Memorial Day weekend turned into a celebration of strength for Dylan Miraglia, brother of the endurance athlete and strongman marathoner Michael Miraglia. Dylan ventured to GYM NĀ°5 in Boulder, CO, to test his hand (and grip strength) at lifting a 154.7-kilogram (341-pound) stone of steel. His attempt was not only successful, but Miraglia also made the 31-pound personal record look easy.
You can witness Miraglia’s monstrous lift in the video below, courtesy of GYM NĀ°5’s Instagram page. It is worth noting that Miraglia is not wearing any equipment ā no knee sleeves, no elbow supports, no lifting belt, and notably no tacky (a key difference between Stone of Steel versus Atlas Stones). Check it out:
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Atlas Stones vs. Stone of Steel
Although the movement required by the athlete to pick up an Atlas Stone and the Stone of Steel and load it onto a platform is similar, there are some critical differences between the two implements.
Concrete vs. Steel
The most crucial difference is what each stone is made of. An Atlas Stone is usually a solid concrete sphere of a particular weight. That means that if a 300-pound Atlas Stone is manufactured, it will always be 300 pounds. A Stone of Steel is hollow ā the weight is loaded inside. Additionally, the diameter of an Atlas Stone can range anywhere from eight inches to 24 inches. The diameter for a Stone of Steel only comes in two sizes: 17 inches and 20 inches.
Tacky or No Tacky?
Miraglia did not use tacky ā a substance that athletes apply to their forearms to grip the stone more effectively ā to assist with his lift. The Stone of Steel is powder-coated steel (meaning it’s smooth) versus concrete which can have some texture. The lack of tacky in combination with the smoother service makes it far harder to grip the Stone of Steel than an Atlas Stone. This is partly why the heaviest Stone of Steel lifts are often less than the heaviest Atlas Stone lifts.
Heaviest Stones
Currently, the world record Atlas Stone lift is 2020 World Strongest Man runner-up Tom Stoltman‘s successful 286-kilogram (630-pound) attempt from the World’s Ultimate Strongman “Feats of Strength” series on May 23, 2020.
In 2016, Eric Dawson hit a Stone of Steel world record of 183 kilograms (403.5 pounds) in the Strongman Champions League. That has since been surpassed by a substantial margin. At the 2018 America’s Strongest Man contest, Dylan Lockard scored a 226.8-kilogram (500-pound) Stone of Steel in knee sleeves. Check it out below from Strongman Corporation’s Facebook page:
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The size difference between Lockard and Miraglia is almost certainly vast, and it’s also not clear how tall of a bar and platform Lockard and Miraglia loaded the stones to. Lockhard weighs somewhere in the range of 385 pounds. In an Instagram post posted on his personal (private) account, Miraglia claims that the stone is 1.8 times his body weight, which means he weighs around 189 pounds.
BarBend has reached out to Miraglia for more information and will update this article accordingly.
Feature image: @gym5_teamthick on Instagram