At a certain point as a strongman, lifting mere weights ceases to be a challenge, and you move on in search of bigger, heavier things to haul around. Just look at former World’s Strongest Man Brian Shaw, whose penchant for deadlifting Chevys and Nissans and pulling SUVs are well documented.
Now Tom Stoltman, the current reigning World’s Strongest Man winner who beat out Shaw to the title in June 2021, is doing the same. In a new video on the YouTube channel he runs with his brother and fellow strongman Luke, he takes on the challenge of deadlifting a Ford pickup.
Tom and Luke both warm up on the trap bar in order to roughly mimic the pattern of movement that they will be performing on the vehicle later on, starting out at 40 kilos (88 pounds) and working their way up to around the 200 mark (440 pounds).
The truck also has around 90 kilos (200 pounds) worth of weight plates in the back which the brothers decide to leave there to make the lift even more of a challenge, bringing the total weight of the lift up to 5,000 pounds. And perhaps unsurprisingly, that’s too heavy for even the World’s Strongest Man and his very large brother to deadlift.
“So you thought we were going to actually lift a pickup,” says Luke. “Of course we’re not gonna do that.”
Instead, they borrow a friend’s Kia Picanto, which has a more managable curb weight of approximately 1,000 kilos (2,200 pounds). Tom is able to perform 7 deadlift reps before reaching failure, while Luke completes 4. They then move the car around so that the engine—the heaviest part—is closer to them, and are able to churn out an additional 5 and 4 reps respectively.
From there, they shorten the length of the bar between them and the pivot point, which in turn will increase the load on the lift even more. Tom executes 8 reps at this heavier weight. “Putting the handles closer to the car, you can feel it a wee bit,” he says while catching his breath.
However, not satisfied that their bid to lift the Ford was thwarted, the brothers decide to go back and attempt a truck pull instead, succeeding in completing three sets. “We made the start really hard and had the handbrake on,” Luke explains, “and after five seconds of pulling let it go slightly, then fed it back and forth depending on how hard it was.”
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io