Happy birthday to 2x Olympian and 9x National Champion, Chad Vaughn! 

Team USA's performance at the 2017 IWF Youth World Championships have been none other than amazing. 

Devon Larratt is one of the best arm wrestlers of all time. Hafthor "The Mountain" Bjornsson is one of the World's Strongest Men and outweighs Devon Larratt by almost 200 pounds.  Here's what happens when a specialist walks into someone else's world: The Mountain can deadlift over 1000 pounds, has both the height, weight, and strength advantage, and is absolutely outclassed by Devon Larrat. Even at the very end, when Larratt gives The Mountain a huge advantage, Thor can't even budge his arm. Of course, the same thing would happen to Larratt if he tried to compete in strongman, but it's still fascinating to watch this sort of meeting of specialists. You may know Matthias Steiner as the man with the most emotionally charged Olympic Gold Medal in weightlifting history but what happens when a super heavyweight Olympic Champion retires? Well, in Steiner's case, you do technique work with 150kg (330lbs): So he's still fast, strong, and moves well. And he looks pretty healthy and fit after losing all the heavyweight weight.  Chingiz Mogushkov is a member of the Russian national weightlifting team and he's a pretty damn good super. And in case you're wondering, he's really really strong. Like, almost insanely strong:   320/5: мой бÑ€аÑ‚ @mogushkovchingiz мÑ‹ все давно не видели его видео с Ñ‚Ñ€ениÑ€овки, я без его Ñ€азÑ€ешения Ñ€ешился сегодня вÑ‹ложиÑ‚ÑŒ его видео и показаÑ‚ÑŒ вам в какой он на даннÑ‹й моменÑ‚ в Ñ„оÑ€ме, надеюсь бÑ€аÑ‚ка Ñ‚Ñ‹ не силÑŒно будешь меня ругать😋😋👍👍☝ï¸ÃƒÂ‚â˜ï¸ÃƒÂ‚ðŸ™ðŸ™

At the 2015 Russian Championships David Bedzhanyan matched Ilya Ilyin's 242kg clean & jerk WITH A POWER JERK: This is likely the heaviest power jerk of all time and it matches the World Record set by Ilya Ilyin at the 2014 World Championships. Let me tell you something: the crowd at events like the Russian Weightlifting Championships have seen a lot of weightlifting. They're fans, they know the sport. And still, with all that experience, they are shocked at how easily Bedzhanyan cleans 242kg. The crowd literally let's out a collective "Whoa" and someone even giggles because of how insane it is to see a man throw around 533 pounds.

Yea, sure there was some small event over this past weekend with a bunch of professional exercisers but other stuff happened too! Check it out: Ilya is back on his major training cycle leading into the 2016 Olympics and here's his snatch from his first Big Friday. In case you don't know, Ilya maxes out every Friday and calls it Big Friday. He then uses those numbers to help decide what his training will look like the following week. Since this is the first Big Friday of his training season we can't expect too much out of him which is why he only snatched 171kg (376 pounds). Pssshhh, weak sauce. Big Friday also includes maxing out on the clean & jerk, so here's Ilya's 222kg (488lb) single from the first Big Friday of 2015. To put that in perspective, these numbers are just about 90% of what he hit at the 2014 World Championships in Almaty and would also give him the American Record for clean & jerk and total.  Jon Pera finished 18th at this years CrossFit Games after taking a couple seasons off of individual competition. He also discovered a secret 13th event that Dave Castro apparently announced and never followed through on. Check it out. And in case you've missed a whole lot of stuff, be sure to check out the rest of the series: In Case You Missed It