Another day passes, and another huge bench press video is shared from Jailhouse Strong powerlifter Julius Maddox. Yesterday, Maddox shared a bench press video that has left us, his fans, and others in the powerlifting community with jaws on the floor.
Over the last year alone, we’ve seen Maddox make crazy progress on the bench press, and it’s been incredibly exciting to witness. In late 2017, we first covered one of Maddox’s presses and wondered the question, “Will Maddox be the next athlete to reach the 700-lb bench club?” A strength feat only a handful of athletes have ever accomplished, and more on that below.
In his latest bench press video, Maddox highlights a casual routine set of five (for him) with 281kg/620 lbs on the bar. Instead of repping them out like many suspected, Maddox paused each rep, which makes this set twice as impressive. In fact, this may be one the most impressive paused bench press sets we’ve seen from the recent past.
[Struggling to improve your bench press? You may be breaking one of the ten bench press commandments!]
To extend on this video and its impressiveness, Maddox also completed a five rep paused set with 276kg/610 lbs in late September, so this set is neck-and-neck with what we’ve seen Maddox accomplish in the past at this rep range with pauses. On that note, it’s crazy how routine this weight is becoming for him.
In January of 2018 and in respects to the 700-lb club, Maddox finally reached this monster milestone with this monstrous 319kg/705 lb training PR below.
Since then, Maddox has pressed over 700 lbs a few times (like this time at the 2018 Arnold Classic), and has come scary close to hitting this feat while in competition.
So far in competition, Maddox’s best bench press has been 312kg/688 lbs. In our opinion, it’s no longer a question of “if” Maddox will be inducted into the 700-lb bench press in competition club in the future, but a question of “when”.
Feature image from @irregular_strength Instagram page.