It wasn’t too long ago that 120kg powerlifter Dennis Cornelius announced that he’s beginning prep for 2018 USA Powerlifting Raw Nationals. In fact, Cornelius posted the Raw National announcement on July 27th on his Instagram page with a hyped up powerlifting trailer. This year, USAPL Raw Nationals will be taking place in Spokane, Washington and kick off October 10th and extend through the 15th.
Over the last few weeks, Cornelius has been sharing some routine lifts — granted, we mean routine for Cornelius — as he makes comeback to the USAPL Raw Nationals platform. A few days ago, Cornelius shared a speedy 360kg/795 lb second set squat triple that’s stoked up the fire for the many fans who love watching Cornelius lift.
Squatting in his normal garage setting, barefoot and all, Cornelius writes in his Instagram video’s description, “795 x 3 second set rpe 8. Bw 277.”
Now if you’re thinking, “Wait, this is nowhere near the weight that Cornelius has done for his heaviest squat,” then you’re absolutely right, but this squat is the heaviest we’ve seen thus far in prep for USAPL Raw Nationals, and it’s moving fast.
If you remember back to May of this year, Cornelius competed at the Kern US Open and crushed a 432kg/953 lb squat in knee wraps, and wrote that 971-980 lbs was probably there on his Instagram page. In another post discussing his performance at the Kern US Open, he talked about possibly taking a stab at the 275 lb all-time world record in sleeves in the next couple months. Could he take that record down at USAPL Raw Nationals?
Currently, Cornelius owns the IPF 120kg world records in the squat and total. He squatted his world record of 386kg/850 lbs at the 2017 IPF World Classic Powerlifting Championships, and hit his 978.5kg/2,156 lb total at the 2016 IPF World Classic Powerlifting Championships.
Judging from his latest progress and lifting videos, Cornelius is setting himself up nicely to potentially unofficially top his current IPF World Records at Raw Nationals, and also take a stab at the current 275 lb all-time world record total held by Larry Wheels at 1,039kg/2,291 lbs.
Feature image from @denniscornelius500 Instagram page.
