Julius Maddox

Julius Maddox is an American powerlifter born on 13 May 1987 and the world record holder in the raw bench press. He was raised in Owensboro, Kentucky, where he still lives with his wife and four children. A recruited high school football player, he struggled with drug addiction, depression and jail time, and chose a recovery program over two prison sentences; there he found a set of weights and began powerlifting. On 31 August 2019 he pressed 739.6 pounds, passing the 2015 mark of Kirill Sarychev, and in March 2020 he benched 770 pounds at the Arnold Sports Classic, becoming the first man to bench both 750 pounds and 350 kilograms. In February 2021 he lifted 782 pounds at a Ghost Strong meet in Miami, and he also holds the record for most official bench presses of 700 pounds, with 10.