Bill Kazmaier – GOAT

Insane in the Membrane: Kaz chalks up for his 661 pound world record bench press. He had gotten poison ivy chopping wood and rubbed it all over his face – did poison ivy on the eyeballs stop Kaz from training, competing, or setting world  records?! One wonders what he would have done on this day had his training cycle been normal. His 20 inch chest/waist differential and 22 inch arms are on full display. He has an ammonia snapper clenched in his teeth that he will snap and inhale at the last instant – sending the already psyched-out-of-his-mind monster into the psychosis stratosphere. 

The number of injuries Bill incurred over the life of his career was staggering and contributed to his never reaching his full potential. Had he concentrated with full focus (uninjured) on powerlifting he would have set raw records no one would have duplicated to this day. When his power career ended, he was a hairsbreadth away from a 1,000 pound squat, a 700 pound raw bench press and 900 pound deadlift. He tore a pec bending rebar over his head in a World’s Strongest Man competition, thus immediately and forever ending Kaz’s quest to bench 700 pounds.

Kaz was a physical giant. At his awesome peak he weighed a muscled-up and trim 325 pounds. He stood 6-3 with doorway wide shoulders atop a trim waist. At his peak, Kaz was measured by David Willoughby using a steel tape: 61 inch chest atop a 41 inch waist. Kaz had a 20 inch chest/waist differential, a differential only duplicated in bodybuilding by Sergio Oliva. Kaz had the body. Every coach in every sport drooled when this monster man strolled by. Kaz was athletic: he could run, he moved well in every direction, he was a football natural and ended up at Wisconsin where he played D1 football. He lifted in the University weight room with Dr. Jeff Everson, incredible athlete and force of nature - plus his future wife Cory Everson, a track scholarship athlete and future Ms. Olympia (five times?) Also training at the same facility at the same time was Fred “Dr. Squat” Hatfield, 881 squat, 220 bodywieght. Fred was the weight room ringleader, the brains. In addition to this all-star line-up, Mike Freaking Webster, the greatest center in NFL history trained with them. Kaz, Jeff, Corey, Fred and Webster –  what an incredible damn group.

Kaz then spent time with Terry Todd at Auburn. Tony Fitton wrote a great little series of Kaz Quest training routine booklets that were quite detailed and quite good. Kaz was a 1970s volume trainer. He trained hard, heavy, long, and often, pounding iron 5-6 days in row, routinely spending two hours per session, working through what I would describe as power-bodybuilding, similar to what Larry Pacifico, the dominate lifter of the era was using. Kaz began winning titles and setting world records. He, like Brad Gillingham, that most unique breed of powerlifter, a combination great bench presser and a great deadlifter. The norm is a big squatter will have big bench press and a subpar deadlift. Big bench pressers rarely have big deadlifts. Kaz dominance and fierceness and manic psyche were on full display on ABC’s Wide World of Sports in 1980 as millions of TV viewers (including young Ed Coan) watched as the monstrous Kaz roared on camera. He looked monstrous, insane, deformed, had someone thrown acid in his face? Curt Gowdy explained, “Bill caught poison ivy and it has spread to his face.” Despite distraction and injury, Bill officially squatted 940, bench pressed 661, and deadlifted a world record 887. He was the first man to crash the 2,400 pound total barrier. This photo captures Kaz’s Viking Berserker intensity, his psyche bordered on psychosis. His like has not been seen since.  

Check out other profile posts on Ed Coan, Doug Furnas and Mark Chaillet below.

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