09/01/20
Back in May, history was made. The world deadlift record was broken by Hafthor Bjornsson.
He picked up a massive 501kg (1105lbs) beating the old record of 500kg. If you’ve never seen him before, give him a search, he’s quite the specimen. At the time of this record breaking attempt, he stood at 6’9″ and weighed 425lbs.
An absolute monster in terms of absolute strength meaning, total force exerted regardless of body weight or size. Using absolute strength to set goals is a great way to move forward. On the other hand, there’s also something to be said for relative strength. This is strength compared to body size and weight. Another great way to prioritize goals. With these numbers you can be put into categories to see how you stand among others.
A few goals that come to mind:
Body weight bench press for women, 1.5xBW for men.
Back squat 1.5x + for women, 2xBW + for men
Deadlift 1.5-2xBW for women, 2-3xBW for men
Plenty of men and women have proven to be able to put up 2,3 or even 4x their body weight on certain lifts.
With the next few weeks in mind, we want to think long term and consider where you’d like your strength to be.
We don’t do fancy shit, we do the fundamentals extremely well.
“You do not need to do many different exercises to get strong – you need to get strong on a very few important exercises, movements that train the whole body as a system, not as a collection of separate body parts.
The problem with the programs advocated by all the national exercise organizations is that they fail to recognize this basic principle: the body best adapts as a whole organism to stress applied to the whole organism.
The more stress that can be applied to as much of the body at one time as possible, the more effective and productive the adaptation will be.” – Mark Rippitoe
