Incredible flexibility for a big guy. How is his vertical leap and sprinting speed to test power? What can he power clean to show his power? He can be the most flexible 300lbs guy in the gym but if he can't power clean his own body weight he is not powerful. How is his VO2 for short distance endurance? Can he run a 1.5 miles for a decent speed? Does he have real endurance past the tested VO2? How is his single rep strength?
I'm not putting him down. I'm just pointing out the term functional has some parameters. Yes specificity of sport is huge. The days of being both a bodybuilder and an Olympic weight lifter are over like Tommy Kono, Grimek and a few others did.
Remember the ABC sports show The Super Stars? They took athletes for all different sports and made them compete in such things as Sprinting, half mile run, biking, swimming, bowling, hitting base balls, power jerking a barbell, and an obstacle course. Lou Ferrigno and Mike Mentzer both competed. The rules were if you were an athlete in a sport contested you couldn't do that test. So baseball players couldn't hit baseballs from the pitching machine. Joe Frazier the boxer nearly drowned in the pool. He never swam in his life and thought he could swim just because he was a boxer. Big Lou actually did really good. On his preliminary he won his group. On the final he had some bad luck in some events. I was surprised how good he was hitting baseballs. I think he power jerked in horrific form about 320lbs off the racks. He was beaten by the shot putter Brian Oldfield who could easily jerk 400lbs off the racks. Mentzer was as slow as molasses in the 100 yard dash. I think he was defeated with 310lbs jerk off the rack if my memory serves me right. Remember it wasn't a half press from a smith machine but the barbell resting on the clavicles jerk. Lou actually ran a 2:21 half mile. If you're not impressed by that put a treadmill on 13MPH and try to run a half mile.
