Australian powerlifter Alex Simon is one of many top athletes around the world (including Eric Lilliebridge and Zahir Khudayarov) who are ramping up their training in preparation for Big Dogs 2, a meet that will be held on October 15 in Melbourne.
The superheavyweight just put up his latest personal record in the back squat: 425 kilograms (937 pounds) in knee wraps. In a recent Instagram post, he put his weight at over 160 kilograms (352.7 pounds), making this around 2.7 times his bodyweight.
Having humbly nicknamed himself “The God,” Simon has been racking up some seriously impressive lifts of late. In August alone, we spotted him squatting 375 kilograms (826.7 pounds) at the kind of speed most people can only maintain with warm up weights.
(Eric Lillebridge commented, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen 375 move that fast before. 400+ next easy.” Turns out he was right.)
His deadlift strength is also coming along nicely; he pulled 400 kilograms (882 pounds) with an unusually wide grip for another personal record in mid-August.
What makes him an even more remarkable athlete is that he actively competes in kickboxing — and he dominates. In July, Simon wrote that he won his last three fights by knock out for a total fight time of 55 seconds. That’s 55 seconds, all three fights combined. The next time someone tells you that powerlifting keeps you slow and fat, show them the clip below.
Here’s a full fight from July, which lasted 21 seconds.
We also found this older clip of him fighting Mono Uepi in 2015. It’s a little blurry, but that won’t bother you for long — the fight lasted twenty seconds until it was lights out for Uepi.
It turns out arms that can bench 210 kilograms (463 pounds) for ten reps at a time can throw some pretty serious punches. His PR bench, by the way, is 260 kilograms (573 pounds).
In a post from July, Simon wrote,
I was always told that if I trained too much with weights it would slow me down and negatively impact my ability in the boxing ring. Well so far, that hasn’t been the case.
In fact, it’s quite the opposite, and I’m sure if you ask my opponents, they’ll tell you the same thing.
The good thing about training for strength, is that it carries over to all sports.
If he’s competing at Big Dogs 2 as a superheavyweight, he might not have a great chance of beating out Lillebridge (who we’ve seen squatting 465 kilograms) or Khudayarov (480 kilograms) but there’s little doubt that Simon is a truly powerful, versatile athlete who is a unique figure in Australian powerlifting.
We’re looking forward to seeing him on the platform.
Featured image via @godlystrong on Instagram
