Exercise Scientist Critiques the Strongest Human Alive

[00:05] already the greatest of all time, but he's young. He's 25 years old and smart the way he trains. The probability that he'll get stronger is high.

[00:26] >> Oh. Kicking over our press, too? professor of exercise and sport science, a competitive bodybuilder, a competitive

[00:40] Brazilian jiu-jitsu grappler as evidenced by my recent training face, evidenced by my recent training face, and I used to powerlift back in the day. And I had in competition secured a no knee sleeves raw [music]

[00:53] secured a no knee sleeves raw [music] 490-lb squat, 385-lb bench press, and I think 567-lb deadlift or something like that, which is just a little bit stronger than the person who we're talking about

[01:06] today, who did okay, but not as well as me. Colten The Limit Breaker Engelbrecht. But there's a don't know how to say that exactly because Colten is South African. South Africa South Africa South Africa I

[01:20] can say that forever. South Africans, you do sound like that. Let's take a look at what's going on here, Scott, and see if the strongest human being in see if the strongest human being in Africa really is all that is claimed.

[01:33] >> He's weak. >> Scott thinks you're weak, Colten. Fake weights Colten is lifting. Don't kill us, please. You can rip Scott's arms off look at. 3 2 1. Colten The Limit Breaker.

[01:53] which is 1,100 1,146 lb. That doesn't make any more sense to me. And Thor did 510 kgs, which is 1124. So, this is like 40, 20, just 22 lbs more. This is nuts.

[02:09] more. This is nuts. >> [music] that was an amazing lift. 200 kg body weight, so 440 lbs. And deadlift suit, he did all the work, but this is uh this is a lift that has some help. And

[02:23] then we have Coltyn who is doing single belt and does have straps here. Okay, very good. Thank god that remains All of us can feel slightly better about ourselves, I guess. And he weighs 122

[02:36] ourselves, I guess. And he weighs 122 kg, which is about 270 lbs. >> [music] >> Fuck.

[02:48] >> that much weight after a full powerlifting meet is insane. [music] Doing that much weight at all is insane. But uh people will have a problem with be in the comments. Hello, comments people. They will say it's sumo, so it

[03:01] doesn't count. Let me tell you a little bit about why people think sumo doesn't count. One problem with sumo that people point advantage. It allows you to slide your feet out

[03:15] really far, keep your hands in, and this reduce the range of motion of the lift. And so, conventional is seen as more honest in some sense because everyone's spot. The thing is like some people just have longer arms than other people, and

[03:28] so they're already getting an advantage that's just not accounted for by that. I will say the straps change the game a ton because with a hook grip, you can actually do some really good stuff,

[03:40] people like Coltyn, including Coltyn himself, have taken a real big shot at big weights before and lost it on grip. So, straps help a ton with these crazy but the sumo part is legit as fuck. Because

[03:54] if you think pulling sumo is super easy, and you can just pull 1,100 lb, See you when you're famous. All right. All right. Here he's doing uh 500 kg, 1,102 lb

[04:08] twice for the first time in history. It's such a weird thing that just a few years ago Eddie Hall was the first human being to in any sense of the word deadlift 500 kilos, and that took everything from him. And

[04:22] record, and you're like, "Yes, everyone's doing it." And now Colton at like literally 130 lb less body weight than these guys is doing it for doubles because of a variety of factors. Human peak ability for the entire

[04:36] species kind of trends up in like a really slow line. Once that limit, really slow line. Once that limit, Colton's limit breaker, lol, crosses 500 kilos, it means that the first human is able to do 500 kilos. But as you guys

[04:51] know, the human race abilities to lift like a bell curve. And as soon as one person passes it, in a few months, few years, there's another five people into that thicker part of

[05:04] the bell curve cuz the whole bell curve is kind of moving a little bit, getting thing, but major parts of it are moving. And then so one person's going to do the first 500 kilo lift, and for a while no one will

[05:16] And then Thor comes in and breaks it. But then now Colton comes in and breaks it. And it's probably going to be true that over the next five years, like several people break that 500 kg barrier

[05:29] because that curve, that bell curve is moving over to the right, and the thicker part of it intersects with that 500 kilo value, and then that thicker there's another five people, there's another 10 people, there's another 30

[05:41] that mean everyone's going to eventually pick up 500 kilos? No. But does that handful of athletes doing it a few years versus just one, two, or three? Yep, I versus just one, two, or three? Yep, I think that's probably likely.

[05:59] Such good technique. So, you guys will notice something. He's got his feet pointed out really far. One of the number one reasons you want to do that when you're doing the sumo deadlift is because you want also your knees to be

[06:12] apart very far. That means that if we look at you from the side, your femur, your upper leg, is looking instead of like this, really big, it looks smaller

[06:24] from the side, right? It rotates out. That means that you can get your hips and center of gravity closer to the bar. That means you don't have to leverage That means you don't have to leverage forward over and leverage your glutes

[06:37] and your lower back and your hamstrings and your quads into less optimal to notice two things. One is he's got his whole wide situation get the knees out, and you'll notice that as soon as he starts pulling his knees have cleared

[06:53] that line for the bar, so he doesn't have to push the bar out forward in pulling technique. Another thing you'd notice is his upper body is very rigid. The thing is, man, with 1,100 lb, you need to have your spine be one fucking

[07:10] basically rigid segment because the muscles that unfurl and furl your back, handle this much weight. So, he's going to want to have almost completely rigid spine, and he's basically like kind of doing a partial sumo leg press

[07:26] because the rest of the musculature that actually moves the lift is musculature at the hips. This is a big, big time for the glutes to shine.

