The United States National Powerlifting Team shattered multiple IPF world records at SBD Sheffield 2026 on January 31 in England, with Austin Perkins leading the charge by claiming three records in the U74KG raw category — squat, deadlift, and total — while teammates Amanda Lawrence, Russel Orhii, Joe Borenstein, Anthony McNaughton, and Keenan Lee added records of their own across squat, bench, and total categories.
Powerlifting America documented every record break as the US team delivered one of the most dominant collective performances in recent IPF history.
Perkins, widely regarded as the pound-for-pound greatest powerlifter competing today, executed squat attempts of 305kg, 325kg, and a final 341kg (751.8lbs), erasing his own previous record of 323kg set in 2025. His bench press came in at 207.5kg (457lbs).
On the deadlift platform, Perkins missed his first attempt at 343kg before returning to lock in 343kg (756.2lbs), displacing Ilia Marichev’s previous mark of 342.5kg. The combined total of 891.5kg (1,965.4lbs) surpassed the prior record by 48.5kg, securing Perkins first place in the U74KG class against 11 competitors.
The records did not belong to Perkins alone. Amanda Lawrence posted a 250.5kg squat and a 648kg total, both IPF world records.
Russel Orhii recorded a 356kg squat record. On the bench press, Joe Borenstein set a record at 219kg, while Anthony McNaughton surpassed that with a 251kg bench press IPF world record, completed with apparent ease according to video documentation and featured in its own highlight reel.
Keenan Lee capped the team’s performance with a 977.5kg total IPF world record. The breadth of records across weight classes and disciplines underscored a broad competitive advantage the US team currently holds in IPF raw categories.
Separate from Sheffield, Jesus Olivares produced a record-setting performance at the 2026 AMP Nationals in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Competing in the +120kg class, Olivares squatted 440kg (970lbs), benched 252.5kg (556.7lbs), and pulled a 417.5kg (920.4lbs) deadlift — a new American record and an unofficial IPF world record in the deadlift. Perkins himself enters this conversation as a two-time IPF World Champion with 22 career wins across 32 sanctioned competitions over a decade of competition.
His total of 1,110kg (2,447.1lbs) earned him qualification for the 2026 IPF World Classic Open Championships.
The collective output from both competitions has drawn significant online attention, with footage accumulating viral viewership across YouTube channels dedicated to strength sports.
The performances reinforce a pattern of US powerlifters pushing the upper limits of what raw lifting records have historically reflected. With several records now broken by margins that would have seemed implausible only a few years prior, the current generation of American powerlifters appears to be operating in a category defined less by what was previously possible and more by what is being accomplished on the platform in real time.
