I remember the legendary Bill Kazmeier; today the obstensible hypercentenarian would be probably Eddie Hall, who deadlifted 500 kg (and survived it, barely). There are historical videos on his 500 kg lift, immediately after shortly fainted due to the huge surge in cranial blood pressure.
I think the problem is that if you target grip strength as a metric it loses most of its predictive value.
Great video. I’ve never watched this sport before. The wrist things help him quite a bit on grip strength. It’s kind of hanging from his wrists.
It’s probably so. Conceptually, grip strength may have a predictive value when measured in non-training individuals as a proxy for muscular functionality. Perhaps the method is saturated over a certain threshold.
They call this variant ‘Deadlift under strongman rules’. Maybe it allows slightly heavier loading than powerlifting rules.
I read Eddie Hall’s book and most assuredly the routine of such strongmen is anti-longevity. Pure muscular strength and resilience comes with interventions which are often damaging. Maybe the epigenetic signal they build up in their youth can be undone later. During that lift he may have undergone permanent microdamages to his brain.
During his lunch before the record displayed in the video, Eddie Hall ordered at the restaurant and ate one kg of pure lard.
Straps might add 10-20% to your lift, so this guy could probably only lift 900 pounds without them. Weak!
Strangely, the raw powerlifting record (only belt, no suit no straps) is higher than the equipped (barred the strongman rule of course).
This guy, according to grip strength theory, should live at least to 200 years.
Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson is a force of nature at 6’ 9" and incredible musculature. Up to this topic, I didn’t know he surpassed by 1 kg Eddie Hall’s deadlift record.
Really would think short people would have the advantage here. Lifting less high, better leverage. That guy is incredible.