“Goerner was also possibly the only man who could, any time of the day or night, over a period of 20 years, without warming up and clad either athletic attire or street clothes, do a two hands power clean & push jerk with a solid globe barbell weighing 330¾ lbs. What most remarkable about this, besides the long period when he could do it, is that the shaft of the non-revolving barbell happened to be 2⅜ inches in diameter. He is generally considered to have the strongest hands of any man who ever lived.”

So this weight was in fact ‘light’ for Goerner, to be able to lift it without any warmup, at any time, so it’s nowhere near a test of his true abilities. With a weight he could lift anytime, it wouldn’t take a lot of effort to hold it overhead for a picture.

Unfortunately Goerner performed many of his lifts when cameras were still brand new and resembled boxes. He set his one arm deadlift record 91 years ago, nearly 70 years before digital cameras even existed. With the internet and facebook showing us every single workout, of everyone with a cellphone, camera, webcam, etc it can be easy to adopt a skeptical view of old time feats because there is so little documentation, but one has to appreciate the huge amount of time and advancement that has happened from then until now. There aren’t pictures because cameras were just not common when these lifts were performed.

Lifts: Deadlift – Heels together
Deadlift – 2 Bars
Hack Lift
Jefferson Lift
Deadlift – one arm, left and right
Deadlift – one arm, thumbless, left and right
Reeves Deadlift
Deadlift – Index, Middle, Ring, and Little Fingers

Entry Form: None available. For entry, contact Bill at
573-474-4510 in advance.

The thing with grip strength is that if your strength does ever decrease, you will definitely feel it in your hands for sure.

Match grip strength along with compound exercises and you then have a winning formula.

His one arm deadlift was unbelievable!

That has just inspired me to go the gym right now. Back in a bit.