Doug Furnas – The Ultimate Athlete

Man amongst Men: The Oklahoma Stud at his power peak: I took the shot in Minnesota 1985. I was coaching Doug, Ed Coan and Mark Chaillet all at the same time at this meet – plus running to the front of the stage with my Nikon to shoot photos. At 5’10” and 275 pounds, Doug Furnas readies to pull 826. This lift would make him the first man in history to total 2,400 pounds twice. Despite his freaky physique he was loose and limber. He stretched prior to lifting and would routinely do the full splits. His thighs were 34 inches and calves 21 inches in this picture.

Doug Furnas was above all else an athlete. He was one of the true strength giants of our time, but being a hall of fame powerlifter was just one aspect of the Ice Man’s extensive athletic career. He had a steeling competitive demeanor, a savage work ethic and tremendous genetic gifts. He was successful in every athletic undertaking. Doug never reached his full potential in any one athletic arena because he would periodically spin off in another direction: from rodeo to football to powerlifting to strongman to professional wrestling … he was an athletic Ronin Samurai warrior. “This gun for hire.” He could have gone professional as a teen rodeo rider; he was starting fullback for a high school team that played in the State Championships; he played for the National Champion junior college football team before becoming a starting fullback for Tennessee on a team that included pro football immortal Reggie White. He played in the Peach Bowl. He played pro football for Denver with John Elway before taking up powerlifting.

He set his first World Record within nine months of dedicating himself exclusively to the sport. He ripped across the power skyline for four years before becoming a professional wrestler. He was a veritable wrestling God in Japan. During the late 1980s he was recognized everywhere he went in Japan and mobbed on the streets like a rock star. He wrestled in the WWF before an auto accident ended his athletic career. Doug was unquestionably one of the most innovative resistance trainers of the modern era. I am proud to call him a friend.

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Doug Furnas was sophisticated in his strength philosophies and put theory into practice with incredible results. He had the good powerlift luck to stand on the shoulders of another iron giant, Dennis Wright. At a critical juncture in his multidimensional athletic career, Doug studied powerlifting under Dennis like Luke studied under Obi Wan.

When Dennis slipped the leash, Doug squatted 881 weighing 238, using the most awesome squat technique every seen. His squats were like Raphael paintings, as athletically exquisite as a Tiber Woods golf swing or a Michael Jordon leap-and-dunk. Doug had great mentors at various times in his athletic career, but none were more accomplished than Dennis.

Furnas excelled at every athletic activity to which he turned his full attention. He competed at stratospheric levels in every sport: starting off with rodeo as a man-child, then football, powerlifting and finally professional wrestling. He and wrestling partner Phil LaFon were five time tag team champions in the All Japan Professional Wrestling federation. Later he and tag team partner Don Keffutt captured the ECW World Tag Team title.

Doug’s only athletic disappointment occurred when a hamstring injury prematurely ended his professional football career with Denver. The injury effectively strangled his pro ball career in its crib. He became disillusioned and was relegated to the Bronco taxi squad. For the first time in his life, he was not a starter or star. His hamstring injury became a chronic injury and he became embroiled in irresolvable conflicts with Denver head coach Dan Reeves. He was trapped in athletic limbo: good enough to be kept on the payroll, never healed enough to demonstrate his wares, increasingly frustrated and disgusted, he headed home to the family farm to reconsider his future and athletically recalibrate. Football’s loss became powerlifting’s gain.

Farm Boy Strength

Doug and his brother, Mike were subjected to the hardening effects of intense manual labor as children. Both had highly developed pain tolerances from all those rodeo bumps and bruises, all those football practices and before all of it, from the hard farm labor they were required to do as youngsters.

