Haider's Analytics

A few weeks back Hafthor Björnsson announced that he was going to attempt a new world record on the dead lift. Before Covid-19 ruined everything, Thor was going to go down to Dubai to attempt the world record lift. But due to covid, the event was off. This did not stop him…

Now he will attempt the world record locally in Iceland. On May 2nd, Thor will attempt a 501 KG dead lift. The previous world record of 500KG was accomplished by Eddie Hall. Right after completing the 500 KG dead lift, Eddie Hall retired, leaving behind a pretty big challenge for anyone to beat his record.

Why is this a big deal?

In the world of strongmen there are many events, but the dead lift event is the biggest of all of them. Even thought there are so many other lifts, dead lift basically decide who the strongest man on the planet is. How much are these guys dead lifting? Well I would say a normal person can dead lift anywhere from 0-225 pounds. Someone who is into bodybuilding could dead lift anywhere from 225-405 pounds. That is what is considered normal. Obviously there are plenty of people out there that can dead lift a lot more. But the 500 KG record comes out to 1,100 pounds roughly. That is a big deal. Another fact is that it is really hard to go up in weight after you max out on dead lifts, after a certain point you move up very slowly.

Controversy

When Thor announced that he was going to attempt the world record from his home gym, this did not sit well with Eddie Hall as Eddie holds the current world record. He called out Thor in a controversial video, saying that Thor cannot be trusted and more. Basically the point he was making was that, if Thor successfully gets the lift done, it should not be counted as a world record.

This caused a debate in the fitness world, causing a lot of people to get behind it and weigh in with their opinions. These included opinions from some strongmen and pro bodybuilders along with fitness youtubers.

One prominent opinion was of Brian Shaw’s. Brian Shaw is another strongman, who was the world’s strongest man for quite some time. His argument was mainly around the fact that no one should be allowed to attempt an official world record at home. He said that in a competition, when you are up against so many people and there is a crowd, this can break the best competitors. Brian Shaw said that there are way too many factors in a competition that are simply avoided at home.

My opinion.

I personally cannot wait for May 2nd, and for Thor to attempt the world record. I think it will be an amazing accomplishment. I also think the people who think this should not be an official world record are right. The world record should be attempted in a competition against other competitors. All said and done Thor said he will attempt 520 KG rather than 501 KG if he gets 200k followers on Twitch. I think that’s a power move! Personally I am very excited to tune in.

To end… One thing I like to think in terms of fitness is that you will get out what you put in. Fitness is all about being honest with yourself, being honest about the work that you are putting in. There are many things in life that you have no control over. For example no matter how much effort you put in a relationship or at work or basically anything else… there are no guaranteed results. However with fitness that is not the case. You get out what you put in.