(Andrey Posing for a photo in his gym)

Dimensions

• Height: 6 ft
• Weight: 340 lbs

Notable lifts

• Best Squat: 1,069 lb (Raw w/Wraps) @ Big Dogs (2016)
• Best Bench: 584 lb @ Boss of Bosses 2 (2015)
• Best Deadlift: 892 lb @ GPA World Championship (2013)
• Best Total: 2,513 lb (WR  Raw w/Wraps) @ Big Dogs (2016)

(Andrey squatting 1,069 at Big Dogs, 2016)

Biography

This week, we will be taking a look at one of favorite strength athletes of all time, Andrey Malanichev. Not recognizing the name Malanichev in the world of powerlifting is a sin. Andrey has set the bar to an exceptionally high standard in his career, all while remaining exceptionally humble. This giant, who was born in Moscow on January 10, 1977, grew up in Russia and had began his weight training career at fourteen with a makeshift bench, a crow bar, and old T.V. dishes that he used as plates. He would later enter his first gym at sixteen and be coached by Russia national head coach of powerlifting, Andrey Chuprin.

(Andrey dropping 682 lbs onto his chest after losing his grip on the Bench Press, 2010)

Andrey had experienced a lot of success in his early in his career, as he soon became one of the best lifters in Russia and begun to break world records and take world titles. However in 2010, his career, and his life, almost came to an end. While preforming a 682 lb bench press, Andrey had lost his grip and the bar had fell hard onto Andrey’s chest. His coach had told him that he needed to drop out of the competition and be rushed to the hospital, Andrey protested and went on to dead lift a staggering 881 pounds before going to the hospital, where he later found out he had fractured multiple ribs during the accident. After that day, Andrey had sworn off lifting in gear, which he blamed for causing him to drop the bar, and decided to pursue the art of raw powerlifting, or powerlifting without the aid of supportive equipment such as a squat suit or bench shirt. 

(Andrey’s WR performance at Big Dogs in 2016)

Most Scientists say that a human reaches their max athletic performance at 25 and from there only begin to decay overtime, But Andrey proved them wrong. In 2016 at the age 39, Andrey not only put the best performance of his life, but the best performance that the entire powerlifting world had ever seen. Andrey had had not only broke two world records, including a 1,069 lb squat, but set a huge milestone in the sport after totaling a world record weight of 2,513 lb, becoming the first and so far only man in powerlifting to ever lift such a weight.

(Video of Andrey’s training philosophy)

What I love most about Andrey is his humility. Though Andrey is a bit of a celebrity in Russia, he goes unrecognized in the international sports world, where only other strength athletes know who he is. In a video featuring a joint trainign session with Kirill Sarychev, who held the former world record bench press at 738 lbs, Kirill attempts to hype up Malanichev infront of the camera man: “What Bad things can be said about our champion Andrey? Too Strong? Too Famous? He is what man envies!”. The Humble Malanichev replies “What envy? I take the train like everyone else!”. The lack of recognition doesn’t effect Andrey in the very slightest, as Andrey is the embodiment of what a sportsman should be. A person who does not better themselves in a sport for the glory, or the money, but rather to push the limits of themselves and what the human body is capable of, as well as inspire and encourage the younger generations to break his records. Andrey says in the video with Sarychev: “As we are speaking, the man who will break my records is already alive and training, but that is okay, this sport would be boring if no one could break records, after all that is what the crowds want to see, records being broken, and legends being born!”.

References

SARYCHEV, KIRILL. “(Eng Voice over) Sarychev, Malanichev, Konstantinov. Joint Workout & Pancake Battle.” YouTube, YouTube, 16 July 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpw99Plj0Xg&t=447s.

“Andrey Malanichev Answers Questions from Fans.” Lift Unlimited – Lift.net, 6 Feb. 2017, www.lift.net/2014/02/19/andrey-malanichev-answers-questions-from-fans/.

“Andrey Malanichev (M).” OpenPowerlifting, www.openpowerlifting.org/u/andreymalanichev.

