Wow. Just wow.
Here’s a video of Special Olympics Michigan athlete James Ellison doing a 660 pound dead lift. According to Special Olympics Michigan, that’s an unofficial World Record for a Special Olympics competition.
The unofficial World Record was set June 3, 2016 at the Special Olympics Michigan State Summer Games in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.
“I said, ‘I don’t know if I can get this,'” Ellison told the Central Michigan Life student paper. “But then something just clicked. I was like, ‘You can do this. You wanted this. doesn’t keep official records for all of its competitions across the world in ever country. You can get this. You’re not going to quit, push, push, push,’ and I got it.”
In the first years of his life, Ellison battled strokes, seizures and a coma according to CM Life, and picked up powerlifting when he was 16.
“They said I died for a few minutes,” said Ellison. “The doctors said I was supposed to be a complete vegetable. I wouldn’t be able to walk or do any of that stuff. I had to prove them wrong.”
Just how heavy is 660 pounds?
About 14 bowling balls, if they’re the average 16 pounds each.
A little more than eight 80 pound bags of concrete.
Or a large, (probably stocked) vending machine.