In a recent RP Strength YouTube video, Dr. Mike watched a lifter’s wildest feats and declared that “today we are witness to a god.”
His subject: Quinn Stott, a strength athlete whose lifts look like glitches in reality.
Think bench presses balanced on knuckles and a 500-pound jump onto a platform.
Every weight, as far as anyone can tell, is real: no staging, no AI.
Why did one of the most jaw-dropping lifts miss the top spot?
Stick around, because the video ends with a surprisingly practical lesson about strength and athleticism.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Jump to:
The Scariest Lifts, Ranked by Dr. Mike
A 440-Pound Bench Press on His Fists
The bar rests on top of Stott’s clenched fists for a 200 kg (440 lb) press. Nothing but the grooves between his fingers stops it from rolling.
This doesn’t just take strength, it takes massive balls.
Dr. Mike points to a hidden detail. Instability forces a lifter to hold back, since pushing too hard sends the barbell sliding off.
His conclusion: Stott’s true raw bench sits well above 440 pounds.
The Steinborn Squat and the 635-Pound Helicopter Squat
The Steinborn squat is an old-school move from before power racks existed. A lifter tips one end of a loaded barbell up, ducks underneath, and swings it onto the back.
Dr. Mike joked that Stott used his hands, so “I take back all the compliments.”
Next came a 635-pound squat with the bar spinning like helicopter blades. Stott hit full depth, paused while the bar rotated, and stood back up before the weight flew off-angle.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Whatever you think this is, you’re not ready for it.
Dr. Mike estimates Stott’s raw squat to depth comfortably exceeds 700 pounds. Stott reportedly weighs just 210 to 215 pounds.
The 500-Pound Jump
With a loaded bar on his back, Stott leaves the floor and lands on a platform. Dr. Mike called out the force required, and the long list of ways it could go wrong.
Leaving the ground with 500 lbs, it requires an amount of force and power that makes most people look like they’re immobile.
Ankles, knees, hips, and spine all face risk on landing. A bar could even tumble over the head into the wood ahead.
The 800-Pound Shirted Bench
Support shirts add pounds to a bench press, so this lift comes with an asterisk. Dr. Mike still found it elite.
Just for the record, he can’t bench this raw. If he could, he’d be the greatest bench presser of all time by miles and miles and miles.
Squatting on a Dumbbell
Stott stands atop a vertical dumbbell, heels nearly touching, with a loaded bar overhead. Then he squats.
Dr. Mike has squatted 405 to 425 pounds in a narrow stance for sets of eight to ten. Even so, he would refuse this one outright.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
I’d be like, “No, are you nuts?”
Planks, Grip Feats, and Connective Tissue of Steel
A 408-pound plank adds a cruel twist: Stott holds position while plates are loaded onto him.
Grip stunts then took over, including crushing a glass and poking a finger through an apple. Dr. Mike’s reaction:
That’s not even strength. It’s a connective tissue integrity.
Dr. Mike has closed an Iron Mind 2.5 gripper himself, a feat he calls roughly one-in-a-thousand grip strength for men. Against Stott, that still looked modest.
A Deadlift Worth Copying
One clip showed a 555-pound snatch-grip deficit deadlift, with Stott gripping the loops on the plates. Dr. Mike called it a phenomenal exercise.
Wide grip plus a deficit demands serious work from several areas:
- Spinal erectors
- Glutes
- Core
If you can do this with a lot of weight for a lot of reps, man, you’re probably not going to get a hurt back from almost anything.
The catch: grip must not become the limiting factor.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Push-Ups on Quarters
Here, Stott does close-grip push-ups on stacked quarters held together only by hand pressure. Push-ups are the easy part.
His squeeze must create enough friction to outweigh his bodyweight as it drops. Dr. Mike described it as isometrically holding up the top of a fly with his whole body.
Does Lifting Heavy Make You Athletic?
Dr. Mike defines athleticism as turning a movement idea in your head into action in a sporting context. Success at that task measures the athleticism.
Three ingredients matter most:
- Speed
- Strength
- Coordination, which he calls the “really, really, really, really big one”
Weak athletes get held back by their own bodyweight. Strong but slow athletes hit a ceiling in other ways.
If strength is your limiting factor, you are going to massively increase your athleticism as your strength comes up.
That logic drives athlete training. By Dr. Mike’s rough estimate, it explains about 90 percent of why athletes lift weights.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
What about big, strong people who move poorly? Dr. Mike blames genetics for speed and coordination, or simply never training those qualities.
His test: make that person weaker and watch athleticism fall further.
Stott’s sprint speed, he adds, owes mostly to elite genetics and fast-twitch muscle. Added strength then gives a small but meaningful boost.
What You Should Actually Do
Will these stunts improve sports performance? Dr. Mike says yes, but basics deliver most of the strength.
- Squat
- Deadlift
- Overhead press
- Row
- Weighted pull-ups, progressed over time
Sets of three to six reps, with maximum intent to move the weight fast on the way up, drive the gains.
But the training that probably got Quinn there is the basics that you can do by yourself.
Mastering exotic tricks, in his view, is about expressing strength rather than building it. Want to try them anyway for fun?
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Just sign the waiver at your gym and do it with massive assumption of risk on your part.
His final verdict on Stott: “not human, actually a machine, an immortal god.” And one safety tip: keep your hands off the nails.
