Originally Posted by
Michael Wolf
Heh, there we go. The angle of the video makes it impossible to say for sure, but I think so. Does this make it excessive? Not by any inherently meaningful standard, because there really is none. Talking about this is like talking about politics, where if you're pissing a lot of people on both sides off, you're probably onto something. In the strength world, a 900 lb strongman deadlift done with straps, hitching, and a super whippy bendy bar might be a reasonable (not a perfect) analogy. Sensible people would say: that's an absolutely incredible feat of strength, while also acknowledging that's it's not the same as what we'd call a "deadlift" in competition - done without any straps or hitching and on a 29mm stiff bar. But then you get the people on one side who just say "straps, DL bar, hitching - that's stupid/cheating" and the people on the other who say "what the hell is wrong with you, that's 900 lbs, how much can YOU lift?" They're both wrong. It's an impressive feat of strength, but it's not the same lift as a conventional deadlift as performed in the non-recreational PL federations. An 800 lb squat done to 1 inch above parallel is impressive as hell and is still an incredible display of strength, but it's not the same as squatting 800 an inch below parallel.