The family owned a 270 acre ranch and the boys were required to work and work hard. Mike was a year younger than Doug and just as athletic and just as combative. Doug related that as children the brothers were expected to “pull their weight” insofar as chores. When they were youngsters the duo were assigned to work together. The duo was expected to perform the work of a single adult male farmhand. Together they formed a “unit.” Together the two little boys would run along in open farm fields, behind a moving truck, together dragging 100 pound hay bails up to a moving flatbed. They would routinely carry heavy water and heavy feed buckets. They worked long hours at physically demanding tasks. Meanwhile, Doug noted, that “while Mike and I were wrestling steers and each other, the town kids were out playing T-ball.”

The brothers became “real physical” and when the twosome started playing high school football they were way ahead of their teammates. Football, however, was not the first sport young Doug excelled at: the entire Furnas family competed on the competitive rodeo circuit. They paid substantial entry fees to compete for cash prizes. Mom, dad, brother, sister, all rode and roped, competing for money. Hardcore rodeo taught Doug how to fall, how to get thrown and not get hurt; how to get up after being thrown, how to dust yourself off and shake off the pain. He gave serious thought to becoming a bull riding professional; his childhood rodeo contemporaries founded the Professional Rodeo circuit.

Forced to make a choice, Doug choose football. He ended up as a teammate of NFL all-pro and World Champion sprinter Willie Gault. Also on the Tennessee team was future Super Bowl MVP, NFL. Defensive Player of the year and Hall of Fame immortal Reggie White. Doug and Mike Furnas effortlessly operated at the highest athletic levels.

Near Death Experience Leads to Iron Introduction

Doug’s love affair with a barbell commended after he was nearly killed in a horrific auto accident. The Furnas family was returning home from a rodeo competition when their car was run into head on as they crested a hill by a drunk driver speeding down the wrong side of the road. Doug was 16 at the time. His body was completely shattered. Both his legs were broken, his shoulder was destroyed and his spleen exploded upon impact. Doug’s father broke his neck. His girlfriend (who he later married) broker her back. Doug’s mother broke both ankles.

It took him almost two years to heal. Lifting weights became a big part of his recovery and he developed a deep taste for weight training. He recovered enough to go back to school. His younger brother Mike and he were now in the same grade. All through junior high school, high school, junior college and college the two played together on championship football teams. The brothers played on a high school team that went to the Oklahoma High School State Championships. Both were selected as Oklahoma high school all-stars and played against the Texas all-stars in the Oil Bowl. Both played for Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, a junior college squad that won the Junior college National Championships.

That brought dozens of offers from Division I teams. The brothers decided on Tennessee because both were offered scholarships and they could continue to play together. Tennessee won the conference title and went to the Peach Bowl. On New Year’s Day in front of 60,000 people, while millions more watched on TV, Tennessee lost by two points to Iowa 26 to 24 in the last 60 seconds of the game. Though he didn’t know it at the time, that exciting loss would be both the high point and tragic foreshadowing that the football high times had peaked and things were about to sour. Doug ended up with the Denver Broncos and after a hamstring injury became chronic, he voluntarily opted out. Doug was now free to immerse himself in powerlifting. He had followed the iron sport since his auto accident and dreamed of a time when he could focus on it exclusively. That time was now.

For the first time since third grade, Doug wasn’t participating in a team sport. With powerlifting it was just him and the barbell and the aloneness appealed to him mightily. Now he didn’t have to schedule his life around someone else’s practice schedule. Now he could concentrate 100% of his energies on an individual sport. He would settle in and concentrate on becoming the best powerlifter he could be. His brother joined him. Now they would both commence on the powerlifting path, together once again.

He had followed the sport of powerlifting all through high school and college. He was particularly taken by another amazing athlete turned powerlifter, John Gamble. The monstrous Gamble had it all: massive and lean, John had a ferocious competitive attitude. Gamble was a balanced lifter who at his peak was untouchable. Gamble had an incredible physique and his sheer physical dominance provided Doug with a power role model, someone he aspired to emulate.

