The Miracle Merchant

Vladimir Chubinsky Says the Wonders Taking Place in his Gym will Change the Face of Competitive Sports.

DATE: August 28, 2006
PUBLICATION: ESPN The Magazine

THE WEIGHT is absurd. That's the essence of gravitational gymnastics: placing incredible stress on the hips, pelvis and lumbar region, initiating what Vladimir believes is an immune response in the bloodstream. The exercise begins with a long bar attached to two-foot-tall circular weights, a simple contraption that the Russian claims even the "strongest man in world" couldn't lift with his arms. There are three stations of bars in Vladimir's gym. One bar has no weight to speak of. Another is freighted with 1,000 pounds. The third, in a corner and out of daylight's reach, is stacked with as many disks as it can hold, almost 3,000 pounds' worth. Vladimir calls these bars "belt lifts," and when you stand above them and look down, you get the feeling that lifting them is impossible.

But it is possible.