Dr. Squat
By vishwa on Inspiration, Training
May 16, 2017
Frederick C. Hatfield was born in October 21, 1942. His achievements were multitudinous. I shall mention a few:
Famously nicknamed Dr. Squat, at the age of 45, he set a squat world record by lifting 1014 pounds in the 100 kilogram weight category.
Co-founder and president of the International Sports Sciences Association, which I am proudly certified as a fitness trainer.
Trained the legendary boxer Evander Hollywood.
Authored over sixty training books. I own a copy of one of his famous book titled Bodybuilding: A Scientific Approach.
As a power lifter, Hatfield won 2 IPF World Powerlifting Championships titles in 1983 and 1986. His personal records in the sport of powerlifting and Olympic Lifting were:
Squat: 1014 pounds
Bench press: 523 pounds
Deadlift: 766 pounds
Snatch: 275 pounds
Clean and Jerk: 369 pounds
Last but not the least, he is renowned for writing the seven granddaddy laws of training. These laws are the cornerstone of training:
The Law of Individual Differences
The Overcompensation Principles
The Overload principle
The Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands
The Use/Disuse principle and law of Reversibility
The Specificity Principle
The General Adaptation Syndrome
According to these laws our programming needs to be tailored to our goals. I also believe that all the training variables that are brought into training program, perhaps, invariably abide by anyone of the mentioned rule.
Sadly, Hatfield died on May 14th 2017 at the age of 74. However, from all the above mentioned accomplishments his greatest has been healing from a stage 4 prostate cancer that had spread to the bone. The cancer was detected in early 2012, and he was given three months to live as the cancer had metastasized. Nonetheless, he went on to live for 5 more years–attributing his spectacular recovery to ketogenic diet.
Last but not the least, during the course of my certification as a fitness trainer from International Sports Sciences Association, we wannabe trainers had the privilege to clarify our doubts. Patrick Gamboa was named as the moderator of the message board. I posed a very specific question. It was related to a training principle that Dr. Hatfield had stated. It didn’t come under the purview of Patrick. Dr. Hatfield himself helped me out and explained the concept in doubt. It was a testament, which showed him to be a thorough professional and to reach out to anyone needing assistance.
Below is the video where you can see him squat 1008 pounds.