Why is the Deadlift World Record so Controversial?

In 1927 German strongman Hermann Goerner stood incensed on a weightlifting platform after the local English judges disqualified his record-breaking 650lbs. deadlift. His crime? He failed to deadlift in the English style, which was a peculiar form favored by the British Amateur Weightlifting Association. Goerner put his anger to good use as he promptly put his heels together, pulled the weight from the ground once more and broke the BAWLA record. One presumes he left the platform telling the judges where to go.

Earlier this month I watched Icelandic strongman Hafþór ‘Thor’ Júlíus Björnsson attempt to break a world record on the elephant bar deadlift with a 501kg pull. In front of a roaring crowd at the Arnold Strength Classic, Thor failed to raise the bar, ‘settling’ with a 465kg deadlift instead. For fans of the sport, Thor’s 501kg lift was significant. This was the weight Thor lifted with a standard barbell in 2020, thereby breaking the monumental 500 kg deadlift his strongman rival Eddie Hall pulled in 2016. When Thor failed to raise the bar it opened a huge can of online discourse about his 2020 record and whether or not it was legitimate.

So today we are going to unpack why deadlift records are controversial, a brief history of the Thor-Hall rivalry, and why online discourse in fitness is producing the worst possible conversations.

What Counts as a Deadlift Record?

 I deliberately opened with Goerner’s story to show, briefly, that controversies around the deadlift are not particularly new. What differentiates Goerner’s time from our own is, of course, the sheer variety of ways people can now deadlift. From the creation of powerlifting as a sport in the mid-1960s, and certainly the growth of strongman/strongwoman from the 1970s, people have had far more variety in how they train and what equipment they train with. While deadlifting stances have remained consistent over time, and even something as ‘controversial’ as sumo deadlifting dating to at least the mid-century if not before, equipment has massively changed deadlifting standards.

The most obvious observation is the equipment one deadlifts with. In 2025, Thor was using an elephant bar to attempt a world record. This bar was first created by Rogue Fitness in 2016 for the Arnold Strongman Classic (ASC) and is longer than a regular Olympic barbell. It also has significantly more ‘whip’ which influences how the weights lift from the ground. In this sense, the elephant bar is like a deadlift bar which, as we covered on this website relatively recently, really only came about in the 1980s. Both bars are offshoots of the traditional Olympic barbell which is found in most commercial gyms. It was the 7ft. Olympic barbell Hall and Thor both lifted a half-ton on. We won’t discuss trap bars or hex bars as, despite my enduring love for them, they are rarely discussed or used in popular record attempts. There is also the fact that shows like the World Strongest Man have previously had competitors deadlift blocks of cheese.

And I, for one, am happy a cheese block deadlift record exists.

We then move from the barbells to the equipment lifters can use. Obviously people will point to deadlift suits, which can add anywhere from 20 to 50lbs. onto someone’s deadlift. There are, however, other considerations one can take. Weightlifting straps are probably the most obvious example and indeed raw powerlifting records obviously exclude weightlifting straps. Funnily I used to train in a gym where one of the veterans were adamant that if you couldn’t lift the weight without straps, you weren’t strong enough to lift it yet. Period.

Many others hold the view that grip strength should not be the thing that determines your deadlift numbers and for those doubtful of the difference in straps, use traditional weightlifting straps and then use figure-8 straps and you’ll notice how equipment can change things. I’m also aware that sounds like a plug for figure-8 straps. It’s not – no one pays me for endorsements on this website even though I have been persistent in not having any morals. Try me. I’ll endorse ‘anabolic yak’ milk for a fee. Coming back on track, even the most basic of equipment, the weightlifting belt, can (mentally or otherwise) help add weight to the bar.

Heck then we can talk about technique. There was a period in online internet cultures where people mocked those pulling sumo deadlift versus the regular stance. This then got weirder where pulling sumo became a badge of pride for lifters and also linked to their sexual proclivities. Honestly the interest has broken our brains as a species but that’s a different topic. The fundamental point is that people accused one style of not being legitimate.

