Another Awesome Day

Happy PR Friday — post your training updates and PR’s to the comments. Also, if you participate in another sport besides lifting, I’m interested to hear about it.
Today’s post is written by my homie Jacob Cloud. Enjoy.

Another Awesome Day
By Jacob Cloud

You ever just have one of those fucking awesome days? I have them all the damn time. Sometimes I share them with Justin, and sometimes he decides to share them with you guys. Last summer, I had an epic day full of mustachiod awesomeness, and snapped some pics, and Justin put it up for all to see. Check it out HERE.

Not too long after, I was training at the best gym in Austin, Hyde Park Gym…wait, let me tell you a little something about Hyde Park Gym. Actually, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Yeah, it’s awesome. So anyway, a few days after the article above, I walk into the gym, and I’m warming up for squats, and the front desk kid comes up and kinda sheepishly asks, “Hey man…are you Jacob, from 70sbig?” I knew I was going to like this guy right off the bat. Nevermind the fact that he knew my name from the sign in sheet. His next line guaranteed a bromance rivalled only by that of Justin and AC, or me and Kittensmash. He proceeded to comment, “Dang, you look bigger in real life.” It’s official – I fell for the guy. His name is Rory.

Now, Rory is no small fella himself. He ended his linear progression at about 5-foot-nuthin and 235 pounds, a big slap in the face to all you sub 6-footers complaining about becoming adult males. He and his dad also run a food trailer featuring delicious pork, which helps. The local paper wrote it up here and even described Rory as “a student and champion powerlifter with an easy charm that makes him a better customer ambassador than his dad, whose gruff manner takes some getting used to.” Nice. They spoke highly of the pig meat, too. Go to 3 Little Pigs. It’s road-trip-worthy. Trust me.


This guy works his ass off in the gym (literally – behind the desk as well as in the squat rack), and is shooting to demolish some raw squat records in the USAPL this year and next. Here’s a vid of his latest 495lb single in the middle of a nasty Smolov training cycle – while cutting down to the 198 class.


Rory’s my spotter at the gym, my good luck charm when I need to hit a PR, and my counter during high rep deads. He recently started at UT’s school of Engineering, so he’s real, real good at counting. And more importantly, he can get me on campus, which is where this story gets awesome and back on track. When I found out about the museum of lifting that Jan and Terry Todd have created at UT’s Stark Center, he’s the first guy I schemed with. “Oh, WE’RE GOING!”

Jan and Terry Todd have been called “The strongest couple in the world.” Both champion powerlifters and educators, they’ve spent the last 50 years collecting the coolest lifting-related shit in the world, and recently, with the help of some guy named Weider, they opened up an exhibit that anyone can see. So I, Rory, and another of our lifting buddies, Marlon (whose lifting exploits are second only to his Brent Kim log-stalking), sauntered over to campus to check it out. Guess what? It was awesome.

Unfortunately, some girl working the front desk didn’t allow me to bring my camera into the exhibit, so you’ll have to check it out yourself, like people such as Mark Henry and Bill Kazmaier have recently done. But as a teaser, let me tell you that the first exhibit consists of photos from Pudgy Stockton’s personal collection. You remember Pudgy. Yup, awesome.

Another exhibit is full of photos of the old Arnie and Franco days. Lots of classic favorites and some that you’ve never seen before. A favorite of ours was of Jan Todd doing rack pulls…with over a thousand pounds. Without straps. Marlon pretty much quit his lifting career at that point and nearly killed himself on the spot when I asked “WWBKD?”

Did I mention there are tons of old strongman implements laying around? We managed to not get kicked out by lifting any, but I can’t guarantee you’ll have the same kind of will power. Check it out, soon.

Anyway, it was completely awesome, amazing, and awe-inspiring, and all that. But we were hungry. Three adult males cannot just walk around for a couple hours without working up an appetite. I snuck this picture of Rory and Marlon next to their newest man crush, and we left in search of calories.



Rory knew exactly where to go, luckily. Dude knows his food. He led us to a BBQ trailer called the “Suga Shack,” famous for it’s biggest sandwich…the F-Bomb. F-Yes. A pound of various BBQ’d meats piled on to a roll, covered in jalapenos, pickles, onions, and queso. A 1 on the TIOLI scale, for sure .

We demolished our delicious sandwiches, went home, watched every Ricky Bruch video we could find and threw around a bunch of weights and PRs that night at the gym.

An Awesome Day, indeed.