alt Hacker NewsFor me, it actually seems fairly plausible. I was a fairly untrained 70kg forty-something when I went to the gym and very quickly found that as I did a bit of hiking, I could max out the standing calf raise machine at 155kg. This involves having a very padded 155kg on your shoulders while in a standing position. It felt to me like that was the most my shoulders and back could cope with, and it's more than double body weight.
It’s a huge difference having a loaded barbell which can move in every dimension on your shoulders versus a calf raise machine which is fixed in place and cannot move around!
I’ve squatted barbells since roughly 2006 and the feeling of having more than 100kg on your shoulders is very intense, even if you’ve trained up to it. It feels like it’s crushing your whole body and even breathing is hard.
The idea that an untrained person could put a 180kg barbell on their shoulders and be comfortable AND move around is laughable, they would collapse very quickly.