So why have deadlift records always been controversial? For the simple reason that the lift itself has always been complicated. There is no one deadlift culture or tradition, even in powerlifting where one can pull sumo/traditional or compete in equipped or raw competitions. This makes the very premise of the Thor/Hall rivalry on the deadlift so meaningless for people who are not Eddie Hall or Thor.

The Hall/Thor Rivalry

 The World Strongest Man competition is a television spectacle. This is not me turning on the sport that I love but rather an acknowledgment that the sport was created as a entertainment piece. The first World Strongest Man contest in 1977 was done to mimic then popular television programs Superstars which pitted athletes from different sports to find out who was the strongest/fittest/fastest etc. This was reflected in the first competition which included bodybuilders, hammer throwers, football players etc. While the first few shows were shaky in terms of the narratives commentators applied, the 1980s was a decade where rivalries took the most attention. First it was Bill Kazmaier versus the rest, then Geoff Capes versus Jón Páll Sigmarsson then Capes versus Sigmarsson versus Kazmaier etc. This continued into subsequent decades. Obviously the strength itself has always been the primary focus but it is the rivalries and sporting narratives that have framed the viewers’ enjoyment and interest.

When it comes to Hall and Thor, the duo had competed against each other for several years and, by all accounts, appear to have been on good terms. The 2017 documentary Born Strong is a really nice insight into the competitive atmosphere of strongmen during this time. A schism erupted following Hall’s victory in the 2017 World Strongest Man show. Hall won the title by a single point.

The victory was not without controversy as during the Viking Press event Thor finished behind Hall with 14 reps to the Englishman’s 15. Thor believed that he had unfairly had a rep disallowed by referee Colin Byrce which, in his mind, handed Hall the victory. I won’t belabor this point as it is still a point of contention in the industry and has had some viewings than the Zapruder film among strongman fans.

Thor publicly claimed to have been cheated. Indeed soon after the event (and in a now deleted Instagram post) he posted on Instagram that

This weekend I was robbed. The integrity of my beloved sport is in question

Hall, perhaps understandably, did not take this kindly and the next several years were spent in some rather acrimonious public spats between the two. This was, undoubtedly, the most high profile feud strongman had ever seen in the public sphere, largely because so much was on social media. What furthered this debate was the fact that Hall effectively retired after the 2017 WSM victory, competing – and winning – the 2018 Britain’s Strongest Man Show but bowing out from the sport.

Thor continued competing and, the following year, won the 2018 World Strongest Man and Arnold Strongman Classic. This effectively marked him as a generational strength athlete. Still feuding with the now retired Hall, Thor then set his sights on Hall’s 500kg deadlift record.

The Hall/Thor Deadlift Drama

 In July 2016 Eddie Hall set strength history. There, at the World Deadlift Championship, he became the first man in history to deadlift 500kg. There are three things to note about this. First that he did so using wrist straps and supportive gear. This is not critiquing because seriously who puts an asterisk on a 500kg deadlift, but it is important if we want to talk later about quibbling strength feats. Second, this was a world record, and third, Hall broke the world record twice in one day. First, he set 463 kg as the world record and then he jumped from 463kg to 500kg. Progressing strength standards at an elite level by that much in one day is beyond explanations. It highlights a desire, mental fortitude and discipline that will forever mark Eddie out as a legend in strength. This was done, critically, in front of a live audience and judges. Hall, incidentally, knew how important live arenas were. In 2014 Hall dropped a world record at the inaugural World Deadlift Championship! He pulled it cleanly and then dropped it to the floor, thereby voiding his world record. Anyway here is his 500kg pull below.

 

Hold onto that ‘live’ crowd bit. In 2020 Thor announced that he would break Hall’s 500kg record with a 501kg deadlift. Not only that, he would do so at that year’s Bahrain World Ultimate Strongman show in April. Said competition is cancelled due to the Covid pandemic which shut down major sporting events, travel, life in general etc. In prep for the deadlift, Thor and the World Ultimate Strongman organizers nevertheless decided to host a ‘Record Breakers’ show in Thor’s gym in Iceland that May.