(Paul Holding his famous wagon wheel bar, with which he used to train squat with. The wheels where welded to the bar, which in total weighed 660 pounds)

Dimensions

Height: 5 feet 10 inches

Weight: 360 pounds

Chest: 58 inches

Bicep: 22.5 inches

Waist: 45 inches

Thigh: 36 inches

Calves: 20 inches

Notable Lifts

• Olympic weightlifting
• Clean and press: 185.5 kg (408.5 lbs) on 1955-10-16, in Munich at the 1955 World Championships
• Snatch: 152.5 kg (335 lbs) on 1956-06-02 in Philadelphia at the 1956 Senior Nationals
• Clean and jerk: 199.5 kg (440 lbs) on 1956-06-02 in Philadelphia at the 1956 Senior Nationals
• Total: 533.5 kg (181.5/152.5/199.5) / 1175 lbs (400/335 /440) (clean and press + snatch + clean and jerk) on 1956-06-02 in Philadelphia at the 1956 Senior Nationals
• Unofficial lifts
  Lift included in the Guinness Book of World Records (1985 edition)
  Backlift: 6,270 lb (2,840 kg) (weight raised slightly off trestles; done June 12, 1957, in Toccoa, Georgia)
  → listed as the greatest weight ever lifted by a human being
• Powerlifting
  Guinness also listed Anderson’s best powerlifts
  Done in small exhibitions
  Squat: 930 lb (420 kg) raw
  Bench press: 628 lb (285 kg) raw
  Deadlift: 820 lb (370 kg) raw

Biography

(Anderson pressing a show girl overhead with one arm)

Anderson was born in Toccoa, Georgia, on October 17, 1932. He began his early weight training on his own in his family’s backyard to increase his size and strength so that he would be able to play on the Toccoa High School football team, where he earned a position as first-team blocking back. He used special homemade weights that his father created out of concrete poured into a wooden form. Anderson later attended Furman University for one year on a football scholarship before moving to Elizabethton, Tennessee with his parents. There he met weightlifter Bob Peoples, who would greatly influence him in squat training and introduce him into weightlifting circles. At the age of nine-teen, Paul Anderson was already breaking world records in Power Lifting and showed that he was capable of being the strongest there ever was.

(Paul lifting 402.5 pounds overhead in Russia, 1955)

In 1955, at the height of the Cold War, Anderson, as winner of the USA National Amateur Athletic Union Weightlifting Championship, traveled to the Soviet Union, where weightlifting was a popular sport, for an international weightlifting competition. In a newsreel of the event shown in the United States the narrator, Bud Palmer, commented as follows: “Then, up to the bar stepped a great ball of a man, Paul Anderson.” Palmer said, “The Russians snickered as Anderson gripped the bar which was set at 402.5 pounds, an unheard-of lift. But their snickers quickly changed to awe and all-out cheers as up went the bar and Anderson lifted the heaviest weight overhead of any human in history.

(Anderson preforming a 330 pound snatch at 1956 Melbourne Olympics)

In 1956, Anderson won a gold medal in a long, tough duel in the Melbourne, Australia Olympic Games as a weightlifter in the super-heavyweight class, while suffering from a 104 °F or 40 °C fever, with Argentine Humberto Selvetti. The two competitors were tied in the amount of weight lifted, but because Anderson, who weighed in at 304 pounds, was lighter than Selvetti, who weighed 316 pounds. Anderson was awarded the gold medal, the last gold medal to be earned by an American athlete competing in the super heavyweight division.

(Statue Of Paul Anderson holding his Famous 408.5 pound press, in the Paul Anderson Memorial Park)

In 1961, Anderson and his wife Glenda founded the Paul Anderson Youth Home, a home for troubled youth in Vidalia, Georgia. They both helped to build and support the Home with an average of 500 speaking engagements and strength exhibitions per year—not withstanding the chronic congenital kidney disease that eventually killed him at age 61. He would perform stunts such as hammering a nail with his bare fist and raising a table loaded with eight men onto his back. Anderson has been immortalized at the Paul Anderson Memorial Park, which features a large statue of him performing his world record overhead barbell lift of 408.5 pounds.

Videos

Paul Andersons T.V. and movie appearances.

Homemade Training footage of Anderson

Full Documentary of Paul Anderson and his career.

Cites

“History of USA Weightlifting – Motivation & Muscle.” Motivation and Muscle Podcast, 23 Feb. 2013, motivationandmuscle.com/stories/history-of-usa-weightlifting/.

Siem, Brooke. “How Paul Anderson Became One of History’s Strongest Humans.” BarBend, 2 May 2016, barbend.com/how-paul-anderson-became-one-of-historys-strongest-humans/.

Morais, Dominic G, and Jan Todd. “Lifting the Iron Curtain: Paul Anderson and the Cold War’s First Sport Exchange.” Digital Commons @ Trinity, digitalcommons.trinity.edu/busadmin_faculty/55/.

