Slightly over 2 years ago a young wrestler began training with us….

He weighed 88 lbs at the time and was 1 month out from wrestling season in which he would be wrestling at 103 lbs.

We had little time to prep before the season and in the first 3 weeks of the season he broke his collar bone during a wrestling match.

When you’re weak and have little strength and muscle, you can bet that your ligaments and bones are also weak.

Through the years we trained him with our Underground methods and every year he kept packing on the muscle and adding lots and lots of strength.

Believe it or not, we did not use a whole lot of barbell work….no back squats and no bench presses.

We didn’t have the need for them for the most part. Everyone needs something different, we can’t prescribe the same thing for everyone all the time, and this was certainly one of those times.

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Charles Atlas has the story of the 97 lb. weakling, well, I’ve got one about an 88 lb. weakling.

His name is Charlie Frankel. How I met Charlie is quite the story….

It was in the attic of a Church, where a hard core wrestling club was once housed.

I brought a few 50 lb. sandbags and Charlie could barely carry our smallest sandbag without wrestling it and stumbling all over the place.

At the time, Charlie was in 10th grade and wrestling in the 103 lb. weight class, except he had a serious problem…15 lbs. of problems that is!

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