Chapter 561: Max Out the Weight Plates, Break the Iron Bars

Chapter 561: Load the Plates to the Max, Grind the Iron to Waste

With Dean Zhan’s permission, Meng Fan had already started a livestream while training other athletes, giving netizens a more direct look at the training of the heavy sports athletes—a way to promote the sport and its athletes.

Although China is a weightlifting powerhouse, weightlifting remains a niche sport that desperately needs promotion.

In recent years, the public foundation for weightlifting has developed remarkably well and fast, not only because of Meng Fan’s dominance but also because people are increasingly valuing health, with more starting to exercise—running and hitting the gym.

Entering the gym, while not exactly weightlifting, is still strength training. Through strength training, people gain a deeper understanding of weightlifting as a strength sport, and it also broadens the grassroots base for powerlifting and even strongman events.

Strength training is essential—it not only builds the body but also reshapes aesthetics.

Strength as beauty, health as beauty—such aesthetics should not remain niche.

Netizens in the livestream had seen plenty of Meng Fan’s competitions—indeed, too common, in every possible format—but his training was rare, especially his special weightlifting strength training. If memory served, they hadn’t seen a video of him training in this area before.

Compared to running, netizens seemed to prefer watching Meng Fan’s weightlifting or strength training. After all, while Meng Fan’s running was superhuman, it was only in endurance; his speed was still acceptable. But his strength training was different—the pressure and shock it delivered were immense, suffocatingly so!

After watching Meng Fan’s “recovery” training, netizens were far from calm. Though every weight he lifted was one they’d seen before, it was too easy. Those weights were Olympic final gold-winning, world-record-breaking loads, yet in Meng Fan’s hands... look at his breathing—truly recovery training, very conservative weights!

“Iron God’s strength is beyond human imagination.”

“This recovery training is such a flex!”

“I was worried all that running would shrink his strength—guess I was overthinking.”

“Haha, I had the same worry, but when I heard Meng Fan lost ten jin after running three thousand kilometers, I knew it wasn’t that simple.”

“Think of all the food he ate along the way!”

Compared to weightlifting, powerlifting gave netizens a more intuitive feel, especially for those with gym or strength training experience.

Squats: for the average person without training, a few sets (12–20 reps) of bodyweight squats will definitely leave a mark—like soreness the next day. For regular fitness enthusiasts, with a systematic and scientific diet, three to six months can achieve a squat of one times bodyweight—meaning if you weigh 80 kg, you can squat 80 kg.

In the gym, squatting 1.5 times bodyweight is already impressive; few members in an average gym reach that, and 2 times bodyweight is rare. Of course, on the internet, with keyboard squats, even 2 times bodyweight isn’t worth a dog’s squat.

Meng Fan weighs over 100 kg, and he started with 300 kg—three times bodyweight—for his specific warm-up sets, then added 400 kg—four times bodyweight—for more sets.

Look at the plates on that barbell, and the barbell itself, seemingly about to bend—utterly stunning.

The key was that he did sets—12 reps!

Every knee bend, every hip hinge, every descent, every rise—the beauty and precision of the force line were breathtaking!

The strength was immense, and the technique was top-notch.

After watching, how many netizens in the livestream couldn’t help doing a few bodyweight squats on the spot?

Seeing Meng Fan still adding plates, up to 460 kg, many in the livestream started shouting—that weight was the world record for squats!

At this point, everyone seemed to remember Meng Fan’s earlier announcement: he said he would challenge a hundred world records. So this must be it.

Huh? Weren’t the snatch and clean and jerk just now also challenges, even if they were against his own records?

Challenging without breaking—that was interesting enough.

460 kg.

Meng Fan smoothly unracked, bent his knees, and slowly descended until his thighs were parallel to the ground—already meeting squat competition standards—but he kept going down.

If you squat, squat full.

Meng Fan completed a full squat.

And paused.

Then rose, smoothly.

And reracked smoothly.

He completed a 460 kg full squat.

“Holy shit!”

Though all humanity knew Meng Fan’s strength was immense, seeing him casually handle the squat world record still made them curse out loud.

Indeed, he handled it.

Because he did a full squat, because he paused at the bottom.

The difficulty increased from squatting to parallel, to full squat, to full squat with a pause. If parallel squat is difficulty 1, then full squat is 1.6, and full squat with a pause before rising is 2.2!

At that moment, among the livestream viewers were many fitness enthusiasts, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and even international viewers.

The more they knew about squats, the more stunned they were.

Forget the full squat and pause—another key point was that Meng Fan wore no gear: no knee sleeves, no knee wraps, not even a belt!

It was a raw squat!

The weight was nearly 4.5 times Meng Fan’s bodyweight!

“Does this count as successfully challenging another world record?”

“In terms of official certification, of course not—private training weights can’t be considered competition-certified results. But from our perspective, or even his own, it’s definitely a successful challenge.”

“Iron God’s strength doesn’t need certification at all.”

“Huh? What does this mean? He’s adding more!”

“Is he switching events?”

“Doesn’t seem like it—look at the barbell height, it’s still a squat!”

“Holy shit, still adding? Can the barbell take it?”

“Haha, it really seems like it can’t—it’s tilting. He’s... changed to a new barbell, different from before, probably able to handle more weight?”

“How much is he going to add?”

“Load the plates to the max, grind the iron to waste!”

Meng Fan was indeed still adding weight. After completing the 460 kg squat, the system hadn’t prompted a successful challenge, meaning 460 kg wasn’t considered a world record by the system.

So he was going to add plates up to 585 kg—the world record for equipped, untested lifting.

A full hundred-plus kilograms more—showing the power of drugs and gear.

(The End)