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King of the Bench Press!
Julius Maddox Is the All-Time Raw World Bench Press Champion
Interview by Ron Harris
"How much ya bench?" Every one of us has either asked that question or had others ask us. As bodybuilders, we get that question fairly often from regular folks who have no idea we focus more on the development of our physiques than the amount of weight we can lift. Yet even among our own, there has always been a fascination with that most basic of upper body lifts. We even tend to follow current world records. That's why I was happy to speak recently with Kentucky's Julius Maddox, who for the past several years has been the strongest raw bench presser alive. He had quite a story to tell, as Julius turned his life around from being a drug addict and prison inmate to one of the strongest human beings on earth. We spoke about his troubled past, how he accidentally discovered his talent, the raw vs. equipped debate, and more.
First off, congratulations on being the strongest raw bench presser of all time. I saw that you had attempted the mythical 800 pounds prior to that, but there was an issue where a spotter added an extra 25 pounds to one side of the bar and ruined it?
Typically the judges have to sign off on the weight before the lifter goes for his or her attempt, but this was a crazy situation because ESPN was there covering it. They were on a tight schedule and I guess things were rushed. I just took it for what it was and moved past it. Everything happens for a reason. That was a small meet. I plan on breaking the 800-pound record at Wrigley Field before or after the Cubs play the Cardinals on May 18.
Let's start at the beginning. When did you first start lifting weights?
It was in high school. I didn't like it and had no interest in it. I was a big kid at 285 pounds and very athletic. By junior year I could dunk a basketball with two hands, ran a 4.8 40-yeard-dash, and threw the shot put 58 feet. The coaches didn't want me to get too strong, and they limited my weightlifting. I had no desire to do it anyway, because I was naturally strong and wasn't aware of the many benefits. Our school didn't put much emphasis on weightlifting as others did. There were a lot of directions I could have gone at that point. I thought I was a leader but I was really a follower. That mindset led me down a dark path.
At 285 pounds, I assume you played football too?
I played freshman year, but then a new coach came in and I didn't play for the next two years. After the season ended in my junior year, I spoke with the coach and we decided I would play senior year. Shortly after, scouts from Western Kentucky and University of Kentucky came to visit. I hadn't even been on a football field for two years, but they had heard about me and the coach vouched for my potential. Fast-forward to the end of the summer, and we were in practice. There was a big pool party I wanted to go to one day a couple of weeks before school started. That day I was looking for a reason to get out of practice early and headed over to the party. I got into an argument with another player, then with the coach. He kicked me off the field, but I was supposed to go sit in the bleachers until practice was over. I started walking back to the locker room instead. The coach told me if I kept walking, I was off the team. Due to my pride and arrogance, I kept walking. Shortly after that, a couple of players asked me to please talk to the coach and apologize. A few weeks later right before the season started, I went to his office. Looking back, it was one of those pivotal moments in my life where I could have done the right thing but didn't. The coach didn't like my attitude and said he was making an example out of me, and then told me to get out of his face and out of his locker room. I'm sure if I'd tried harder, he would have let me back on the team and I would have gone on to play in the NFL eventually. But partying, drugs, and alcohol were in the mix, so I was like, "I don't need you, I'll show you." It was all downhill from there.
When did you finally start lifting weights, and how did you discover you had a gift for it?
A few years after high school I got busted for trafficking drugs through the mail. It wasn't my first charge, and the one before that was fairly serious. I was sentenced to two five-year prison sentences, but after I had been in for six months, Kentucky offered alternatives for drug offenders to go to long-term recovery centers. I had been an addict and abused every drug you can think of. At the time I had a one-year-old daughter, and I knew it was time to change. It was a Christ-centered recovery program called Friends of Sinners, and I went off to a prehistoric home that had been converted for transitional living. In the grungy basement with a dirt floor, there were a bunch of old iron weights, a little bench, and a bent bar. I found that if I worked out when I got back from work, it took my mind off everything, so I started doing that every day. From the ages of 18 to 26 I never had any responsibilities. I ran from them. I never worked hard for anything and sold drugs to get what I wanted. For the first time in my life I was doing it the right way, and that weightlifting helped me deal with life. One day I was down there and one of the other guys said, "I bet you can lift every single weight down here." We were just playing around, so I said let's see. We put every single plate on the bar: 25s, 10s, 2½s, and I did it for three reps. We added up the weights after and it ended up being 505 pounds. This was after six months of lifting, just doing whatever felt good and challenging, like seeing how many reps I could do with 225, doing skull-crushers and curls. The ceiling was only 8 feet, and there was a rusty old water heater always making noise. We called it The Dungeon.
