Press & Sn**ch if he competed as a heavyweight, & his Total would have put him in 7th despite weighing 30kg (66lbs) less than the class winner

World War 2 resulted in the cancellation of the 1940 & 1944 Olympics, so the racists of the world avoided further embarrassment until 1946, when El-Touni won the World Championships again.

Because he couldn't defend his Olympic title until 1948, El-Touni pushed way too hard in training- he injured a knee cleaning 5kg (11lbs) over his training PR, then took 4th in the Olympics. He competed against doctor's orders with appendicitis & on one leg & was rushed to the hospital for surgery immediately after competing.

El-Touni won the World Championships at 75kg in 1949 & 1950, took 3rd in 1951, & he dropped to 67.5kg (149lbs), competed in his 3rd & final Olympics at age 39, taking 6th.

When he died a few years later while working on his house, this Egyptian national hero was considered to be the greatest weightlifter of all time, & today he's ranked #2 all-time behind similarly short-lived Naim Süleymanoğlu.

Bang that link in my profile & grab Building Your Ideal Physique to train with a modern update on the methods used by the Egyptians & the Americans to out-lift & out-angle their opponents on the platform, the stage, & the beach with equal ease!

10/12/2026

Pierre Spies was a terror in Rugby Union due to his is a monstrous speed & strength & probably would have been a legend in the NFL if he had ever tried American football.

At 1.94m & 117kg (6'4" 256lbs), ) ran a reported 10.7s 100m dash & had such freakish endurance that he could run 835m before slowing down from a sprint (which would be closer a the 800m pace of 12-13s than his top speed).

The massive South African & his freakish muscularity & athleticism left a major impression on the world of Rugby Union, who were left wondering what his career would have been like if he could stay healthy or had competed in another sport, because he could:

- do a Standing Jump onto a 1.4m (4.6') box
- Power Clean 136kg (300lbs)
- Bench 163kg (360lbs) with a flat back and a pause
- do Pull-Ups with an extra 50kg (110lbs)

Spies is a gym rat who was well known during his career for training with the team & then getting in a bunch workouts of his own including brutal 5 minute calisthenics workout that the internet believed was impossible to complete until it became a viral challenge.

In the gym, rugby conditioning specialists tend to use a combo of fast-paced powerbuilding & strength-focused, athletic training like Modified Strongman Training .

Their powerbuilding workouts tend to be based around the Squat, Deadlift, & Chin-Ups, using a 4-6 second descent & an explosive 1s ascent.

Reps usually stay in the 6-12 range, with the goal of keeping their muscles under tension for 20-40s per set, using stuff like Lunges, Shoulder Press, Kettlebell Swing, & tons of core work.

MST workouts consist of circuits of stuff like tire flips, prowler pushes, sled pulls & medicine ball slams, 30 seconds on & 30s off- or if they're somewhere that lacks that equipment, they do sprints at a on the rowing machine or assault bike.

Inspired to get yourself into freakish shape as well? Bang that link in my profile & grab Plague of Strength's Lifting Method to find out why we should look to modern athletes & pre-steroid lifters for our training advice, rather than "exercise scientists" who are mostly mocked as pseudoscientists by the wider scientific community.

10/11/2026

Maria Stadnik is 1 of Europe's most heavily decorated & shredded female wrestlers of all time.

Competing at 48kg & 50kg (106 & 110lbs) from 2008-2024, won the European Champs 10x, the World Champs 2x (& took 2nd 3x & 3rd 1x), & took 2nd & 3rd 2x each in the Olympics.

Stadnik was born in Ukraine but achieved most of her success as an Azerbaijani athlete, & she's currently the only Azerbaijani athlete who's competed in 5 Olympics.

In the midst of all that competing, Stadnik also had 2 kids, neither of which resulted in a significant layoff from training but might account for the 10 year gap between World Championship wins.

Due to her unrelenting training schedule, neither of her kids has any interest in wrestling- her daughter loves dancing, while her son prefers the comparatively more laid-back sport of boxing.

It hardly matters which sport they choose- with Stadnik as their strength & conditioning coach, their dominance will be similarly, brutally aesthetic.

The people whose physiques we idolize, like Maria Stadnik, are people who are heavy on delts & traps (which gives the appearance of being heavier than you are), with:

1) ripped abs & tight waist
2) flat, defined, slab-like pecs
3) large, shapely, defined upper arms
4) muscular, vascular forearms

By specializing on those body parts, it’s assured you'll look as great in your underwear as you do in clothes, because weird pinching & bunching comes from being too fat / disproportionate / musclebound, not from carrying too much muscle.

