Strength fans, we are officially under two weeks out from the 2019 Arnold Sports Festival — more specifically — the Arnold Strongman Classic. This event is lining up to be truly epic, and Rogue Fitness’ latest “Road to the Arnold” short has built onto the excitement. Every year, Rogue Fitness releases short “Road to the Arnold” documentaries, and their latest covering the top strongman athletes attempting the Rogue Elephant Bar Deadlift world record is potentially one of the best to date.
This short documentary follows Brian Shaw, Hafthor Bjornsson, and Jerry Pritchett on their quest of attempting the Rogue Elephant Bar Deadlift world record. For context, Rogue Fitness has offered up a $50,000 USD prize to any athlete who can successfully complete a 501kg/1,104 lb deadlift on the Rogue Elephant Bar.
You’re able to make history with this one lift. That’s maybe more important than winning the prize money. — Brian Shaw
Similar to last year, the Rogue Elephant Bar Deadlift is a normal event at this year’s Arnold Strongman Classic, and is also serving as a Rogue Record Breakers event. The top three athletes to finish in this event will be invited to attempt the 501kg/1,104 lb deadlift for $50k. If any athlete is able to complete this feat, then this very well could be the most expensive deadlift ever completed to date.
In the documentary, Shaw mentions that he can think of four athletes competing that he knows can pull well over 1,000 lbs.
- Hafthor Bjornsson (Current Elephant Bar World Record holder)
- Brian Shaw
- Jerry Pritchett
- JF Caron
Pritchett discusses that normally athletes would come in to the competition with the mindset to extend the current world record in a calculated way, but a 60 lb jump is huge, which makes this feat incredibly lofty. To conclude the video Hafthor Bjornsson says, “The level of strongman is growing, the guys are getting stronger, but so am I. I honestly believe that I will have a good shot at that world record.”
Last week, Bjornsson pulled a pretty easy 473kg/1,042 lbs on the Elephant Bar in training. It’s going to be really interesting to see if Bjornsson or any of the top competitors can take the challenge for a new world record and $50,000 in prize money.
Keep in mind, the $50,000 deadlift prize isn’t incredibly far off from the first place money that comes with an Arnold Strongman Classic win. If an athlete is able to successfully take both, then they could be walking away with well over $100,000 in prize money!
Feature image from Rogue Fitness YouTube channel.