This just gets funnier and funnier. After making the stupendously ridiculous claim that he could leg press 2000 pounds because of his “age defying shakes”, Pat Robertson is now defending that claim – kind of:

A spokeswoman recently released a photo she said showed Robertson leg-pressing 2,000 pounds on February 1, 2003. Robertson had surgery to remove a cancerous prostate gland later that month and turned 73 that March.

“I did it one time, one rep, but I had built up to it for about three years,” Robertson insisted on Wednesday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the first time he has spoken with a reporter since the leg-press brouhaha.

Robertson said his doctor encouraged him to leg-press weights to strengthen his bad knees.

So not only does he claim to have leg pressed 2000 pounds, he claims to have done it at 72 years old, with prostate cancer and with bad knees! Ah, but there’s a caveat or two:

But he said he did the 2,000-pound lift on an incline leg press with the machine’s brake on, which means he did not have to lift the weight the whole way.

“When the professionals do it, they take the brake off and let the weight come all the way down on them. And if you don’t have a lot of help, you’ve got a Volkswagen sitting on your hips. I didn’t do that,” he said.

Hilarious. “I leg pressed 2000 pounds. I mean, I didn’t really leg press 2000 pounds because that would be really heavy and I might die. But I’m still going to claim that I did.” Come on, Pat, just admit that you’re a liar. We all know it anyway.