The catch was that it would be in Thor’s gym and live-streamed throughout the world. Incidentally, the judge would be WSM legend Magnus Ver Magnusson who, incidentally, upheld Hall’s victory in the Viking Press at the 2017 WSM. Hall and some others in strongman, most notably Brian Shaw, disagreed with Thor’s potential record. Shaw, diplomatically, argued that strongman records must be made in competition while Hall, less diplomatically, criticized Thor, the organizers, the manufacturers and the nation of Iceland as untrustworthy.

Incidentally, the live-streamed deadlift was one of several lifts streamed by WUS as part of its Feats of Strength series. I have yet to see much online or in-person brouhahas about Tom Stoltman’s Atlas Stone record or Andrea Thompson’s log lifts – two of several world records set online. Prior to Thor’s deadlift in May 2020, viewers of the live stream were shown footage of the individual plates being weighed, the barbell being weighed and Magnus sitting to adjudicate. All the equipment was made by Rogue Fitness who were/are a common supplier of strongman equipment. Like Hall, Thor pulled with straps and a suit and was successful. He deadlifted 501kg! Some will point out that while Hall’s 500kg deadlift nearly killed him, Thor seemed to suffer very little from the lift but again, if you pull 500kg from the floor I don’t care how pretty it is.

Stoking the rivalry with Hall, Thor caught his breath and then immediately challenged Hall to a boxing match – which did bizarrely happen in March 2022 on an annoyingly shaky livestream. The duo continued to trade words before and after the event which Thor won.

Why Strongman Fans Need to Chill Out

 Hall, and even organizations like Giant’s Live, have continued to query Thor’s deadlift. Whereas Giant’s Live have distinguished between Hall’s deadlift set in competition and Thor’s set out of competition, Hall has been consistent that the record should not count. He has claimed the weights were fake or rigged in some manner or, more commonly, that it doesn’t count because it wasn’t in competition.

When Thor ‘failed’ to pull 501kg at the recent Arnold many of Hall’s online followers took it as an opportunity to revisit his deadlift record and all of the frankly conspiratorial comments about it. We really need to get some perspective here. As someone who grew up watching Strongman being treated as a freak show where they deadlifted blocks of cheese, I can tell you the sport didn’t always take itself so seriously.

Deadlift records have always been subjective. Hall and Thor used assistive equipment. So, in theory, the record holder of the raw (no straps, no suit) record, Benedikt Magnússon, could claim it was an illegitimate lift and that he pulled 460.4kg in a conventional stance. More recently Danny Grigbsy could the raw record but he pulled sumo – should that count?!. Or do we bring in partial deadlift record holders, or the elephant bar holder? From Goerner to Thor there have always been people who dispute deadlift records. It is ultimately meaningless as there are several branches across powerlifting and strongman.

Do I believe Hall isn’t allowed to complain? Not at all. If he has a grievance, he has every right to vocalize it. Likewise, Thor has every right to defend himself. What I do raise issue with are legions of fans who take on their favorite athlete’s grievance and use it to shut down positivity and community within the sport. Having grown up in pro-wrestling and political forums (remember when they were separate?), this sort of ‘reply guy’ energy acts as a form of gate-keeping.

You do not ‘know more’ about the sport by repeating the same points over and over – with little wit or variance. Nor do you win the argument by your favorite athlete by defending their corner. Both Hall and Thor can tear regular people in half like a phonebook. They don’t need you defending them. What your behavior is doing is taking a sport that is meant to be fun, over-analyzing it and turning every conversation into one that is combative and negative. If you have something new to add to debates, free feel but for god’s sake stop bringing out the same tired points on both sides.

This is as much a rant about internet and fan cultures as it is about strongman, but we need perspective. The sport has advanced strength records in ways inconceivable just a decade ago. We have top athletes pushing the very limits of what is possible. If they fail, they are failing in pursuit of greatness and our entertainment. Let the athlete’s feuds be their own and remember the sport is silly but fun and has always been subjective. To quote Mitch Hooper, ‘lift heavy, be kind.’

The next time you feel compelled to dive into a heated strength sports debate, ask yourself: ‘Is this enhancing my enjoyment of the sport?’ If not, maybe it’s time to chalk up, grip tight to what matters, and let go of the rest. After all, the strongest move in any sport might just be knowing when to walk away from the keyboard and back to the barbell

As always… Happy lifting