Who is the "Strongest in the World?"

What does it mean to be "the strongest?"  It's question posed in one form or another in many anime and it's definitely not an easy one to answer. There are many people to whom you can point and go "That guy. That guy right there. He's the strongest."   But even in those cases, there will be disagreements on the terms by which that person was determined to be the strongest in the world. I doubt anyone could ever reach a consensus.

"You're the strongest? Dr. Wheelo will see you now."

But that's not going to stop us from arguing about it. This article is an attempt to compare all those we would call the "Strongest in the World" and perhaps get a little closer to an answer... or at least something else we can argue about.


Let's start with...

1. Olympic Lifters

Olympic lifting is the combination of super strength and super technique. The clean and jerk and the snatch are the two lifts scored in the Olympics and getting a gold medal in weightlifting during the Olympics certainly should entitle you to being the strongest in the world, right?

I mean, it's the friggin' Olympics!

Look at him. He looks like he's about to break that bar in half.

But this is not so cut and dry. Even though the men and women of the Olympics can put massive amounts of weight overhead, there is another class of athlete that moves weight equal to or greater than the Olympic lifters (although in different lifts).


2. Powerlifters

These men and women are capable of moving ridiculous amounts of weight. Even at the lowest weight classes, they move 3-4 times their own weight in the squat, bench press, and deadlift. The percentage of their bodyweight decreases as the weight classes get higher, but the records for the heaviest lifts of all time are over 1,000 pounds in each lift.  The heaviest total weight of all three lifts was 3,005 pounds (Dave Hoff, 2013)!  These guys are strong, no doubt.

Most non-powerlifting people don't do that many plates in all of their lifts combined.

But does three lifts really make you the strongest in the world? Would more variables help determine what it means to be the strongest?

3. Strongmen/Strongwomen

Strongman and strongwoman competitions are full of heavy lifting of various types. Increasingly heavier squats, massive deadlifts, truck pulls, super heavy carries with awkward weights, cleaning and pressing logs, throwing kegs high into the air-- these are all frequent feats completed by strongman competitors. It's high level strength and technique combined with vicious relatively short periods of all-out conditioning effort.


4. CrossFitters

Crossfitters are frequently looked down upon as being weak, but there are some seriously strong guys and gals who compete in the CrossFit Games every year.  And it's not just strength, because there is so much versatility present in these athletes.  While they can lift heavy, they can also run fast or far, or crank out hundreds of reps of a huge list of exercises.

CrossFit prides itself on producing "generalists."  This term means that a CrossFitter should be able to meet and perform on any general number of tasks. They may not be the fastest runner or be able to do ultra-marathons or deadlift world-record weight or compete on the level of the elite "specialist," but they have proven it is possible to produce an athlete that is capable of being above-average (many times, highly above average) in a wide range of physical fitness applications.  And this means that, on any given day, that a good Crossfitter would be able to beat most people in most activities. Therefore, the winner of the CrossFit Games would (theoretically) be able to beat the majority of athletes in a majority of things. And that's pretty cool.


5. MMA Fighters

Fighters are a special breed. You step into a cage or a ring with another guy or girl who wants to hurt you and you punch, kick, and grapple until someone wins by knockout, submission, or decision. It's tough and anyone who even gets in there to compete deserves immediate respect.

You might find it odd that I would include MMA fighters in the list of the "Strongest in the World;" however, consider what it means to be the strongest for just a moment. Hanma Baki said (paraphrasing) that the strongest is the one who is standing over someone else. In short, the strongest one is the victor in combat. Squatting 1,100 pounds and tearing a phone book in half means you have ridiculous strength, but if you are beaten into submission by another person, who is stronger?  If it is this kind of strength, then it's either the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world or the top guy of the highest weight class who's the strongest.

The Limit

I want to take a moment to reflect on something:  What is the limit of human capability? What is the limit of one, single human's ability?  How far can we take it?  

When humans devote themselves fully to something, it is absolutely astounding the feats of which we are capable: speed, strength, endurance, skill, etc. We've been lucky to witness the rise of sports medicine and the science of performance, which has allowed the creation of the modern athlete, a marvel of physical ability.

For the most part, if you took any modern-day athlete and stuck him with his counterparts from a previous era, it is more than likely the case that he would completely dominate his opponents. This is for numerous reasons and the level of training we currently possess is more informed and the technical prowess exhibited by each of these athletes is generally on a much higher level than their predecessor are two of the majors ones. However, what we have done with the modern athlete, especially the modern combat athlete, is just a portion of what I would like to consider. We'll dub this portion: Athletic Ability

Next, I think it's important to take a look at how much has changed with the advent of the information age. The communication of ideas and concepts takes things that were secret or unknown for perhaps hundreds of years and throws them right out there for everyone to see. Imagine being a kung fu practitioner or a wandering samurai back in the Golden Age of ass-kicking. You carefully guarded your skills, honed them in secret, and every new discovery was like finding a precious gem. If you lost a fight, it could mean the loss of your personal reputation, your schools name, or your own life. It doesn't get much more serious than that. However, due to the nature of the combat of this era, martial ability was in the hands of a select few individuals, who only showed their skills when it was time to fight and, sometimes, because people seriously could die in these matches, another Master or fighter could just be wiped off the map, all of his experience and knowledge just gone, leaving nothing but a memory for his opponent to dwell upon. On top of this, sometimes fighters would only master a single skill, because you would rarely meet the same opponent twice, so the need for diversifying your skill-set was almost non-existent. If you met someone who you matched badly against, oh well!

Counter to this, you can find Karate kata, kung fu forms, kickboxing matches, and instructional videos on just about anything you could want from Judo to BJJ to Silat to Sanda to fictional martial arts from Star Trek (yes, that shit is real!). It is an information overload. And that is fan-freaking-tastic, because it allows for the free-flow of ideas, the transmission of skills to many, and the evolution of particular arts and techniques to new heights. There exist, today, things that, in my opinion, never existed before in combat. This evolution is very important, because it helps us to weed out things that are not as useful to us in our training and help us to more quickly achieve our goals. This is a living evolution of combat theory and is practical application and it is how we find the next game-changer. So, we'll call this portion: Immersive Education.

But there is one more thing that stretches back far into human history. These are secret things that are transmitted only through countless hours of training. They are things we may write off as worthless or fiction, at least as Westerners. I am not so quick to discard ideas that seem outside the scope of our current understanding. There are people who exhibit incredible abilities with things such as internal martial arts, mediation, and even willpower. Some may be tricks and some not, but to toss them aside without properly trying to understand them does ourselves a disservice and the practitioners of those skills a dishonor. The burden of proof lies with them, no doubt, but at least let them attempt provide the evidence. In seeking these things out, cataloguing them, and understanding them, we can understand more about the human body and its limits, even if those limits initially seem outside the bounds of our current understanding. Eventually, perhaps we will be more open-minded about what is possible. We can call this: Hidden Abilities.

If we hold each of these things to be important and seek the limit of human ability without unfounded bias of training methodology, I am confident that something magnificent is possible. The combination of science, art, and history; body, mind and spirit; and intelligence, emotion, and intuition can shine a little more light on the Super, the Ultimate, the Limit. In short, what it means to be strong.

I didn't mean for this to come off so grandiose, but it just makes such sense to me. Let me know what you guys think.