Doug compounded his physical and psychological assets with clean living habits; he neither smoked nor drank nor partied. He had a stern, collected, Ice Man demeanor. He seemed aloof because he was aloof. If you were in his inner circle he could be quite open and humorous. He was well spoken, but soft spoken and you would find yourself leaning forward to hear him better in conversations. From a distance he appeared humorless; he was the kind of guy if you were competing against you hated, but he was exactly the type of man you would want in a foxhole next to you. It was easy to envision  him as a squadron commander leading a mass assault of M-1 Abraham tanks across some desert landscape. After the extreme regimentation of football, dealing with coaches who held scholarships or money over his head, Doug was glad to be free of the smothering, all-consuming commitments of big time football.

He sought to maximize his abilities as a lifter. As a teen he had apprenticed under Okie powerlifting legend Dennis Wright. Both men lived in the same neck of the woods in rural Oklahoma and it was only natural that Doug and Mike and Dennis begin working out together. Dennis would power through his own sessions and Doug and his brother would “ghost Dennis, ” following right behind, performing whatever exercises, set and rep selections Dennis decided Upon. Doug and Mike would tackle whatever Wright set in front of them, no questions asked.

In the early days, Doug and Mike would powerlift between football seasons. After pro football, powerlifting was given undivided attention. It was the beginning of a legendary run of the table. Furnas’ power career lasted four short years, but during that time he was a meteor streaking across the dark sky of powerlifting. He redefined the athletic possibilities. He campaigned for a season in the 242 pound class and set his first world squat record, 881 pounds, weighing 239. Standing 5’10” he was actually too tall for that class and really hit his stride when he moved up to the 275 pound class. He had played football weighing a leaned-out, trimmed to the max 225 pounds carrying a 6% body fat percentile. He was a blocking fullback who ran a 4.5 forty and had a 40 inch vertical leap. Adding 50 pounds of muscle caused him to come on strong and fast.

Furnas was the powerlifting equivalent of the perfect storm: great genetics combined with a great work ethic, a high pain tolerance and a hall-of-fame coach. Wright pointed out all the shortcuts and dead-ends ahead of time. Wright’s primordial approach, lots of volume, lots of poundage, lots of sets and long sessions, was Old School all the way. No mercy power training for those who could hang. The Wright/Furnas brother training sessions were legendary.

Squat Clinic: Here is Doug 2/3rd of the way erect with 985 pounds. Not his erect torso and how he is keeping his knees over his ankles. His head is thrown back to keep everything in proper structural push alignment. After the speed and ease with which he handled this weight, I suggested he take a 4th attempt with 1,020. Without a seconds hesitation he demurred, “I want to save it (my strength) for the other lifts.” He posted his first 2,400 pound total be never posted an official 1,000 pound squat. I often wondered if he had any regrets about not uncorking a grand on this particular day.

Dennis Wright: “Simplistic Genius”

Dennis Wright was a hall-of-fame powerlifter who got better as he got older. Dennis started off in the 70’s as a gangly, yet surprisingly powerful 165 pound lifter. I saw him lift at age 50 and weighing 198 pounds. Dennis squatted 800 pounds, quadruple bodyweight in exquisite fashion. He backed up the squat with a 475 pound bench press. The 800 pound squat was pure technical perfection. After a slow, controlled descent that ended in a precision turn-around, two inches below parallel, the ascent was explosive and crisp. Watching Wright’s lifts that day, I was struck that every squat he took was an identical copy of the previous one or the subsequent one. I was seeing a Samurai master handle an o-dachi long sword.

Doug related that he and his brother always mad it a point to arrive for training sessions with Dennis 15 minute early. They would sit curbside in the car until the appointed training time, drinking coffee. The brothers would fire each other up as they sat, talking themselves into a quiet frenzy, getting psyched for the workout. I asked, why they didn’t just go in early, or arrive on time. Why arrive early? I asked. “We were showing Dennis respect. We made it a point to arrive early in order to show our eagerness and gratitude. Going in early would have been disrespectful.”