Bang that link in my profile to grab Juicy Delts, a delt, trap, & arm specialization program designed to take your physique from level boss to protagonist so you can stop looking fat & start looking like the jacked badass you’ve been trying to be since you first touched a weight.

This 4-week specialization program comes with a diet & built-in progression consisting of 5 weekly workouts. There's 3x 60-90min weight workouts & 2 shorter bodyweight circuit days that can be done easily anywhere, & it also contains an easy-to-follow diet that will allow maximal performance with on a low-calorie with minimal hunger.

10/08/2026

Adama Traoré is the most jacked elite pro football player of all time & built his muscle the old fashioned way- with calisthenics, plyometrics, playing sports.

At 1.78m & 86kg (5'10" 190lbs), 30-year-old looks like a Silver Era bodybuilder, but he rarely lifts weights & his coaches have banned him from the weight room until he retires.

Traioré's coaches are afraid he'll lose quickness & speed if he gains any more weight, & speed is Traioré's trademark- he was the 2nd fastest person in in 2019 with a top speed of 37.79kph (23.48mph) & is the 7th fastest football player in history

According to Traoré, his physique is due to the food he eats instead of way he trains- Malian food & traditional eating habits like fasting for Ramadan are his secret weapons.

Any Malian athlete will tell you about their incredible muscle building superfood, Jollof rice, a dish similar to paella that is responsible for many of the badass physiques we see coming out of West Africa, including former heavyweight champ .

Cameroonian Heavyweight MMA legend & one of the greatest football players on Earth, .mbappe, insist Ndolé (a stew of peanuts, seafood, & veggies) is the real African stew-roid, & that heavy manual labor along with calisthenics are the best way to build your body, & that's confirmed by late 19th /early 20th century boxers, who ate stew, did calisthenics, chopped wood & threw boulders.

Athletes have been getting jacked using stew since ancient times, & stew is still the dietary backbone of athletes in every corner of the world, from West Africa to Japan, where sumo wrestlers eat Chankonabe to build muscle, & Iceland, where strongmen eat a lamb & root veggie stew called Kjötsúpa in the gym to fuel their workouts.

Get the recipes that fueled everything from the Mongol conquests of Asia & Europe to the Russian conquests of the wrestling mats by banging that link in my profile & grabbing The Monstrosity Bundle, which contains a recipe book contains 100+ muscle building recipes from badasses throughout history & across the globe, plus 2 hardcore yoke-heavy workouts & a historically-based diet!

10/05/2026

Stamp Fairtex is basically Thailand's goddess of combat, dominating Muay Thai, MMA, & Kickboxing with equal skill as 's 1st 3 sport champion.

Buakaw, 1 of Thailand's most revered fighters, explained that is special because "Whether it’s MMA, Muay Thai, or kickboxing, she’s a master in all 3. If you asked me [what makes Stamp great], it’s a matter of adaptability due to the different regulations. But she’s definitely got it.”

“Even I couldn’t do that. So, I got to give it up to her.”

It helps that she started at a young age- Stamp started learning Muay Thai at 5 & was featured in the Muay Thai documentary Buffalo Girls at age 12.

At 18 she moved to the Training Center, & over the last decade she's become 1 of the best kickboxers of the modern era.

Now 29, the 1.57m (5'2") badass:

- held the ONE MMA, Kickboxing, & Muay Thai titles at 52kg ( 115lb)
- is a former Thepprasit Stadium 49kg (108lb) Champ
- is 65W-18L-5D in Muay Thai & Kickboxing
- is 11W-2L in MMA (5 KO, 2 SUB)
- won the 2019 Siam Cup in BJJ at 58.5 kg (129lbs)

She trains 2x per day almost every day. with AM strength & PM skill sessions.

In the AM, she does lots of hill sprints & functional strength work designed to increase her striking power with .abelardo.

They warm up with footwork drills, then focus hard on the parts of the body that generate striking power- legs & core:
- Glute Bridges supersetted with Kettlebell Swings
- Zercher Squats + Banded Squats
- Landmine Rotations + Plank Kettlebell Pull-Throughs

PM sessions are mostly devoted to striking, though she's been working hard on her ground game to ensure she doesn't lose another fight via choke.

