At 65, He Deadlifted Triple His Body Weight — Breaking a Non-Drug-Tested World Record

Dave Overholt, a 1978 graduate of Champaign's Centennial High School, stood 5-foot-2 and weighed 110 pounds after high school — small enough that he served as equipment manager rather than a player on the football team. He worked at Stark Excavation for 22 years, retiring around 2014 at just under 150 pounds and four inches taller than his high school self.

Not wanting to spend retirement sitting still, and wanting to keep up with hiking, traveling, and canoeing with his wife, he joined the Be Strong gym in Bloomington at age 56. After hearing other members talk about competitions, he asked the gym owner about the competitive side of training and was steered toward powerlifting. He began training six days a week under two coaches, found an amateur meet in Peoria roughly a year out, and used it as his entry point into the sport — eventually competing at the World Championships in Prague, Czech Republic, where he took second in the 2017 amateur division.

Most recently he qualified for his first professional invitational, Olympia in Las Vegas, competing against more than 200 lifters from 12 countries across disciplines including strongman, sumo, arm wrestling, and powerlifting. He entered the non-drug-tested category — sitting out the drug-tested division because a medical prescription he takes would have flagged on the test — aiming to beat the existing record of 409 pounds set by Italian lifter Roberto Giannello in November 2024.

Across the meet's three rounds, Overholt opened with an "easy" 375 pounds, moved to 395 (10 pounds over his previous best), and then, in round three, pulled 411 pounds to break the world record. Powerlifters who break a record in their final round can forgo a fourth attempt, but Overholt went for one more lift anyway, pulling 424 pounds — just over triple his own body weight. "God has blessed me that I'm healthy enough to compete at 65 years old," he said. "My wife is my biggest fan, and she supports me 1,000 percent."

He's set his next competition for the Master's Cup in Shreveport, Louisiana in March, which serves as a qualifier for next year's World Championship in Italy. "I shouldn't have any problems qualifying," he said, "unless I totally fall on my face."