Four new records set in Swiss Powerlifting Championships 2024

My younger son Felix Strong competed in the Swiss Full Power Championships in Steinmaur on 28 September. He competed in the T3 (18-19 year) age category and in the 82.5-90 kg weight class. 

He was the best male lifter of the competition. Swiss Champion 2024, with a total of 645 kg, beating the current world record for his age weight class by 15 kg.

Dad, Felix, Mum and Chris (Felix’s coach) in from of the 275 kg bar that he lifted.

He did extremely well, setting new Swiss records for all three lifts and for the total: squat 220 kg, bench press 150 kg, deadlift 275 kg and total 645 kg (1422 lb). His deadlift was 10 kg higher than the current world record of 265 kg. Short videos of his three lifts are below.

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Some photos from the World Single Lift Championship 2023

My younger son Felix Strong competed at the World Drug Free Single Lift Championship in Sardinia on 2-4 June this year. My previous post included videos of his three lifts for squat, bench press and deadlift. He competed in the 16-17 year age category (T2) and the <82.5 kg weight category and set a new world record of 260 kg for the deadlift, and two Swiss records for the squat (180 kg) and bench  press (115 kg).

We also purchased some photos taken by a professional photographer, Luca Antonio Piga, and I’ve posted some of them below.

245 kg going down after a successful first deadlift
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New World Record for the deadlift at the World Single Lift Championship 2023

After setting three Swiss records and a world record at the Swiss Full Powerlifting Championship in March this year (see earlier post), my younger son Felix Strong was invited by the Swiss Drug Free Powerlifting Federation to compete at the World Single Lift Championship in Sardinia on 2-4 June. This WDFPF competition was held in Alghero on the northwest coast of Sardinia. Felix, accompanied by his father (me) and mother, flew to Olbia on the northeast coast on 30 May. We spent a couple of days exploring the Olbia region before driving across to Alghero on 1 June.

Felix did extremely well, setting a new world record for the deadlift in his age-weight class, and new Swiss records for the squat and bench press.  He competed in the T2 (16-17 year) age category having turned 17 earlier in 2023 and in the 75-82.5 kg weight class. As each lift was a separate competition on a different day, he had to weigh in each morning. His weight ranged from 81.5 to 82.2 kg. 

The video below shows his world record deadlift of 260 kg. This exceeded the previous record of 255 kg for his age-weight class by 5 kg. Apart from coming first in his age-weight category, he also came third overall in the weight category (75-82.5 kg), which included around 30 men of all ages. As the Italian commentator said, “È straordinario!”

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New World record set in Swiss Powerlifting Championship

My younger son Felix Strong trained hard this year for the Swiss Full Powerlifting Championship in Lausanne on 25 March. He competed in the T2 (16-17 year) age category having turned 17 a month earlier, and in the 75-82.5 kg weight class. 

Felix sets a new world record of 245 kg for the unequipped deadlift during a full powerlifting competition

He did extremely well, setting new Swiss records for all three lifts and for the total: squat 172.5 kg, bench press 110 kg, deadlift 245 kg and total 520 kg (1146 lb). His deadlift was almost 15 kg higher than the current world record of 230.5 kg and the Swiss Drug Free Powerlifting Federation has submitted it to the world body (WDFPF) for approval as the new world record. Short videos of his three lifts are below.

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My son sets powerlifting records at age 16

I equipped a garage gym during the Covid-19 lock-downs at the urging of my older son and my younger son has now also caught the strength training bug. My older son is focusing on Olympic weightlifting, which involves explosive lifts to chest or overhead. The competition lifts are the snatch and the clean and jerk. My younger son has shown an aptitude for powerlifting with its three competition lifts: the squat, the bench press and the deadlift.

I suggested he compete in the Swiss Drug Free Single Lift and Powerlifting Championships 2022 on 25 September. He set new Swiss single lift records for bench press (95 kg) and dead lift (210 kg) in the 16-17 year age category and the under 82.5 kg weight category. The short video below shows his 210 kg deadlift.

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Competing at the SDFPF Powerlifting Championship 2021

Last weekend, I competed at the Swiss Drug Free Powerlifting Championship 2021, held in Basel on 25 September. This was my first national powerlifting competition since competing in the last SDFPF Championship in February 2019. The 2020 Championship was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the pandemic I managed to lose around 10 kg bodyweight and competed this year in the 82.5 – 90 kg category at a body weight of 87.3 kg, almost 10 kg lighter than my weight of 96.5 kg in 2019. Despite my efforts to improve my squat and ensure that I squatted below parallel, I discovered by filming my squats in the week leading up to competition that I was only getting clearly below parallel around 50% of the time.

I opened my squat attempts conservatively at 90 kg, and succeeded in getting a below-parallel valid lift. However, I was disappointed to fail the next two attempts at 100 kg with inadequate depth.

For the other two lifts, I exceeded my anticipated results with a 100 kg bench press and 190 kg deadlift. These were both new Swiss records for the under 90 kg Master M6 age category (65-69 years), as was my powerlifting total of 380 kg. Below are short videos of the deadlift and bench press.

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