Pro athletes often start & finish workouts with ab work, because without a strong core there's nothing connecting your powerful upper & lower body musculature but a bowl full of jelly.

If your daily routine doesn't involve 20-30 minutes of core, you are dooming yourself to poor performance & crappy aesthetics- bang that link in my profile & grab Plague of Strength's Lifting Method to learn why you need to train like a pro athlete, not the diseased livestock who call themselves bodybuilders!

09/29/2026

Alexandra Milne looks like a golden-hued angel & has the heart of a lion- she's living proof you don't have to look like a battered, musclebound monster to be a badass because she demonstrated unbelievable mental & physical toughness in .

is 27-years-old, 1.67m & 62kg (5'6" 137lbs), & was a cheerleader, dancer, & netball player before getting into lifting & becoming a fitness influencer.

The 27-year old Filipina-Australian's training is strength- rather than aesthetics-focused, which made her a sleeper badass on the Physical series, where bodybuilders traditionally struggle.

In the Rope Hang event in Episode 6 of (Pic 2), Milne's opponents were a male Sambo World Champ & the 1st Korean woman to compete in the Games, making her the clear underdog.

Nothing in a recreational lifter's training prepares them for a hellish event like the rope hang, & Milne couldn't see from sweating & sobbing. She held on even as her body was wracked by massive sobs & she was shaking from the sobs racking her body, Milne still held on & took 2nd.

No one expected the event to go ~3 hours, but none of the athletes would quit. Milne broke down halfway through the event & started sobbing as she clung to the ropes but persevered for another ~90 minutes, long after her mind & body seemed to give out.

Despite her physique, you'll never see her compete onstage. Milne (rightfully) says physique competitions are pointless- winning yields no tangible benefits & they negatively impact your work life & mental, financial, & physical health.

Inspired to get in shape, but worried you lack the time necessary to get the job done? Click the link in my profile & grab Plague of Strength's Lifting Method! It's a 350pp synthesis of everything I've ever written from an update of the old stuff like the powerlifting methods that helped me break a 40-year old world record, to all of my new stuff like Cold War Core, Juicy Delts, & Super Soldier Serum!

You'll get over a dozen programs for improving aesthetics, building strength & getting fit, plus statistics for tons of pre-steroid era athletes & timelines of major events in lifting & PED history!

09/26/2026

Aroldis Chapman is the most jacked pitchers in baseball history & 1 of the greatest relief pitchers of all time- he holds the records for the fastest pitch ever recorded, stuck out more batters than any relief pitcher in history, & has 8 of the 10 fastest recorded official pitches in addition to an unofficial 171kmh (106mph).

is a 38-years-old, 1.93m & 106kg (6'4 235lb) pitcher for the who was an 84kg (185lb) "stringbean" when he defected from Cuba at age 21.

Chapman gradually increased his bodyweight over 10 years by training basically every day during the off-season, doing a combination of hardcore boxing drills, running, calisthenics, bodybuilding, & weightlifting- that's when he packs on his mass & trains heavy.

During the season he only lifts 1x per week, in the AM on game days, but otherwise avoids boxing & bodybuilding during the season so he doesn't get too tight to pitch.

Power has never been his problem, so that's not really his goal- he uses technique & sports-specific training to improve his pitching & primarily uses the gym for aesthetics & fun.

By eating tons of delicious Cuban food, Chapman increased his weight to 98kg (215lbs) in 2015 & he got even bigger during COVID in 2020, hitting 106kg (235lbs) for the 1st time.

Chapman's critics often point out that the additional 22kg (50lbs) didn't add any additional speed to his fastball, but they're ignoring the fact that 15 years later he's still throwing nearly as fast as his rookie year (averages 98mph vs 100mph) & with more control:

- in 2011, he threw the fastest pitch in history (170.3kmh / 105.8 mph) & struck out 71 batters, but allowed opponents to score an average of 3.6x, walked 41 people, & had only 2 types of pitches
- in 2026, playing 1 fewer games, he threw a 164kmh (101.6mph) pitch, struck out 71, allowed an average of 1.92 points, walked only 23 batters, throws 3 types of pitches, & can throw directed pitches

Bang that link in my profile & grab Huge Natty Arms to find out how pre-steroid lifters built the biggest & best looking arms in history! It's got routines that that'll grow your arms from 38-51cm (15-20") without drugs!

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