Emil Norling is a 22-year-old powerlifter from Sweden who made his competitive debut in 2016 as a -93kg athlete, claiming bronze with a 647.5kg/1,427lb total. Since then, he has moved up to the -105kg class and been an absolutely dominant force throughout Europe.
His second and third competitive meets saw him finish in third and second respectively before he hit a string of twelve consecutive victories — every single sanctioned competitive event he has appeared in since.
Included in those victories are golds at the European Powerlifting Federation (EPF) 2018 and 2019 European Classic Championships — the former in the Juniors Division and the latter in the Open Division, at age 22 — and he won gold in the Junior Division of the IPD’s 2019 World Classic Powerlifting Championships this past June.
Check him out hitting a 300kg/661lb squat in training courtesy of his Instagram page below:
Note: all quotes from Norling were translated via Google Translate and edited for clarity.
Norling’s first rep appeared to be fairly smooth. He then took a deep breath and set up as though he was about to go for a second rep but at the last moment decided against it and re-racked the weight instead. Norling said that
“When you’re doing 2 reps at 300kg but you start thinking about something else in the middle. Lost the movement a little after the bend but I usually get it back, so I tried to keep calm.”
On a previous occasion he did make the 300kg/661lb double during the first training session he did in that gym. You can see it for yourself in the video below:
[Related: Try these seven moves to prep for big squats.]
Norling’s heaviest squat in competition was 327.5kg/722lb on his third attempt at the EPF 2019 European Classic Championships last November.
Feature image from Emil Norling’s Instagram page: @emppanorling
