Comment by mnw21cam
21 days ago
For me, it actually seems fairly plausible. I was a fairly untrained 70kg forty-something when I went to the gym and very quickly found that as I did a bit of hiking, I could max out the standing calf raise machine at 155kg. This involves having a very padded 155kg on your shoulders while in a standing position. It felt to me like that was the most my shoulders and back could cope with, and it's more than double body weight.
It’s a huge difference having a loaded barbell which can move in every dimension on your shoulders versus a calf raise machine which is fixed in place and cannot move around!
I’ve squatted barbells since roughly 2006 and the feeling of having more than 100kg on your shoulders is very intense, even if you’ve trained up to it. It feels like it’s crushing your whole body and even breathing is hard.
The idea that an untrained person could put a 180kg barbell on their shoulders and be comfortable AND move around is laughable, they would collapse very quickly.
The OP didn't say they could move around... they said "unrack and stand there".
They wouldn't be able to unrack and stand there either. Just standing with a very heavy barbell is extremely difficult (assuming an untrained person).
Seriously, go and try it, load up 100KG or roughly 225lbs on a barbell and just stand there with it. If you're already a big/heavy/trained guy, put 180KG or 400lbs.
It will probably be quite a surprising experience for you.
And I will say, that even when I was training for heavy squatting, standing there with a very heavy barbell on your back isn't fun at all, you have to have a very tight core, tensed muscles, breathing is much harder. i.e. just standing there is hard work and you want to get your 5 squats done asap. Also, it just plain hurts your back as the metal bar on your spine is painful!