Tea and Crumpets with Glenn Pendlay
by Matt Reynolds
Glenn Pendlay is a guy you’ve probably never heard of. Unless you’re into hanging out with Exercise Physiology or Kinesiology professors or actually attend those strength symposiums, then you most likely have no idea who he is. But if you do know anything about the aforementioned subjects, then you know exactly who he is. He’s one of the best…ever.
He’s also one of the best Olympic Weightlifting coaches in the nation. His kids have won Junior and Collegiate Nationals so many times that if they handed out rings to the champs, Glenn would soon be looking for toes to display the bling*.
And oh yeah, he’s one hell of an athlete too.
I had the opportunity to train with Glenn Pendlay a few weekends ago, and while I was there I convinced him to sit down and do an interview for
CORE Performance.
Glenn is a big scary bastard. He runs about 6'2" and 330 these days, down from 370 at his peak in Olympic strength. After training, Glenn offered to give me a ride to a pizza joint where we planned to put the place out of business. He had an enormous pickup truck (as you would expect from most 300lb+ Olympic weightlifting coaches from Texas.) Inside the truck sat a 357 magnum in a holster on the passenger seat. On the console was a can of Copenhagen. The stereo was playing Waylon Jennings. And Glenn had a handwritten note to himself on the driver's side sun visor. It read "DON'T BE A PUSSY!"
After we arrived at our destination and began our marathon of pizza eating gluttony, I started in…
Matt Reynolds: Give us a little info on your background. What is your age, height, weight? Where are you originally from? What is your educational background? Where and who do you coach?
Glenn Pendlay: I’m 33, about 6’2" or so, and currently weigh 330lbs, down from 370lbs back in my strong days. I’m originally from Kansas. I got my undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from Kansas State University, then started my Masters degree at Montana State but finished it at Midwestern State in Wichita Falls, Texas. I coach the MSU weightlifting team, as well as a team of younger lifters from Wichita Falls. I am the head coach of a Regional Olympic Development Center, which involves mostly weightlifting, but I also get athletes in sports from cycling to football.
MR: What sports have you competed in? Did you play sports in high school and college? How did you get into strength training?
GP: I threw some in track and field when I was young, and did tennis and cross country, but wrestling was my main sport in high school. I had planned to wrestle in college but I got my shoulder hurt my senior year at the state tournament really bad. I started lifting to rehab, discovered powerlifting, and started competing in that. During my powerlifting career I did some Scottish Highland Games, tried a bit of the strong man stuff, and did some more wrestling when I was at Montana State. I eventually went on to Olympic Weightlifting and everything else took a back seat to competing and coaching in that sport. I wouldn’t rule out some more Highland Games or strongman in the future, or even some masters track and field, but I doubt I’ll ever do any more powerlifting. That sport has changed a lot from when I was doing it and I still like it but don’t think I want to do it anymore.
MR: Wow! You've been active in almost every strength sport imaginable! What are some of your best lifts, or lifts you're most proud of? Include "odd" feats of strength.
GP: Well, I snatched 170kilos (375lbs) with only a few years of training in that lift, which I’m pretty proud of. Its not the best that’s been done by far, but for a guy taking up the sport late in life and not training all that long, I think its ok. I’ve also cleaned 210kilos (463lbs), push pressed 200kilos (440lbs), military pressed within 5 or 10lbs of the magic 400lb mark several times but never got 400.
I know you probably want to know about squatting, but honestly I’m not sure what my best squat was or could have been, which is stupid because squatting is the most natural movement to me. It’s always been what I’ve been strongest at. When I was at my strongest I never really tried to max out on the squat. It’s also so hard to discuss squat numbers, because you run into what you were wearing or weren’t wearing, how low you went, etc. It’s almost to the point where the numbers mean less than the apparel.
I did squat over 800 several times off a below parallel box wearing just a belt. I also did 606lbs for a set of 10 with a lot of gas left in the tank, high bar and close stance Olympic style, without wearing a belt, or any other equipment. Other "odd" feats related to the squat would be a set of 5 on the front squat with 550lb, and an Olympic style back squat single with 600lbs done fast enough to throw the bar over my head at the end of the squat and have it land in front of me, which I tried because I had heard that David Rigert did it years ago in training before a World Championships.
As far as odd lifts go, I’ve done strict barbell rows for reps with 425, and that’s without lifting the back past parallel with the ground. I never curl but on a bet once I did 235lbs for a set of 8 on the barbell curl with fairly good form. Back when I was younger and weighing around 275-285lbs I benched a bit over 500 without a shirt. But I tore my pec and never got to try more than that. Probably not much of a loss, as I wasn’t really suited to the bench and would probably have never been good at it anyway.
I’ve done stiff leg deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts with over 700lbs, and a few other odd things like that. I’ve done a lot of weird things regarding hand and forearm strength , but nothing I can really set numbers to except for squeezing the Ironmind number 1 gripper 100 times in a row, and 1000 times within the space of a few hours, and squeezing the number two 28 times in a row and 500 times in 5 hours.
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