John Haack is wasting no time pushing new strength feats in 2018 with his latest training PR on the bench press. Haack is no stranger to pushing big weight, and he recently surpassed a huge bench milestone of 500 lbs. In his latest video, Haack benched 227.5kg (501 lbs) for a speedy bench press PR.
In his video’s description Haack writes, “New bench PB, who dis? 227.5kgs/501lbs bench and 220kgs/485lbs paused at 87.5kgs/193lbs. Finally joining the big boi crew of @madtownfitness” Check out the video below.
Haack regularly competes at 83kg and is a dominating force for the weight class. In the USAPL, Haack currently holds the junior raw American bench press record at 195kg. In addition, Haack owns the Open total record of 813kg. The current American bench press record for the Open 83kg category sits at 201kg and was set by Todd Talford in early December 2017.
Yes, Haack is sitting at a slightly heavier weight in the video than what he normally competes at, but with his 220kg paused press, we may be seeing the 201kg press fall sometime in 2018.
And this isn’t the only strong press video Haack’s shared in the recent past. A couple weeks ago, he was hitting 213kgs (470 lbs) for a few singles before hitting speed reps at 130kg.
Haack’s most recent meet was in late August 2017 at the Boss of Bosses IV meet. At this meet, he competed in the 181 lb weight class, finished 14th overall for Wilks, and ended up totaling 787.5kg.
His final lifts were a 275kg squat, 182.5kg bench, and 330kg deadlift. Check out his third attempt 330kg deadlift below.
As we progress into 2018, it’s going to be exciting to see what new strength feats Haack will accomplish. Will he break the American bench press record, come after Russel Orhii’s recent squat record, and push his total record further? Time will tell.
Feature image screenshot from @bilboswaggins181 Instagram page.