[07:38] And that's with just his hands, Scott, huh? There's no straps on there? he could hold a bar. >> Yeah. Yeah, so how do you hold a bar that has that much weight in it? How do you do it

[07:51] raw? You take your fingers, you wrap them around the barbell, but you also wrap the fingers around your thumb. And [music] for a while when you like crazy. But after your thumbs basically go numb

[08:06] from practicing hook grip enough, it's really kind of having like your own built-in straps or Versa Grips. Not that good, but better than over-under. You want to deadlift as much as possible, learning to hook grip is a real swell

[08:19] idea in most cases. Folks, there is still more video to come. But we have a of money and it's got a tons of videos including an exclusive uncut version of this video, tons of other informative content, tons of viral videos, viral

[08:34] they're behind a paywall. See you guys there, click around, get to be members, and we're back to the video right now. Watch me total the heaviest total in powerlifting history, 1,200 kilos, since I ain't 120 kilos body weight, 10 times

[08:48] body weight total at that body weight is almost completely unheard of, it's insane. And the highest dots ever with 689 dots. powerlifting, there's been a few of these to see how you compare with all

[09:01] it's just like, well, how much can you lift versus your body weight? It's not Lighter lifters are more like ants. They can lift a bigger fraction of their body weight, but a lot of lighter lifters can do

[09:16] that. Heavier lifters can't lift as a big of a fraction of their lower of called allometric scaling. It gets more difficult to lift other things the is develop a formula, and they have, called the dots formula, and there's

[09:30] Dots probably does the best job currently. Is a formula that takes into account two things, three things. How much you lift, how much your body weight is, and how hard is that lift relative to your body

[09:44] but not as hard. If you're bigger, it's lifting way more than your body weight. This is where Colton comes in. Because typically, if you have someone with a light body weight, they lift really high

[09:57] their weight, and that's like amazing but not like wow, the best thing ever. they typically don't lift as high of fractions, but their absolute loads are Colton. He is lifting at relative ratios of

[10:13] He is lifting at relative ratios of lifters 30, 40, 50 lb lighter than him. than the heaviest guys in the world, people that weigh 360 lb. He's weighing 260, 270, he's doing [music] that. 120 kilos is 264 lb.

[10:29] This is why Colton the Limit Breaker is a generationally strong lifter, and in some sense the greatest powerlifter of all time, and in other senses in the powerlifter of all time, precisely because he combines that ability to lift

[10:44] crazy with a body weight that you're like, "Dude, you're supposed to weigh >> [music] >> not 260." Totally nuts. So, just a

[10:56] 1,036 squat. Let me Let me tell you guys something about a 1,000-lb squat. About equipped powerlifting, when you were allowed to use all kinds of stretchy suits and everything like that, super fancy knee wraps, breaking a 1,000-lb

[11:10] squat barrier was a fucking big deal. These guys were all almost all in the 300-lb plus range, some of them 400-lb Today, we have Colton raw squatting over

[11:23] 1,000 lb in a full powerlifting meet weighing 264. This is >> insane and has basically no historical precedent.

[11:39] all the way. >> All the way. Super deep squats very convincing makes it even more impressive.

[11:51] squatters and deadlifters, cuz a lot of the same muscles of the lower body are characteristically, especially if they're very good deadlifters, they have very long arms. That just means they don't bench as much. The way you know

[12:03] you have a real psychotic generational lifter is when they can bench and lifter is when they can bench and deadlift and squat a ton. So, 573-lb deadlift and squat a ton. So, 573-lb bench weighing 264-lb is absolutely out

[12:17] specialist. But to do this in a full powerlifting meet while doing squats and deadlifts at those weights is absolutely wild.

[12:32] being like you're wearing a bench press shirt and you can't lower it any faster. Like he's doing like legit extra for no good reason strict pause bench just to show off at this point. Nice. Completely clean lock out.

[12:48] Nice. Completely clean lock out. And then finishing a 1036-lb deadlift. Wow. >> I'm 170-lb. Can you curl me next?

