Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:11 - Mariusz Pudzianowski
2:18 - Zydrunas Savickas (Big Z)
2:30 - Brian Shaw
3:37 - Eddie Hall
4:33 - Hafþór Björnsson
5:18 - Martins Licis
8:26 - Oleksii Novikov, Tom Stoltman, and Mitchell Hooper
8:42 - Mikhail Koklyaev
9:10 - Terry Hollands
9:54 - Derek Poundstone
Another world's strongest man competition has come and gone.
this was the 46th edition of The world's strongest man and I want to take a look a the past 22 years of winners to see how many pull ups they can do and which WORLDS STRONGEST MAN IS THE BEST AT PULL UPS!! the 2022 WSM competition featured the max flintstone barbell lift, bus pull, power stairs, jeep deadlift Giant's Medley, and atlas stones, so their training is completely different than training for calisthenics as you can imagine with calisthenics focusing on strength to weight ratio and therefore being lean is an important factor. nonetheless, I think its interesting to see how many, if any, pull ups a 300-400 pound, or even heavier person can do who trains in strongman at the elite level.
All I have to go by is what is available to me on the internet. I checked KZfaq, Instagram, and google search and this is what I could find.
Mariusz Pudzianowski
Pudzianowski won the World's Strongest Man in 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2008 for a record of 5 times, the most in history. He also won two runner-up titles in 2006 and 2009 and made 9 out of 9 appearances into the World's Strongest Man final and he weighed 313 lbs or 142 kg when he was competing in strongman and was actually a competitor who was fairly lean which is very uncommon in this sport.
He now competes as a professional MMA fighter with a record of 17-8-1
Next is zydrunas savickas or Big Z. He won the WSM in 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014 unfortunately there was no information on him that I could find about pull ups.
Žydrūnas Savickas ("big Z")- 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014
Brian Shaw, and Brian actually won The Worlds strongest man 4 times as well he won in 2011, in 2013, 2015, and 2016 and Brian can weigh as much as 440# when he preparing for the competition, but he was 425 lbs in a video about 1 year after these pull ups so he's was likely somewhere in that range.
Here Brian is able to do 6 pull ups and he says it himself that his excess body weight makes the pull up much harder and obviously he needs to use a lot of momentum to get his chin to the bar.
Brian Shaw- 2016, 2015, 2013, 2011
Eddie Hall who won in 2017 and he was the first person to ever deadlift 500 kg. Eddie weighed 432 lbs in 2017 when he set the deadlift WR, but has since lost weight after retiring from strongman and boxing
Eddie Hall- 2017
Next is Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson who won in 2018 and Thor as mentioned is the current WR holder for deadlift at 501 kg and at that time he was 450 pounds at a height of 6'9''. Thor does "10" reps in the video but obviously he wasn't able to complete a actual rep by getting the chin to the bar even when you squint and while being very loose with the criteria. the ying and yang of being the worlds strongest person and world record holder the deadlift in the most prestigious lift come with not being able to do a single body weight pull up, even while generating as much momentum as possible. obviously Thor is an absolute beast and I with that legend all the best in his journey to becoming the world record holder for all time total in powerlifting.
Hafthor Julius Bjornsson- 2018
Martins Licis who won in 2019. He's one of only four strongmen in history to win both World's Strongest Man and Arnold Strongman Classic competitions, the others are big Z, Brian Shaw and Hafþór Björnsson. because Martins likes incorporating calisthenics into his training and has a youtube channel there is a log of information on his personal records
Martins Licis- 2019
Oleksii Novikov- 2020
Tom Stoltman- 2021, 2022
I stalked his ig and youtube channel and could not find any videos of him doing pull ups
Mitchell Hooper -- the 2023 WSM winner and the first Canadian WSM winner
Mikhail Koklyaev- who took 3rd place in 2010 he gets 10 pull ups at 165 kg or 363 lbs.
Terry Hollands who took 3rd place in 2011 and 2007
11 neutral grip pull ups. Terry Hollands was training pull ups in the lead up to WSM 2021 but Terry Hollands suffered an injury during day 1 of the heats, and withdrew after 2 events.
Derek Poundstone
Derek was the 2008 WSM runner up but placed top 10 four times, he also has 2 first place wins, 2 second place wins, and a 9th place at the Arnold strongman classic
the worlds strongest man who could do the most pull ups in modern times goes to Martins Licis which isn't a huge surprise when you find out he values training calisthenics along with his strongman training, so he's an absolute beast and Id love to see him do a muscle up at his current body weight but until then much respect to all the The World's strongest man competitors and thanks for watching, please like and subscribe for more!! :)