Dennis Wright would work the hell out of the brothers during a session. A typical weekly squat week would find the men performing four sets of 5 reps on Tuesday with a “static” poundage. On Saturday they would work up to a heavy 5 rep set, then a heavy 4 rep set, then a triple, then a double and finally a single. Not done they would “back down,” i.e., reduce the poundage, and hit sets of either 5 or 7 second pause squats. “Dennis was a simplistic genius. Everything I have ever done was a result of what I learned from him.” More Furnasian deference.

When Doug began concentrating on powerlifting his poundage began to soar and he dropped the twice-a-week squat template. ” I wasn’t recovering session to session. I played with a second light squat day, but that seemed like a waste of time. Eventually I dropped the second weekly squat day – and that’s when my lifting took off.”

In each session they would strive to equal or exceed previous personal records, though capacity might take differing forms. As a result of all the Old School squatting and pause squatting, done Dennis Wright style, (lots of volume, lots of intensity, lots of poundage.) Doug grew gargantuan legs. It was said that his thighs measured 34 inches while his waist size was 34. He refused all inquiries into his girth measurements. Eventually, he weighed 275 pounds, yet was ripped shredded. Even at his heaviest bodyweight he was always lean and athletic. He bench pressed 620 in training and 600 officially, this while wearing a loos, size 60 inch 1st generation Inzer power shirt. His shirts were so loose I asked why he bothered wearing them at all: he could put the shirt on himself. “I like the way it keeps my torso warm.”

A typical bench workout might find him working up to a top set, before cutting the weight and performing two sets of wide grip bench presses using a pause on the chest. Then he would drop the poundage and hit two sets of flat bench presses using a narrow grip. Narrow grip bench presses would also be paused. With narrow grip benches the sticking point occurs as the bar approaches lock-out and concentrated us of narrow grips improves lockout ability. Wide-grip bench presses were purposefully paused to build “starting power.” Triceps would be worked hard after benching.

Doug used a sumo deadlift technique and tried to harness his amazing leg strength in his pulling. He viewed the deadlift as a “reverse squat.” He used a wide stance in both lifts and maintained a bolt upright torso. He never let his hops rise to get the deadlift started and eventually pulled 826. His deadlift limitation was his grip. He had violent allergic reactions to magnesium  carbonate, lifting chalk, and this meant he had to pull without it. Doug found that if he successfully pushed his squat upward, his deadlift would tag along. There was a consistent ratio between the two lifts and as he approached 1,000 in the squat, his deadlift rose proportionally.

Incredible Eddy Coan shared training ideas with Doug on a regular basis. The two saw eye to eye on so many areas that they arrived eventually at a power training consensus. Their template was adopted by many of their contemporaries and changed the power thinking of the day. It was an amalgamation, a blending of strategies that amplified results. In person they were impressive: Doug’s persona, quiet intensity, made an interesting contrast to Ed’s Irish fierceness and fire. Like Mick and Keith, John and Paul, Butch and Sundance, they became Iron partners. There was a period of time when the two were inseparable at National and World competitions.

After retiring from powerlifting, Doug kept his hand in the game by coming to the Nationals to work with Ed Coan. I had the pleasure of coaching each man at National and World Championships. It was a white-knuckle, hair raising experience to work with these guys. It was terrifying to handle Doug, Ed and Mark Chaillet – all at the same time: Any mess up and months of work could be destroyed.

Minnesota Triumph: Furnas after completing a 970 pound squat. The boys are helping him replace the barbell as Ernie Frantz reaches for the white lights. I never saw Furnas get a red light on a successful squat. He would shake like a tree full of dead leaves in a hurricane trying to get set up. Once he was able to establish his wide squat stance, he would squat the weight like it was 135 pounds.

