Feats

Fifteen of the lifts that became legend

Some of these are well-documented and well-witnessed. Some are partially attested, with the figure varying between sources. A few are folklore. This page makes the distinction explicit, lift by lift.

The standard problem of the Iron Game is that lifting was performed for paying audiences before it was performed for federations. The crowd wanted a number; the promoter supplied one; the press repeated it. By the time the lift had been re-described in a strongman's autobiography or a competing magazine, the figure had often drifted upward. The patient way to read these claims is to see what was reported at the time, by whom, and under what conditions.

The Bent PressA lift, not a date — but central to 1885–1925

The bent press is the central lift of the music-hall era. The lifter takes a heavy dumbbell or barbell to one shoulder, then lowers his torso laterally — bending sideways under the bell — until the arm holding the weight is locked out vertically over the head. He then stands up. The lift uses skeletal stacking rather than overhead pressing strength, and a competent bent presser can put up much more weight than he can press conventionally. It was the headline lift of every major strongman from the 1880s to the 1920s and was contested at the international level until the 1930s, after which the IWF removed it from the Olympic programme. It has been performed almost not at all since.

The bent press was taught to Sandow by Professor Attila in the 1880s, and through Sandow it became standard in the British and American repertoire. Arthur Saxon's 371-pound figure remains the highest credibly recorded weight. The lift is dangerous, technical, and has effectively disappeared because the modern Olympic lifting programme — the snatch and the clean and jerk — gives a cleaner test of pressing strength.

Saxon's 371-Pound Bent PressLondon, 1905

Arthur Saxon's right-hand bent press of 371 lb (168 kg), recorded at the Apollo-Saal in London in 1905, is the high-water mark of the lift. It was performed at his peak bodyweight of around 200 lb (91 kg). The lift was witnessed by other British professionals, including Thomas Inch and Edward Aston, and recorded in Health and Strength. Saxon stood behind the figure in print in The Development of Physical Power (1905). No bent press at this weight has been credibly performed since. The figure is sometimes given as 385 lb in later sources; the higher figure is not in Saxon's own writing and is likely a later embellishment.

Cyr's 4,337-Pound Back LiftSohmer Park, Montréal, 1895

Louis Cyr's back-lift figure of 4,337 lb (1,967 kg) was performed at Sohmer Park, Montréal, in 1895. The lifting style is specific: the lifter stands beneath a platform set on trestles, raises it perhaps an inch off the trestles by straightening his legs and lower back, and holds it momentarily before lowering it. The platform held eighteen men. The lift was witnessed and weighed; it was also reported in the Montréal press at the time and recorded in Ben Weider's biography.

By any modern definition this is a partial lift and not a full deadlift. As a recognised category in the 1890s — the back-lift, also known in continental Europe as the "Anstemmen" — it was a legitimate event with established judging criteria. Whether the figure is straightforwardly comparable to other lifts is a separate question. As a back-lift performed under the conventions of the period, it is the largest verified weight ever lifted by a single human being.

Hackenschmidt's 361-Pound Two-Hands CleanVienna, 1898

George Hackenschmidt's 361 lb (164 kg) two-hands clean and jerk in Vienna in 1898 was the world record in the lift at the time. It was performed under continental rules — the bar could be brought to the chest by any means, including a stage between belt and chest — and was witnessed by Vladislav Krajewski and the Vienna federation. The figure stood as the recognised benchmark for two-hands lifting for some twenty-five years, until Charles Rigoulot and others surpassed it under modern Olympic rules in the 1920s.

Sandwina's Overhead Lift of Her HusbandBarnum & Bailey, 1911–1918

Katie Sandwina's nightly performance with Barnum & Bailey was a one-arm overhead lift of her husband, Max Heymann, weighing approximately 165 lb (75 kg). She lifted him from her shoulder to arms' length above her head with her right arm, held him there through the band's chorus, and lowered him. The lift was reviewed in the New York and Chicago press, photographed repeatedly, and confirmed by reviewers from the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. It is one of the most evidentially solid strength feats of the era, precisely because it was performed nightly, in front of paying customers, for nearly a decade.

Goerner's 727-Pound One-Arm DeadliftLeipzig, 8 October 1920

Hermann Goerner's one-arm deadlift of 727 lb (330 kg) in Leipzig on 8 October 1920 was performed under German amateur federation observation, with a one-inch bar and standard plate loading, and was reported in Kraftsport at the time. It has not, in roughly a century, been clearly bettered. The closest modern attempts, with straps and modified bars, have approached the figure but the unaided, no-straps lift remains effectively his. Edgar Mueller's contemporary account in Goerner the Mighty (1951) is the principal source.

Rigoulot Cleans Apollon's WheelsParis, 3 January 1930

For thirty years after Apollon's retirement, his railway-axle dumbbells — 366 lb (166 kg) with a 1.93 in handle — sat as an open challenge in Paris. Apollon himself had performed the lift only as a stage piece, raising the bell to his shoulders. Charles Rigoulot, the 1924 Olympic champion, was the first to perform it as a clean and jerk to overhead, on 3 January 1930. He repeated the lift in 1931 and 1933. Edmond Desbonnet's contemporary reporting in La Culture Physique is the principal source. John Davis cleaned and jerked the original wheels in Paris in 1949; several subsequent lifters have done so on the original or near-replica implements. Rigoulot remains the first.

