We wrote about Johnnie Harris not even a month ago when he pushed 680lbs raw and paused the lift. We were genuinely flabbergasted by the power it must have took for him to press over 2.3 times his bodyweight, which was 131.5kg (290lbs) at the time of that lift. We expected Harris to have a record breaking 2020. But even we didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
Check out Johnnie Harris push 317kg (700lb) at Iron Wars V from the post he shared on his Instagram page:
He simply posted this lift with the caption,
700×1 ✅
Although his exact weight at the time of this lift is not yet confirmed, it is confirmed that Harris was under 136kg (300lb) at the time of this bench press. That means Harris is the lightest athlete to ever bench press 317kg (700lb). He stands alone as the only athlete to do so with a bodyweight under 136kg (300lb).
The 31 year old Harris made his competitive powerlifting debut in November 2019 at the 5th Maryland State Championships hosted by the United States Powerlifting Association (USPA) where he broke the unofficial International Powerlifting League (IPL) world record for bench press only in the -125kg (275lb) weight class with a 655lb press. He attempted a 705lb bench on for his third attempt at this meet but failed.
If you have not seen those lifts from that meet, check them out here from Harris’ Instagram page:
The current unofficial world record raw bench press is 342kg (755lb) set by Julius Maddox earlier in January 2020.
[Related: Julius Maddox’s 10 tips for setting a bench press world record]
We’re not sure what’s more impressive: the fact that he benched so much weight or that he added 20kg (45lbs) to his bench press in just twelve weeks at such a high level.
Watch this space: we think it’s safe to expect some pretty big things from Johnnie Harris.
Feature image from Johnnie Harris’ Instagram page:
