*Originally published in 2021

Quick intro on Franco

For those of you that do not recognize the name… here’s a quick introduction. Born in Sardinia, Italy Franco began his extremely successful athletic career in the boxing ring, followed by Olympic Weightlifting and Powerlifting, finally resting on Bodybuilding. He stands at just 5’5, and he competed in the category that is less than 200 lbs. for bodybuilding.

To top off, Franco reached the pinnacle of bodybuilding by taking the Mr. Olympia title not once, but twice in 1976 and 1981. I think it’s safe to say that you he knows a thing or two about how to get the body strong.

A few weeks ago my wife and I headed out to California to attend Arnold’s Annual Christmas party. You really never know who you will run into at an event such as this. This year I was fortunate enough to run into Franco, and was lucky enough to spend some time with him to pick apart his mind on the deadlift.

The essence of the conversation was me asking advice on how to increase my deadlift. To put into perspective, Franco has deadlifted 745 lbs back in the day… so I thought he would be a perfect candidate to throw me some pointers.

Me, Sofia, Joe, Betty Weider, Arnold – (party was crazy)

3 Deadlift Tips From Franco

#1 Deadlift with a narrow stance for the next 6 months

I told Franco that I was a much better sumo dead lifter with my best being 600 lbs. He said I would pull conventional for the next 6 months if I was you. He asked me what my best conventional was, and I responded with 550. He said his stance varied way less than mine but he would pull more narrow for periods of time, then widen out a hair during meets.

Even though my stance is dramatically different he said I know you will break all your records if you switch to this. Franco said my numbers are really good which even if he was being nice it was still great to hear ha!

#2 Moderate to high rep Leg Press w/ same stance to increase pushing power 

Franco then proceeded to tell me how he would use the exact same stance for leg press weekly. I then responded with, that makes sense that it would help create more pushing power off the ground: aka leg press the floor to move the weight. He said this exactly in his heavy accent!

Franco swears to me this helped his deadlift a ton, and said I should start it as soon as possible.

#3 Don’t let the amount of weight you’re going to lift scare you

Keep correct lifting form and go ahead with your full power, but make sure all the muscles are warmed up. He told me he was never scared of the weight because he was prepared strong and always ready to test himself.

What I truly love about this era of guys is they had it both: they were strong and looked awesome. I know I am not them or even close to their level of what they achieved, but man it makes me wanna strive for it every day. I wanna be jacked and strong… it’s the holy grail.

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