Australian Powerlifter Nathan Tanis Squats Nearly 4x His Body Weight

I will never not be impressed with Powerlifting and Powerlifters. The weight they pull is something I can’t even comprehend let alone lift. Such is the case with Aussie’s own Nathan Tanis. He competes in the 83 kg weight class and just squatted 305 kg (which, according to my math skills is 3,67 times his body weight) for a new world record under IPF rules.

If that wasn’t enough he set personal records on both bench and deadlift. In his Instagram post summary of the meet, he says that his bench press of 162.5kg(358lbs) was a personal best of 2,5 kg and his best deadlift in the meet of 305kg(672lbs) was 1 kg up from his last personal best. So, that’s 305kg(672lbs) on the deadlift, 162,5kg on the bench press and 305 kg on the squat which makes his meet total at 772.5 kg/1703lbs. Which was more than enough to win him a gold medal in his division.

View this post on Instagram

9/9 with 772.5kg @ 82.65kg 💣 . Squat 282.5kg, 300kg (WR), 305kg (WR) Bench 150kg, 157.5kg, 162.5kg Deadlift 280kg, 297.5kg, 305kg . Feels soooo good to finally have a go at that @theipf Squat world record. Added 1kg to it on my first attempt, then another 5kg on my third. Walked away with a 2.5kg bench PR which I’m content with. Training was going super for this lift 6 weeks back until I had a minor pec strain which set me back. A steady 5kg PR on the deadlift was what I was after which gave me a nice 12.5kg total PR. Walked away with the gold medal in the 83kg class and second best lifter behind @jezzauepa . Big thank you to my coach @yeahthefaz , to @webby_85 & Ray ( @strengthnation_gym ) for handling me on the day, to all the referees, spotters, volunteers and a huge thank you to my wonderful partner @jacinta.dacruz and mother @superjo72 For flying up to the GC to support me.

A post shared by Nathan Tanis (@nathan_tanis) on Nov 25, 2018 at 5:35am PST

However, just like in any other sport, there’s a whole line of guys waiting to take you off the throne and powerlifting is no different. Russel Orhi, fellow powerlifter, hit a 301,5 kg squat in September(a world record at the time) a 783.5 kg total in June. Which as you can see is a bigger total than Tani’s total. So it’s pretty safe to say that we got ourselves a friendly rivalry on hand between two extremely strong.