Around these parts, we talk a lot about Julius Maddox’s proficiency at the bench press: the way he keeps pushing his PRs, pushing past Kirill Sarychev’s all time world record, setting his own of 744.1 pounds, pushing all the way to his latest PR of 765 pounds.
But there’s someone else who deserves some serious hype for his bench press: Larry “Wheels” Williams. The powerlifter and strongman just hit an insanely fast, smooth personal record with a whopping 650 pounds, or 295 kilograms. Oh, and he paused at the bottom. Take a look.
No bench shirt! No belt! Just wrist wraps, beating his last PR by 15 pounds.
Wheels’ weight has been fluctuating a little lately (we wrote on his very dirty bulk to 308-ish pounds in this newsletter) but assuming he’s still around 300 pounds, well, he just benched over 2.1 times his bodyweight. Maddox’s PR is 1.7 times his bodyweight.
We know that’s being a little unfair — strength gains aren’t precisely linear with weight and it’s ludicrous to denigrate the bench of the guy who has the heaviest bench of all time — we’re just saying that although Wheels might not have the heaviest bench ever, it’s still very impressive.
In fact, according to Open Powerlifting, the all-time world record for the raw bench press in the -308lb class is James Strickland’s 639.3 pounds (290kg). The IPF’s world record for the heaviest raw bench press in any weight class is Ilyas Boughalem’s 641.5 pounds (291kg).
Now, Wheels absolutely does not compete in the IPF, and his butt was a little off of the bench, but the man’s latest PR, all things considered, deserves some serious respect and might have been a world record if performed on stage.
And if you’re wondering the heaviest ever non-paused bench we’ve seen him make? 675 pounds, or 306kg.
Larry Wheels can bench. Congrats to the man on his latest PR.
Featured image via Larry Wheels on YouTube