How have your 2018 gym goals gone? Hopefully they went really well, and by really well, we mean as well as powerlifter Russel Orhii’s goals.
Yesterday, Orhii shook the internet and the social media strength athlete community with a monster squat PR to conclude a very strong 2018 competitive season. In his latest video, Orhii hit a big 317.5kg/700 lb squat, which unofficially tops the IPF Open Classic -83kg World Record by a promising 12.5kg. The current IPF world record is held by Australian powerlifter Nathan Tanis who hit 305kg/674 lbs back in November.
All year, Orhii has wanted to squat 317.5kg/700 lbs and has mentioned it on a couple of occasions in social media posts and YouTube videos. Thankfully for us and all of the Orhii fans out there, he’s hit his goal and did so in a remarkably promising fashion. In Orhii’s Instagram video’s description he writes,
“700lbs/317.5kg There’s not much to say tbh. At the start of 2018 I planned to hit a 700lb squat by the end of the year and I did it right before New Years. I have new goals going forward and I have no doubts that I’ll reach them. The journey continues…”
In June, Orhii competed at the 2018 IPF Classic Powerlifting Championships and took home second place behind powerlifting legend Brett Gibbs. At this meet, Orhii finished with a best squat of 298.5kg/658 lbs, which stood as a world record for a short period of time until being topped by Gibbs’ third attempt 299kg/659 lbs.
Then in October, Orhii competed at the 2018 USAPL Raw Nationals meet and took home first with a very strong performance. At this meet, Orhii hit a big 301kg/662 lb second attempt squat, which was the heaviest attempt out of all the -83kg athletes, and was an unofficial world record. Unfortunately, Orhii missed his third attempt with 308kg/679 lbs.
After seeing his latest 317.5kg/700 lb squat PR, we think it’s pretty safe to say that we can expect big things from Orhii in 2019.
Feature image from @russswole Instagram page.
