I’ve lifted weights and worked out plenty in my time, and have even felt pretty darn strong. But after discovering these kids, I have to concede that most of them could put me to shame in the weight room. Wait until you these photos- your expectations for your own kids might change very quickly!
Giuliano Stroe
Guiliano Stroe has already set multiple world records – by the age of five he could perform 90-degree vertical push-ups, run on his hands with weights attached to his legs, and hold the human-flag maneuver for over a minute.
Yang Jinlong
Yang Jinlong was born and raised in a countryside province in China. He started showing off his strength at nine-months-old, when he lifted an 11 lb. oil drum. Now seven years old, he’s upgraded to pulling vans that weigh 1.85 tons along the road, and giving piggy-back rides to his father, who weighs nearly 200 lbs!
CJ Senter
CJ Senter started working out intensely at 5 years old. While over 30% of American kids are obese, CJ has been pushing the opposite extreme. He became famous at 10 years old when he released a workout DVD geared towards kids. Though the workout is definitely more kid-friendly than what you’d see in a P90X video, this “workout kid” is still crushing endurance routines that would floor many adults.
Andrey Kostash
Andrey Kostash is a 10-year-old boy from the Ukraine who has been training intensively since he was five years old. When he was seven years old, he set a national record in the Ukraine by performing 4,000 coneceutive push-ups in under two and a half hours. As remarkable as that sounds, this wasn’t even his personal best – one time he completed 6,000 consecutive push-ups!
Claudiu Stroe
Younger brother of Guiliano Stroe, little Claudiu is quickly catching up to his older brother in terms of amazing feats of strength. Claudiu can already perform handstand push-ups on a bar, hold the human flag for over 34 seconds, do splits on the rings, and perform standing back-flips.
Richard Sandrak
Richard Sandrak was born in the Ukraine and started exercising at two years old. Every day with his father, Sandrak would do up to 600 sit-ups and push-ups, and 300 squats. By the age of six, he was famous for claiming the title of “world’s strongest boy”, maxing out on the bench-press at 180 lbs. By eight years old he was bench-pressing 210 lbs!
Naomi Kutin
Naomi Kutin is a record-breaking weightlifter, who at ten years old successfully squatted 215 lbs, well over double her body weight. Two years later, at the age of 12, Naomi attracted national media attention by dead-lifting 249 lbs, earning her the well-deserved nickname “Supergirl.”
Arat Hosseini
By the age of two, Iranian-born Arat Hosseini was already exhibiting startling strength. He could do backwards somersaults and push-ups with 6.5 kg weights on his back like it was nothing. All this, according to his parents, with no professional training, and no more than 20 minutes of practice a day!
Liam Hoekstra
Before his first birthday, Liam Hoekstra was already upstaging aspiring gymnasts many years his senior. Liam was able to do the iron cross at just five months old, and a full pull-up by eight months old. His family was so astonished by his strength that they took him to a specialist. They learned he has an extremely rare condition known as myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy, which causes his muscles to grow abnormally quickly.
Maryana Naumova
Russian-born teenager Maryana Naumova has won weightlifting competitions around the world. At the young age of 15, she participated in the Arnold Classic and bench-pressed a mind-blowing 331 lbs, more than twice the body-weight of many grown men!
Jake Schellenschlager
Jake began his quest to become the world’s strongest kid when he was 12 years old. At 15, weighing in at only 119 lbs, Jake was able to squat 225 lbs, bench press 205 lbs and dead lift 300 lbs! Jake set records for his age and weight class with this dead lift, which was over twice his body-weight.
Varvara Akulova
Witnessing the Ukraine’s Varvara Akulova’s stunts, it wouldn’t come as a surprise that she’s the daughter of circus performers! Akulova doesn’t look particularly strong, but despite a fairly slight physical build, she was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records by the age of 10, for lifting 220 pounds. If that seems impressive, she destroyed that record four years later by lifting 600 pounds!
Nadezhda Nogay
This Kazakhstan-born weightlifter broke two world records in Olympic lifting at the age of 14! At the IAAF World Youth Championships in Peru, Nadezhda completed a 333 lb. clean and jerk, and lifted a total of 600 lbs throughout the tournament. Not a bad day’s work for a 14-year-old!
CJ Cummings
CJ Cummings started attracting attention quite early in his weightlifting career. At 15, he unofficially broke the clean and jerk world record by lifting 386 lbs. At the USA National Weightlifting Championships, he dominated the competition with a total weight lifted of 674 lbs! This impressive feat smashed the previously held youth, junior and men’s records.
Jacko Gill
Unlike most of the other kids of this list, Jacko Gill isn’t well known in the weightlifting world. Gill’s strength lies in the shotput, which he’s been training intensively for since he was 10 years old. Years of 4-hour workouts paid off when, at the age of 16, Jacko broke three world records with a 24.45 meter (that’s over 80 feet!) shotput throw. The record he smashed was previously held by a 44 year-old man!
Kyle Kane
British schoolboy Kyle Kane’s dream is to one day compete as an Olympic weightlifter. Kane was a black-belt kickboxer by 9 years old. When he was only 12, he dead-lifted 308 lbs, over twice his own body-weight! This world record-setting feat, combined with his impressive size has earned him the nickname “Little Arnie.”
Andrey Moroz
Andrey Moroz is an 11-year-old who was born and raised in Russia. He likes to practice parkour and urban gymnastics and, as you can probably guess from his photo, lift weights with his older brother. He has participated in numerous bodybuilding and weightlifting competitions across Russia.
PHOTO: TLC/YOUTUBE.COM
Jessica Best
Jessica Best is far from your typical five year-old girl. While most doctors recommend girls her age lift with 1 lb. weights, Jessica can easily dead-lift 100 lbs and do one-arm push-ups! For Jessica, this is completely normal, as she’s part of “the world’s strongest family,” as featured on TLC.