“The Strongest Man in Recorded History: A Documentary on the Life of Paul Anderson.” YouTube, YouTube, 10 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qfnHtzNbHk&t=3s.

(Björnsson on the set of Game Of Thrones as Gregor Clegane AKA: “The Mountain”)

Dimensions

Height: 6ft 9in

Weight: 440lb (competition weight)

Notable Lifts

• Strongman
  Tire deadlift – 460 kg (1,014 lb) raw with wrist straps
  Deadlift – 474 kg (1,045 lb) Elephant bar, raw with wrist straps (Arnold Strongman Classic 2019, World Record)
  Log press – 213 kg (470 lb) (Europe’s Strongest Man 2018)
  Log carry – [5 steps] 650 kg (1,433 lb)
  Keg toss – 7.15 m (23 ft)
  Keg toss – 8 kegs in 16.35 seconds over 16ft wall (World’s Strongest Man 2014). Strongman record.
• Powerlifting
  Set at competitive meets:
  Squat (with wraps) – 440 kg (970 lb) (Thor’s Powerlifting Challenge 2018)
  Bench press – 250 kg (551 lb) (Thor’s Powerlifting Challenge 2018)
  Deadlift – 410 kg (904 lb) (Thor’s Powerlifting Challenge 2018)
  Total – 1,100 kg (2,425 lb) (Thor’s Powerlifting Challenge 2018)

Biography

Though he is mostly known for his role in the hit T.V. show Game Of Thrones as “The Mountain”, he is more concerned with his life as a professional strongman. This mythical man, who stands at a staggering six-foot-nine-inches tall and weighs in at well over four hundred pounds, and whos name translates to “Ocean God” is certainly the stuff of legends. Today, we will dive into the world of Iceland’s very own Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.

(Hafthor In 2004)

Born in Reykjavík on November 26th 1988, this Icelandic superstar had started off his Athletic career in 2004 as a Basketball player for Iceland’s Division I team, Breiðablik. He transferred to Premier League in 2006, helping to promote his team to the Premier League but his career was cut short in 2008 due to a recurrent ankle injury. He subsequently began his strongman career.

(Björnsson carrying the Husafell Stone at Iceland’s strongest man, 2011)

I didn’t take long before Björnsson found success. After only a few years of training, the mountain had won the title of Iceland’s strongest man in 2011, and has kept that title ever since. Since then, Björnsson has only added hundreds of trophies, medals, and world records to his expanding resumé. His most successful year in the sport came in 2018, when he became the first person to have won the Arnold Strongman Classic, Europe’s Strongest Man and World’s Strongest Man in the same calendar year.

(Björnsson triumphantly lifting his first WSM trophy over his head, 2018)

“Iceland is full of strong men, its in our genes. We’re all Vikings after all. But a man like Hafþór comes once in a thousand years and his legacy will long after he is gone, he’s close to not only be the strongest man in Iceland’s history, but the worlds.”.  Words like these are well respected when they come from fellow Viking and four time worlds strongest man, Magnús Ver Magnusson. Magnusson had taken the mountain under his wing early in his career after seeing him compete. Magnusson now trains The Mountain in same gym that he himself once trained in and now looks after, the same gym that was once owned by Iceland’s first strongman super star, Jón Páll Sigmarsson, who also boasts four world strongest man titles.

(Hafþór and his wife, Kelsey Henson, at the 2019 premiere of Game Of Thrones)

Outside the world of strongman, Hafþór has conquered many other milestones and challenges in his life. Hafþór is the embodiment of what it means to be a strong man, not just the physical aspect but also the strong will. In 2017, the day before Europe’s strongest man, The Mountain had been rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with Bells Palsy, a very rare condition in which the muscles on one side of ones face becomes weak or paralyzed. It didn’t slow him down however, as the next day he competed at Europe’s Strongest man, and won. The next year, Hafþór married his long time girlfriend, Kelsey Henson, and the two of them are raising a daughter together. When asked what motivates him in the gym, Hafþór had this to say: “I just want to make my family proud, they mean the world to me.”. We can expect great things from Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, His golden years of lifting are still ahead of him, where he will try to earn more world strongest man titles and break more records to try and solidify himself as the strongest man to have ever walked on this earth.

Extra Videos

Hafþór has teamed up with Sodastream to raise awareness of the harm plastic bottles have on the environment.

Hafþór also started his own brand of Vodka