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Competitive Inverted Deadlifting for the Morbidly Obese

In the interests of wider participation in sport
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There is a wildlife documentary series called "My 600lb Life", which follows morbidly obese people as they pass through the care and clinic of Dr. Younan Nowzaradan (himself not slimline, but at least much taller than he is wide).

Many of these people do indeed weigh on the order of 600lb and, even more impressively, many of them can still walk. This means that their legs can not only lift 600lb, but can do so one at a time. They must have titanic leg muscles in there. Of course, this does not make them well suited to conventional deadlifting because, even though their legs may be able to lift over 600lb, they are also carrying a 600lb weight penalty.

The solution, obviously, is to flip these people upside down. Nestled head-down in a well-padded shoulder-and-torso support, and wearing special shoes with a C-shaped clip on their soles, their challenge is to lift the weight with their legs. In the starting position, their knees will be bent at 90° and, to complete the inverted deadlift, they must raise the barbell until they can lock their knees straight.

600lb would obviously be child's play for these people. Given that they can walk (using one leg at a time, as is usual), you might think that 1200lb should be possible, though this may be ambitious. There is a good chance, though, that one of these people could beat the current right-way-up deadlift record of just over 1000lb.

MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 03 2019


       Given the probable load on the cardiovascular system from their body mass alone, and considering that they're no doubt hypertensive as well, turning them upside down and making them lift heavy weights is likely to induce either a heart attack or a stroke almost imnediately.   

       <Considers further/>   

       Ah, yes ... right. Fine, carry on.   

       Presumably you've now got the lease on that soap factory you were investigating a while ago ... ?
8th of 7, Nov 04 2019

       I've considered a similar idea: as such people lose weight, they carry the (hopefully increasing) amount they've lost externally (backpack, strap-on ankle weights, "iron shirt", whatever). So at the end when they are a more healthy size, they have also retained the ability to carry that huge weight.
neutrinos_shadow, Nov 04 2019

       ... and thus have the brute physical strength to go round and find all those who taunted them with words like "fatty" and "lardarse" and settle scores.   

       No, [n_s], that's a really bad idea.
8th of 7, Nov 04 2019

       It appears that leg presses are something somewhat comparable to what you propose. There are youtube videos claiming 2465 pound leg presses. I'm not sure if that is the weight being pushed up a sloped track or if that is the amount of force being applied.
scad mientist, Nov 04 2019

       //claiming 2465 pound leg presses.//   

       I suggest that's the mass on the track. The biggest lifts are harness lifts. I remember BBC Record Breakers with (I think) Jamie Reeves lifting a Mk2 VW Polo complete with Roy Castle and Cheryl Baker inside, as a guess that's 830+70+50 kg. That was done standing on an overhead platform with shoulder straps.   

       Now, I can't find any evidence that this ever happend. More to the point, I can't find any evidence that as an experienced heavy-industry welder, whether Jamie Built the platform. But, as a top strongman at the time, no one is lifting 2.5 fold more without the track angle having an effect.
bs0u0155, Nov 04 2019

       // Now, I can't find any evidence that this ever happend. //   

       Resoundingly [Marked-For-Tagline]   

       Guinness Book of Records would be your friend on that one, probably ...
8th of 7, Nov 04 2019

       // locking knees on a leg press machine //   

       No! Never do this. If you want to see disturbing videos, search YouTube for this. A leg press machine can easily exceed the buckling strength of a human knee. So what happens is a fool loads up a lot of weight to show off, then pushes with his arms to help complete the lift, locking out his knees. The weight then bends his knees the wrong way, tearing ligaments, and then he has to have surgery to rebuild his knee. Very bad. Lifting a bar is much safer because the reflex if straining a knee is to go limp and drop the bar. If lifting a bar this reflex protects the knee. If using a leg press machine this reflex lets the knees hyperextend faster. Don't use leg press machines.   

       If you insist on this idea, consider simply adding 70% of the weigh-in weight of the "bodybuilder" to all of their lifts. Only 70% because legs are ~30% and the legs are not being lifted. For bench press, add 5% of the bodyweight to represent the arm weight lifted. Thus, by simply bench-pressing a 100lb bar (not a lot of weight) and then standing up, a 600-pound person could achieve equivalent lifts of 420lb squat, 420lb deadlift, and 160lb benchpress, enabling this person to join the 1000lb club.
sninctown, Nov 07 2019

       // If you want to see disturbing videos, search YouTube for this. //   

       <Makes note never, ever to search YouTube or any other source of video or still images for this />
8th of 7, Nov 07 2019

       Some sort of ratchet ought to solve the problem of knees folding back the wrong way, shirley?
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 07 2019

       There isn't much room inside the human knee joint for that sort of thing. It will have to be pretty compact.   

       How will the ratchet be unlatched ? An external magnet, or a connection to the nervous system ?
8th of 7, Nov 07 2019

       //pretty compact.// //ratchet be unlatched//   

       Looks like a job for hydraulics. Latching not really necessary there. Borg would be the ones to ask I suspect.
bs0u0155, Nov 07 2019

       Ask the Klingons, they're the ones who are into all that muscular-strength warrior stuff.   

       We can look into the engineering, but we don't want our Cube getting filled with unwelcome amounts of testosterone and pointless grunting. Go buy s gym membership or something.
8th of 7, Nov 07 2019


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