In Pat Roberston’s “Bring It On” segment with the reading of viewer mail on the 700 Club network, there is a question that asks Pat Robertson about the Christian view of Yoga and whether it’s true that Yoga origins are rooted in evil. Roberstson says that Yoga is a form of meditation in the Hindu religion and that some of the mantras actually involve saying prayers to Vishnu and Krishna. Yoga promotes higher conciousness and the merging of your spirit into the ever-present god … and god is everywhere … that gets into pantheism, and that’s spooky. He basically says, watch out for the mantra and by all means, go out and stretch.

A video posted on CBN.com appeared to show Pat Robertson performing 10 repetitions of a leg press of 1,000 lbs on an Icarian Angled Leg Press machine (Precor.com, see 601 – Angled Leg Press). The reps were performed with partial range of motion (no deep knee and deep hip flexion was performed). Also, Pat Robertson used his hands with slight assistance, as if he was spotting himself while he performed the leg press repetitions ten times on the warmup sets. On the first rep he used a lot of hand press assistance on his thighs to lift the first rep of each warmup set. He first warms up with ’550 pounds’ (actually 10, 45-lb plates — he’s probably counting the machine plate as part of the load) for 13 reps. He then has two assistants add a 100-lb plate on each side to bring the weight to ’750 lbs’ and cranks out 10 reps (the video is edited and starts the count at five). Continuing in the video, he moves up (another 100-lb plate on each side) to ’900 lbs’ (wouldn’t that be 950 lbs by previous method?) for 10 reps. Finally a 45-lb plate is added to each side — he calls that a total of 1,000 lbs. All reps on the ’1,000-lb’ set were performed with strongly applied hand press assistance on the thighs. All sets showed his toes just at the top rim of the plate with a slight toe-out (<15 degrees). The feet were placed very close together with the knees together at the latter part of the range of motion of extension.

2000-lb Lift?
A text posting on the Christian Broadcasting Network website also claims that Pat Robertson worked out at the gym on an incline leg press machine with weights up to 570 pounds.  He is reported to have worked with his physician, who is also a strength trainer. Robertson is reported to have worked up to 800 pounds, then 1,000 pounds.  Then one day he was able to leg press 1,500 pounds one time.  Then over the succeeding months, he trained with multiple reps of 1,200 pounds, 1,300 pounds, and 1,400 pounds. One Saturday morning, his physician said, “I’ll get you bragging rights.  Let’s go to 2,000 pounds.”  Then he worked up multiple reps of 1,400 pounds, 1,500 pounds, 1,600 pounds, 1,700, pounds, 1,800 pounds and 1,900 pounds.  When 2,000 pounds was put on the machine two men got on either side and helped push the load up, and then let it down on Mr. Robertson, who pushed it up one rep and let it go back down again.

Some fitness and strength coach experts are doubtful about the 2000 lb claim, especially since it is not on video. CBS Sportsline columnist Travis Clay published serious doubts about the claim and added that Robertson would have broken the all-time Florida State University leg press record performed by Dan Kendra by 665 lbs.  CBN.com does not publish a date of the 2000-lb lift, but an Associated Press report states that CBN.com spokesperson Angell Vasko claims that Pat Robertson performed the 2000-lb leg press in 2003 when he was 73 years old.

The CBN website also promotes an ‘age-defying protein shake’ that includes soy protein isolate, whey protein isolate, flaxseed oil and apple cider vinegar.

SOURCES:
http://www.cbn.com/communitypublic/shake.asp
http://www.sportsline.com/spin/story/9454343