Coaching Coan, Furnas and Chaillet Simultaneously

What a trio: each man needed special handling. With six months of preparatory blood, sweat, tears and training preparation on the line, coaching these men on report card day was no freaking joke! These guys were all business on game day. They only competed twice a year – at the National Championships and at the World Championships – so there was a helluva lot at stake. When these big guns, the biggest stars in the sport, were rolled out together, world record smashing was expected and demanded.

My job was akin to that of a NASCAR pit crew chief handling three race cars at once: it was up to me to time the process, ensure that all warm-up attempts were done in a timely fashion, make sure the backstage warm-up poundage was loaded correctly, that spotters were in place and alert. Gear needed to be put on at just the right time: wrap a man’s knees too early and kiss the lift goodbye. The wrap tension will cut off blood circulation and turn a man’s legs blue. Start the knee wrapping procedure too late and the lifter is rushed and hustled onto the platform, deprived of his critical pre-lift psyche-up. At worst, late wrapping causes the lifter to be “timed out,” disqualified from lifting that attempt because he was not on the platform within the allotted time. In addition, there were spectators and well-wishers that needed to be kept at bay during the warm-up procedure. Each man needed to remain psyched, centered and concentrated; a casual backslap or civilian intrusion at the wrong moment could shatter a carefully constructed psyche. It was intimidating and invigoration all at the same time … I would experience pure fear before every attempt; this was inevitably followed by ecstatic elation after some amazing lift.

These guys nearly always made their lifts and they were spectacular to watch, truly electrifying. They routinely shattered world records, one after another, and did so with predicable regularity. I was the crew chief when each of these hall-of-fame men achieved their respective best all-time power performances. Doug was the first man to total 2,400 pounds twice and was by far the lightest ever to hit 2,400 at the time until his partner, Ed Coan, cracked 2,400 weighing a mere 219 pounds, a few years later. Chaillet was walking drama: with his blunderbuss deadlift he would usually end up the last man left to deadlift, the man who can and did snatch victory from the jaws of defeat repeatedly. He was the definition of nerve wracking.

Doug in Maui after becoming the first 275 pound lifter to total 2,400. I was there coaching Mark Chaillet to his first world title. That morning the Chaillet posse went to breakfast with Ed Coan, Doug Furnas and their respective crews. We ate at Moos McGillicudys restaurant in Lahania. As we ate I kept glancing at my watch. Lifting was scheduled to start at 10am. Mark caught my concern and addressed the table, “Hey, maybe we better get going it’s almost 8:30.” Doug, stoic, soft spoken, steely, looked up between bites of scrambled eggs and said, “Don’t worry Mark, they won’t start without us.” Chaillet laughed and I laughed (nervously) and we continued eating, Furnas didn’t laugh. He was right, they waited until we arrived. His techniques were impeccable and his styles played to his physical strengths.

Life after Powerlifting

Then Doug was gone. He quit powerlifting at the absolute zenith of his career. He simply walked away. He had won national and world championships, he had set numerous world records and to continue onward would be mere repetition, improving upon that which he had already accomplished. He turned his thoughts towards making a living and decided to enter the lucrative yet intensely competitive world of professional wrestling. He was accepted immediately and worked his way through the national and international circuit until he was summoned to the highest level of pro wrestling ranks: the WWF. His lack of flamboyance prevented him from becoming a comic book superstar, yet his amazing athletic ability assured him a place at the table.

In a dreadful dose of Shakespearian irony, yet another horrid auto accident ended his athletic career. A van full of professional wrestlers were driving from one show to another when the driver fell asleep and drove off the road, plunging into a ravine dep in the Canadian wilderness. Doug’s body was shattered yet again. Auto tragedy commenced his iron journey decades before and decades later another auto tragedy ended it; a gruesome set of chronological bookends denoting the beginnings and ending of an amazingly versatile athlete’s amazing athletic career.

Learn more about my experiences Ed Coan and Mark Chaillet. Check out the posts below.

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