How did that lead to competing?
One of the guys told a counselor who was into weightlifting what I did, and he was shocked. He asked me, do you realize not many people can do that? He started showing me videos of great bench pressers like C.T. Fletcher, LeRoy Walker, James Henderson, Scott Mendelson and Eric Spoto. At the time I never dreamed I had the potential to be one of them and set world records. But a little while later, I got permission to check out of the facility to do my first meet. A few months after that, I hit 600 pounds for the first time in competition. I'd only been lifting for a little over a year. A buddy of mine reached out to the well-known powerlifting coach Josh Bryant, and we have been working together ever since.
That's wild, you have only been competing for six years and you've broken the record four times already. I'm sure you're up against guys who have been competing for 20 years or more.
Absolutely. I didn't take it seriously until the Russian Kirill Sarychev broke Eric Spoto's record in 2015 with 738.5 pounds. I had been working toward breaking Eric's record of 722, and here comes this young dude who shoots almost 20 pounds over that. I realized I wasn't the only one out there working toward that 800.
We need to talk about raw versus equipped bench pressing. You did 782.6 pounds raw. The equipped record is held by Will Barotti at 1,105 pounds. That's how much of difference bench shirts make. Why didn't you go that route?
Once I got into my element, they had me in the same flights in meets as the equipped lifters. It used to bother me that whenever you looked up bench press records, the equipped lifts came up. To me, that took away from the raw bench press lifts. If you ask most equipped lifters how much they can bench press, they will tell you what they get with a shirt without saying it. It takes credibility away from the raw lifters who don't use equipment. People think that's real powerlifting.
I don't even understand how bench press shirts were ever allowed in competition. They are so thick and tight that they force your arms out in front of you.
There are some of the heavier duty ones that if you have anything less than 600 pounds on the bar, you can't even touch the bar to your chest. At the top, they are holding the weight and that's impressive. But to me, bench pressing in a shirt is like dunking a basketball off a trampoline. Without that shirt, can you go into a gym and bench press that weight, or even close? Of course not. So if you're using those shirts, to me you can't say you're the strongest bench presser.
I still don't get why they were ever allowed. We wouldn't allow NBA players to wear shoes with springs that let them jump 15 feet in the air.
I think the thought process was that it evened out the playing field. It allowed a lot of people to bench press a lot more weight than they could without them. I watched the documentary “Westside vs. The World,” and I have total respect for Louie Simmons and those guys. In the movie, one of them said it was all about being the strongest man in the room, and they would use anything available to do that.
I need to ask how you eat. At well over 400 pounds, I can only imagine how much food you put away every day.
Justin Harris of Troponin Nutrition does my meal plans. For my last meet, we were at 10 to 12 ounces of beef or some other protein and 250 to 300 grams of carbs at every meal, eating six to eight meals a day. Some days I ate 2 pounds of meat or more. It was around 6,000 clean calories. That's a lot of food.
It is, because it takes a much higher volume of clean food to hit 6,000 calories than if you were eating high-calorie crap like pizza and ice cream.
Right. The first couple of weeks Justin had me eating like that, I constantly felt full and lethargic. I was used to eating more bad food but not so often, because it stayed in my body longer and I wouldn't get hungry again for maybe four hours. It's a grind eating all that clean food, but it's so much better in terms of both health and performance.
