Over the last four days, legendary Lithuanian strongman Zydrunas Savickas has shared some old school powerlifting videos on his Instagram page.
Savickas is known worldwide for being an extremely accomplished professional strongman athlete. Throughout his career, Savickas has won the World’s Strongest Man four times, the Arnold Classic eight times, and the World Loglift Championships five times. Needless to say, when it comes to strongman performances, Savickas has done plenty in the sport.
Although before becoming such a force in strongman, did you know Savickas also competed in powerlifting at an international level?
That’s right, Savickas was an accomplished powerlifter and his feats of strength — even with the recent boom in powerlifting — are still impressive today. On his Instagram page, Savickas shared three videos highlighting his performance in the 125kg+ weight class at the 2000 IPF Open Powerlifting Championships. The first video comes in the form of a 410kg (903 lb) squat, which was a gold medal for his weight class.
Yes, Savickas has on knee wraps, which at the time were permitted in IPF open competition (this was before the creation of the “classic/raw” division). For context, Savickas’ 410kg (903 lb) squat topped the next competitor’s best by 35kg.
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The next video Savickas highlights on his page was the bench press, which comes in at a strong 250kg (550 lbs) and was a Lithuanian national best. Now you may be wondering, what’s the most Savickas has ever benched? In the comments on the video, he states 280kg (617 lbs) has been the most.
His final video shared was of course the deadlift. To conclude the meet, Savickas finished with a 360kg (793 lb) deadlift, which sealed him second place with a 1,020kg (2,248 lb) total, only 2.5kg shy of first place Brad Gillingham’s 1,022.5kg total.
In the comments on the deadlift video, Savickas mentioned that his best deadlift in the IPF was 400kg (880 lbs), and was 18 years ago.
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Before this epic Championship performance, Savickas had competed in the Open Powerlifting Championships in both 1999 and 1998. In 1999, Savickas finished in 5th place with a 980kg (2,160 lb) total, and in 1998 he came in 6th with a 935kg (2,060 lb) total.
If you were like us and you thought, “Maybe he’s posting these video because he’s going to compete again,” try not to get your hopes up. In one of the videos someone asked if he’d ever compete again and Savickas said no. Either way, these videos were a fun throwback to highlight!
Feature image from @savickas_bigz Instagram page.
