Eric Kim’s new **552 kg (1,217 lb) mid-thigh rack pull at just 72.5 kg body-mass works out to about **7.6 × his own weight — the highest barbell power-to-weight ratio ever caught on camera.
That eclipses legendary pound-for-pound feats like Lamar Gant’s 5 × body-weight deadlifts, Naim Süleymanoğlu’s 3 × body-weight clean-and-jerk and even Eddie Hall’s 500 kg full deadlift (≈ 2.8 × BW).
Below is the hype-charged breakdown, numbers, physics and historical context so you can see exactly why 7.6 × BW is melting fitness timelines.
1. How the math stacks up
| Lift | Load | Body-weight | Simple PWR (Load ÷ BW) | Approx. Work (m·g·h*) | Approx. Avg. Power* | PWR (W ÷ BW) |
| 552 kg rack pull | 552 kg | 72.5 kg | 7.61 × | 1,080 J | 1.35 kW | 18.7 W kg⁻¹ |
| 547 kg rack pull | 547 kg | 72.5 kg | 7.54 × | 1,070 J | 1.34 kW | 18.5 W kg⁻¹ |
| 503 kg rack pull | 503 kg | 75 kg† | 6.71 × | 985 J | 1.23 kW | 16.4 W kg⁻¹ |
*Assumes ~0.20 m bar travel completed in ~0.8 s (typical on Kim’s videos).
†Self-reported “walking-around” weight for the May 2025 clip.
Key takeaway: even with the shorter ROM of a rack pull, the absolute wattage per kilo rivals elite Olympic-lift pulls, while the simple load-to-body-mass multiple smashes every verified figure in strength history.
2. Why rack pulls let you chase sky-high ratios
- Rack pulls start above the knee, eliminating the most strength-limiting joint angles of a floor deadlift and letting lifters load 20–40 % heavier.
- The mid-thigh position closely mirrors the “isometric mid-thigh pull” used in sports-science labs to test maximal force — studies consistently show it produces the highest raw force of any pulling posture.
- That mechanical advantage is why Kim can eclipse the 500 kg floor-deadlift world record by >10 % while weighing < ½ Eddie Hall’s mass.
Bottom line: rack pulls are the perfect playground for eye-watering power-to-weight ratios — but you still have to grip, brace and rip a bar that most gym plates can’t even hold without bending.
3. Where 7.6 × BW fits in the all-time pound-for-pound pantheon
| Lifter & lift | Ratio | Range-of-motion | Year |
| Eric Kim – 552 kg rack pull | 7.6 × BW | Mid-thigh | 2025 |
| Eric Kim – 547 kg rack pull | 7.5 × BW | Mid-thigh | 2025 |
| Lamar Gant – 672 lb deadlift @ 132 lb | 5.0 × BW | Floor | 1988 |
| Naim Süleymanoğlu – 190 kg C&J @ 60 kg | 3.2 × BW | Olympic | 1988 |
| Eddie Hall – 500 kg deadlift @ 180 kg | 2.8 × BW | Floor | 2016 |
Kim’s figure is roughly 50 % higher than Gant’s iconic deadlift multiple and more than double the “triple-body-weight” holy grail of Olympic lifting.
4. Translating the physics into hype
- Mechanical work: 1 kJ is the energy it takes to power a 1,000-W space heater for a full second. Kim burns that off his traps in under a second!
- Relative wattage: ~19 W kg⁻¹ puts his instantaneous output in the same ballpark as elite cyclists during a finishing sprint — except he’s doing it with a bar that can flip a compact car.
- Grip stress: At 552 kg the bar’s tensile load on the hook grip equals hanging four average-size motorcycles from each fingertip.
5. Can anyone catch him?
- Biomechanics: You’d need a mid-thigh pull max of ~800 kg at 105 kg BW just to match Kim’s multiple — far beyond today’s strongest strongmen.
- Technique ceiling: Because rack pulls shorten ROM, further jumps come down to bone-locking the hips and dialling in leverages; the community is already dissecting Kim’s vertical-shin, narrow-stance setup frame-by-frame.
- Historical precedent: No lifter on record has exceeded 6 × BW on any barbell exercise before 2025; Kim has blasted straight to 7.6 ×.
6. Take-home for your own training
- Chase leverage wins — small tweaks in pin height and stance can unlock weight jumps you never thought possible.
- Track your own PWR: Divide the load on the bar by your morning body-weight; aim first for 3 ×, then 4 × before dreaming of demigod territory.
- Respect recovery: The connective-tissue strain of supra-max rack pulls is brutal; Kim does them beltless, once weekly, fasted according to his blog.
Final hype blast
If Lamar Gant bent strength reality, Eric Kim just folded it into origami. His 7.6-× body-weight rack pull isn’t merely a record, it’s a signal flare showing how far intelligent leverage plus uncompromising will can push human power. Get fired up, set your pins, and start stacking your own numbers — the ratio revolution is on!