I think a lot of people see you huge powerlifters and strongmen and assume you do eat pizza and doughnuts all day, because you do carry more body fat than bodybuilders. I doubt they would think you eat clean.
Don't get me wrong. I like snacks and pancakes, stuff like that, but I don't eat it every day. People see that I weigh 440 pounds and assume I must go to McDonald's every day and eat 10 cheeseburgers at once, and 10 stacks of pancakes. That's not so. I don't eat crazy like that too often. I might have a burger here and there if I'm out of town and there's a good burger joint there, but mostly it's lean beef, chicken, rice, potatoes, all clean food. Just a lot of it.
Let's be real. Just being the size you are is a strain on your body and your organs in particular. If you were eating junk food and fast food every day, it wouldn't be long before you started having serious health problems, mainly with your heart.
I agree with that 100 percent, and at some point in the next year I need to get under 400 pounds. First, I need to get this record. It's set now for June 13 at Wrigley Field. Losing 30 to 40 pounds before that would take a significant amount off my one-rep max. After I break the record with 800 pounds, I do plan on dropping some weight and going into Strongman.
Really? Have you ever tried training the way they do with all the crazy rocks and logs?
I've only tried the log press, but I've always been strong and athletic. I want to stretch myself and try new things, because at one point not so long ago I had nothing. No hope, no dreams, just a lost soul. I'm never going to let opportunity pass me by again, because I've done that before. I've been to a few Strongman events and I think I will fit in very well in that sport. I want to be the best bench presser of all time, and then set new goals for Strongman.
It's funny because those guys and even many bodybuilders are interested in bench press strength. Everyone always wants to know how much you can bench, and you have the best answer in the world.
If you think about it, that's always been a way to gauge your strength and measure it against others. The NFL still uses it as a marker. People always want to know how much you can bench. I think it's the top lift of the three power lifts, and not just because it's my specialty. Think about the chances you take. You can bail out of a heavy squat or deadlift, but not the bench press. If that bar slips out of your hands and you're not using a rack and safety pins, it can be disastrous.
Speaking of which, have you ever been injured?
No, I've been lucky so far. I shouldn't say lucky. I've been cautious and careful. I know my body, and I can tell when I'm getting overtrained and it needs rest. My coach Josh keeps me inbound that way too. Every great player needs a great coach to help you strategically attack and execute a game plan.
How did you become an MHP athlete?
I met one of their athletes, a powerlifter named Jeremy Hoornstra. We got to talking, and I knew how supportive MHP has been of strength athletes. Brian Shaw and Larry Wheels were both with MHP. One of my managers reached out to them, and it was a perfect fit. I wanted to be aligned with a company that was well known and had some time in the game so we could help each other grow.
Most powerlifters don't seem to hit their peak until their late 30s or early 40s. You're only 33. If you get this 800 pounds and break your own record again, would you come back later on to beat that?
I think my time is now, because trying to sustain this size and weight for too long would not be safe in terms of my health. There aren't many powerlifters over 400 pounds. We are an anomaly. I can name five to 10 men in the 198-pound class who can bench over 500, but there are very few men in the world who can bench press close to what I can. People assume that the heavier you are, the more you should be able to bench press. It simply doesn't work that way.
Assuming you get this 800 pounds, I wonder how long it would take any other human being to surpass that.
I don't know, but I do know I will be the first man to bench 800 pounds raw. If anyone else ever comes along and breaks that record, he would have nothing but respect from me.
Julius Maddox Stats
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 440
Date of Birth: May 13, 1987
From: Owensboro, Kentucky
Bench Press Records:
February 2018: 705 pounds
August 2019: 739.6 pounds
February 2021: 782.6 pounds
Instagram @irregular_strength
Website: https://www.irregularstrength.com/ (bench press programs available)
Julius' MHP STRONG Stack
Activite™ Sport multivitamin
Probolic-SR Protein muscle-feeding protein technology
Hyper Crush™ pre-workout
Dark Matter® post-workout
For more information, visit mhpstrong.com
Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. FacebookInstagram
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