Lasha Talakhadze is stronger than he needs to be. The Georgian won his third Olympic gold medal at Paris 2024 earlier in August, cementing himself as the modern G.O.A.T. of competitive weightlifting.
- A few months prior to Paris, Talakhadze unveiled his heaviest squat ever during an interview with strongman Martins Licis.
Talakhadze is not known for his leg strength in squat variations in particular, but unsurprisingly, he’s got some serious chops in the squat rack.
Lasha Talakhadze: Heaviest Squat Ever
“Us weightlifters do not do 1-rep maxes,” Talakhadze told Licis during an interview conducted three months prior to the commencement of the 2024 Olympics.
- “We usually do doubles and triples,” Talakhadze continued, referring to sets of two and three reps at a time. “The heaviest set I’ve done is 345 kilograms for a double.”
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Three-hundred-and-forty-five kilograms is hard to fathom, so we’ll contextualize it for you. Talakhadze’s barbell, packed to the brim with bumper plates, weighed about the same as:
- 760.5 pounds, on the dot
- A male and female lion, combined
- 50 bowling balls
- More than two Vespa GTS300 scooters
- A bit less than double Talakhadze’s own body weight of roughly 180 kilograms
And he did it for two reps. Talakhadze’s world-class leg strength nabbed him three Olympic gold medals (the only super-heavy weightlifter to ever do so), all the world records in the Men’s +109-kilogram category, and a decade-plus international win streak.
- Talakhadze has not lost a weightlifting competition in 11 years. In Paris, he claimed gold by a three-kilogram margin. It was the closest Talakhadze had come to finishing anything other than first in years.
But how would Talakhadze’s best squat stack up in powerlifting?
Lasha Talakhadze vs. Powerlifters
First, we need to account for the double “problem.” By plugging Talakhadze’s personal record into BarBend‘s 1-rep-max calculator, we can roughly estimate what his true single-rep max would be:
One Rep Max Calculator
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The calculator returns a result of 354.8 kilograms; we like Talakhadze, so we’ll charitably round him up to 360 kilos for a theoretical 1-rep max.
- According to the International Powerlifting Federation’s registry, the world Open raw squat world record for a super-heavyweight powerlifter stands at 478 kilograms by Jesus Olivares.
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A few factors muddy the water here — powerlifters squat low bar vs. the high bar position used by Talakhadze and other weightlifters. The back squat is also a competitive discipline in powerlifting but is merely an accessory exercise for weightlifting.
Talakhadze is miles away from being the strongest squatter in the world, but he isn’t trying to be. Three-hundred-and-forty-five kilograms for reps got him exactly where he wanted: In the record books and on top of the podium at the Olympic Games.
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Featured Image: @talakhadzelasha_official / Instagram