The Inch Dumbbell ChallengeBritain, 1907 onwards

Thomas Inch's heaviest challenge dumbbell — 172 lb (78 kg) with an unturned 2.38 in (60 mm) handle — was offered with a cash prize, at various times £200 then £1,000, to anyone who could clean it from the floor to the shoulder one-handed. The prize was never claimed in Inch's lifetime. Inch lifted the bell himself, repeatedly, in his stage tours; the question of whether he ever pressed it overhead is contested and the most reliable English sources say no. The bell has been cleanly lifted in the modern era by perhaps a dozen people, including Mark Henry, Žydrūnas Savickas, and Eddie Hall. The original is held in private custody.

The Dinnie StonesPotarch, Aberdeenshire, 1860 onwards

The Dinnie Stones are a pair of granite boulders weighing 188 kg (414 lb) and 144.5 kg (318 lb) — together 332.5 kg (733 lb) — sitting outside the Potarch Hotel in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Each stone has an iron ring set into it. Donald Dinnie, the Scottish Highland Games champion, is reputed to have carried the pair across the bridge over the River Dee in 1860, a distance of approximately 5 m. The original feat is folklore; what is firm is that the stones were already known by 1880 as Dinnie's, and that they have been an open challenge ever since.

The first credible modern lift of both stones was made by Henry Gray of Aberdeen in 1972. Subsequent lifters have included Jamie Reeves, Bill Kazmaier, Žydrūnas Savickas, Eddie Hall, and Stefan Solvi Petursson. The stones are held by the Potarch Hotel and may be attempted by appointment.

The Steinborn SquatPhiladelphia, 1920s

Before the squat rack was standard equipment, Henry Steinborn tipped a loaded barbell onto its end, walked it onto his shoulders, squatted it, and walked it back down. His best documented Steinborn-style squat was 553 lb (251 kg) at a bodyweight of approximately 210 lb. The lift was significant less for the weight than for the demonstration: prior to Steinborn, American lifters worked with squat weights limited by what they could press overhead and "settle" onto the back. The squat rack, which became standard equipment in the 1930s, made the Steinborn manoeuvre unnecessary; the lift is still performed occasionally as a demonstration of skill rather than absolute strength.

Sandow Defeats SampsonRoyal Aquarium, London, 2 November 1889

Charles Sampson held the British music-hall stage in 1889 as the strongest man in the world. Eugen Sandow, then twenty-two, answered Sampson's public challenge at the Royal Aquarium in London on the night of 2 November 1889, before a packed house. Sandow defeated Sampson in a series of dumbbell and chain-breaking events. The press coverage that followed turned him into a sensation; within weeks he was the headline act on the London variety circuit. The contest is the conventional starting point for the modern strongman tradition: it was the moment when a careful, well-trained lifter publicly defeated a chain-breaking showman, and the audience preferred the lifter.

The One-Finger LiftBoston, 1896

Louis Cyr's reported one-finger lift of 553 lb (251 kg) was performed in Boston in 1896. The lift involves hooking the index finger through a ring attached to the load and raising it from the floor. The figure is the subject of long-standing dispute, principally because the lift depends critically on the rigging of the ring through which the finger was hooked: a narrow ring concentrates load on a small area, a broad rope handle distributes it. The 553-lb figure was reported in the contemporary press but was not performed under federation observation, and the rig has not been preserved. The lift was a recognised category in the 1890s but has effectively disappeared from contest lifting since.

The Two-Hands AnyhowEuropean tradition, 1890s–1920s

The "Two-Hands Anyhow" was a recognised lift on the European circuit through the 1900s and 1910s. The lifter raised a barbell overhead with one hand by the bent press, then — without lowering the bar — picked up a second weight, typically a kettlebell, and pressed or hoisted it up beside the first. Arthur Saxon's figure of 448 lb (203 kg) — bent press of a 336-lb barbell, then a 112-lb kettlebell hoisted with the free hand — is the highest credibly recorded total. The lift was effectively retired from competition along with the bent press itself.

The Human Cannonball CatchStage tradition, 1900s onwards

"Catching" a human cannonball — the live performer fired from a stage mortar — was a strongman act performed by Sandwina, by John Marx, and by several lesser figures from roughly 1905 onwards. The "catch" was a controlled deceleration into a sprung net or pad held by the strongman, not a free deadlift; the strongman absorbed the residual velocity by giving with the legs and torso. As a feat it is dramatic; as a lift it is principally an exercise in timing rather than absolute strength. It is included here as folklore rather than evidence: figures attached to it (the cannonball weighing 200 lb, fired at 30 mph) are stage publicity rather than measurement, and should be read as such.

The Harness LiftMusic-hall tradition, 1880s–1920s

The harness lift was the music-hall era's largest-weight category. The lifter wore a leather harness or a yoke; a chain or several chains were attached to the harness; weights — anvils, iron blocks, sometimes a small horse — were lifted off the floor by the lifter straightening from a stooped position. Cyr, Apollon, and Warren Lincoln Travis (the American "Iron King") all performed harness lifts in the 4,000–5,000-lb range. The category was always partly a matter of leverage and rigging rather than pure strength, and the harness lift was the first of the music-hall events to disappear when the modern Olympic programme was established.

For the implements on which several of these feats were performed — the wheels, the bell, the stones, the dumbbell — see the Implements collection.