I don’t know if an 800 lb raw bench is possible but if someone’s going to do it I can see Julius Maddox making it in a few years at this rate.
Maddox seems to have been making slow steady progress for a while from when he was near world record weights all the way to breaking the world record and now beyond that. Crazy impressive to be progressing steady at an already WR level. He ain’t young and he claims natty also.
Is an 800 lb raw bench something we are gonna see within a few years?
Who knows, maybe he’ll do it, but I don’t really think so. He attempted 739 something like 5 times before getting it, and when he did, it was definitely a max effort lift. 800lbs seems pretty far away to me
At this rate, it might be a few months. Most people at an elite level don’t see much progress month to month or even meet to meet, but the way he’s going it’s impossible to say what he can or can’t do.
That 739 actually moved pretty fast, he just lost balance at the top for debatable reasons. See the video again to refresh your memory: https://www.instagram.com/p/B17ZmKcA4Gi/
I think it wasn’t like he was stalled on the cusp of breaking the WR for a while. More like he was at steadily progressing at 710 and took a shot at the WR anyway and missed. So not so much lack of progress as taking shots at the WR at every opportunity while not being there yet. He got closer with each attempt for what it’s worth.
It certainly did move fast, but it slowed down right at lockout. I’ve never seen him grind out reps, he seems to rely partially on momentum at the top. He always seems to miss near lockout. https://www.instagram.com/p/B0jApc0AEBZ/?igshid=htqr4hldy8vc
That makes sense, I didn’t really think about it in those terms
Just barely, it’s not like he got stuck or almost missed it. Anyway, whether or not that was a 100% all out effort doesn’t really matter because he’s still making progress and setting rep PRs so regardless of when or if he benches 800 he is still going to increase the WR and nobody is close to him right now.
It’s got to be a mental mind F#%€ to be lifting that much above your face and relying on spotters if things go south. Be might hard for a group of guys to catch that type of weight if it fell fast
This is nothing new, people have been benching more than that in gear for a long time. Apparently in a bench shirt it’s even worse because if you get slightly out of the groove you just dump the bar and it’s way more than you alone can handle. I remember Dennis Cieri saying he quit equipped benching after dumping the bar and breaking his ribs at a meet, although he still stuck around to put in his next two attempts and win. Or look at Blaine Sumner, how he failed with 1000lbs and it crashed down on him. The good thing is that most meets use benches with safeties, the bad thing is that some spotters are useless and the safeties aren’t always set properly.
Was this his last attempt? I thought the plan was to go over 750. Looks like another 20lbs would go up. At least now nobody can question whether his record is legit or not.
He usually only takes 2 attempts, Josh Bryant said he’s good for 2 hard attempts and that’s it. With that sort of weight, even if you aren’t grinding it’s just so much energy to be putting into each lift. It’s kind of like Belkin’s approach I guess.
His intention going in was 350kg (772) for his third, being his second ‘hard’ lift, but passed on it with a tight feeling pec. I think he might just get to 800 eventually