[13:03] I love it. All right, let's find out. 170-lb curl. >> Oh. Is he reverse curling? >> All right. That doesn't make any sense. >> [music]

[13:24] So, you could wonder why Colton the limit breaker is so strong. You could hypothesis you could have is like, well, he must have like really big glutes cuz that helps him squat deadlift. That wouldn't explain his bench. So, you say,

[13:36] pecs. And that could explain it except we look at him and we're like, he's jacked, but he's not like some kind of special jacked. Like, the pecs to bench 600 lb are like, if they're just going to do it on size and not neural

[13:48] does not have like enormous enormous pecs. But then I see him do these other completely inhuman amounts. By the way, folks watching from home, curling this regular for set of 10 or 12 is insane. Most people with arms fucking time and a

[14:03] half the his size can't do that. He's reverse curling it, which is way harder, which is really extra insane. This tells me that Colton has a one of two things going for him, uh maybe both. One is architectural differences in how

[14:17] the muscle is is constructed or even where the tendon inserts. If you take a tendon and you insert it really far really far along a bone away from where the axis of rotation is, you end up improving the lever arm tremendously and

[14:31] construction, the pennation of the muscle, which way the fibers point could be different for him meaningfully enough, and or his nervous system could just be much better at recruiting a huge amount of muscle in a very coordinated

[14:45] Those factors together, where your muscles attach, what your muscle nervous system interacts with your muscle, those are going to be the three muscle size. And tell you what, since he doesn't have psychotic crazy muscle size

[14:59] same size as him lift fucking hundreds of pounds less, and because he seems to like, oh, just one or two of his muscles or you know, some people Scott, you know quads, right? And like, the rest of them is fine. That ain't it. So, he's got

[15:14] some magic magic sauce in those muscles and nervous system components of his and holy It is another reason why like comparing yourself to him and be like, "Oh, I'm going to set a record for myself, set a goal to curl 170 overhand

[15:27] for 12." Like, be easy, [music] bro. This is a magical, magical human. What kind of shoe is that, Scott? >> Uh I think it's his signature shoe,

[15:41] Endor shoe. >> Oh, make that money, Colton. My dog.

[15:55] got his chest up, his shoulders back and retracted. He's flaring like crazy. He's got his feet pinched under him for crazy stability and a bit more leg drive. His glutes are firmly on the bench. He's benching in basically a straight line

[16:10] under total control and gentle. If you have bench presses where you're just I'm fucking strong, man. That's how strong people lift weights." Check out Colton's technique and wake the fuck up so that you can do better technique

[16:24] in the world can do this kind of technique, all of us can do better technique, all of us can do better technique, for the love of God.

[16:50] He can overhead press, too? Scott, is he going to dethrone me on my RP dozens of pre-made programs from 2 days [music] days of training with specialized programs included for

[17:02] specialized programs included for shoulders, arms, chest, back, legs, abs, and glutes. Each one with male and female options. You get them all and can use them as often as you like, even building off of them to make your own

[17:14] customized versions [music] for only about a dollar a day. Click on the link started. >> I I [music] put this in here for you. >> Okay. So, if we can get a video going of me back in my day

[17:27] me back in my day doing 125 kilos, 275 lbs at 240 lbs body doing 125 kilos, 275 lbs at 240 lbs body weight for 240 to Yeah, 240. >> eight. And this is Colton shitting on me

[17:40] directly on my face by doing 330 lbs instead for the same eight reps. Scott, uh where is our excuse-o-meter really quick? Uh

[17:52] >> My elbows >> [laughter] >> There is no excuse. My elbows hurt uh always and have my whole life. It's [music] a tragedy, really. I was under emotional stress at

[18:04] great. Uh wasn't really trying, so I could have done at least 50 more reps with 500 more pounds. Uh I'm pretty covered, right, Scott? We're pretty good move the bar out and around it more. Like more range of motion.

[18:16] >> Yeah, yeah. >> I'm basically disabled.

[18:28] Wow. Such smooth lifts. One of the things that really impresses me about Colton is that all these reps look basically identical. There's no fuckery this is just great for him. It's going to keep him less injured and performing

[18:41] better. But it's really great selfishly for like the people in the sport that this. Cuz like Scott, every now and again we have a generation of lifters that just do dumb shit. And then there's like a a thousand 19-year-olds that do

[18:53] dumb shit and get cracked in half. But when you're like got Colton Rowerbreaker guess a lot of young people are going to be like, "Oh, I need to be a machine." Which is the correct answer to how to get better at sports.

[19:05] You'll be like, "Hey, you ever heard of Colton Rowerbreaker?" Like, "Uh what's done." >> man, Colton, the the strongest by formula

[19:19] lifter of all time, and I think also holds the all-time absolute record, if I'm not mistaken. Scott, can we confirm that really quick?

[19:35] already the greatest of all time, but he's young. He's 25 years old. And smart, the way he trains. And if he doesn't get really crazy super fucked up completely, the probability that he'll get stronger is high. I think he's going

[19:51] to for sure squat more and for sure bench press more, almost for sure. it'll just be outrageous. But even if his deadlift doesn't go up much as he gains weight, cuz I think he's planning on gaining weight. Uh Colton is uh has

[20:05] he'll be using the RP Diet Coach app to try to bulk up. And if he increases his his deadlift's roughly the same, then he's going to leave everyone behind. Colton is a limit breaker. Scott, out of 10. That's been my

[20:20] Scott, out of 10. That's been my verdict, and I will see you next time. >> All right, that was fun. Guys, I'm going to do something that I should have done lifting, cuz Colton and so many other people seem to doing it so much better.

[20:34] Colton, thank you for making me mortal. If you guys want to watch the video, If you guys want to watch the video, there's one here, but uh see you.