Yury Belkin ATWR Total in Sleeves?

In discussion of pound for pound best active power lifters (maybe even all time) Yury Belkin comes up. He has competed in knee wraps exclusively since leaving the IPF but soon he’ll be competing in sleeves and going up against John Haack who is another contender for P4P best.

Dunno where Belkin’s sleeve squat is going to end up but it looks to be much lower than his wrapped numbers. He just did a warm-up comp and missed 320kg on depth though it moved easy enough. He may look to break the sleeved records in either the 100kg class held by Cailer Woolam at 962.5kg or Jamal Browner with 990kg at 110kg.

He’s close. maybe capable of hitting 335kg / 230kg / 430kg at the most but that’ll be more than enough.

If he wanted 1000kg or 10x BW total in the 100kg weight class not so sure it’s there save high squats being passed.

What do you think?

EDIT Belkin just missed 435kg didn’t break the floor. 430kg probably an absolute max so probably capable of 415-425kg. Thought he would have more energy for DL with not having to squat over 400 but apparently not

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEykq3qgTCZ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

2 Likes

So he gets 200lbs out of wraps? That’s ridiculous.

I think he dropped out of the showdown meet, probably due to travel issues related to the virus. On his IG it says he is doing a seminar in Moscow on the same day. I’m guessing he did this meet so that it wouldn’t be a total waste of a training cycle, he already did that in the spring with ProRaw being cancelled.

1 Like

Spends so much time in wraps especially the heavy stuff. I think he was already a hip dominant squatter before but that’s probably increased over time. Not surprised limit factor is quads

Maybe he’s just out of practice with squatting heavy without wraps, he squatted just under 700 back when he was in the IPF.

Saw this the the other day but didn’t post so might be off on the number but that 305 opener miss grooved as hell. And the 320 didn’t look hard. I bet he is good for close to 350-360 in sleeves. maybe 350 after rewatching

That’s still 70kg off his best wrapped squat. You have to give it to him, as strong as he is, he really figured out how to maximize his leverages and get the most out of wraps and his sumo stance. There are guys who are stronger than him but can’t beat him. Look at Kevin Oak, he has about 160lbs on Yury’s squat in sleeves but can’t beat him in wraps.

I think Yury needs to use a deadlift bar in training. He always pulls on a stiff bar, I saw a comment on his IG where he said he gets a big boost in the meet pulling on the DL bar, but for the last several meets he hasn’t performed well on DL.

But he also cut weight I assume to make 220. Think he normally competes around 227 without a cut. His best squat I believe was at the comp against shw lifters so I’m sure he put on weight to compete against them

I think he bulked up extra for Big Dogs, from what I hear he doesn’t normally cut weight. See this post from July 28, says bodyweight is 99.5kg.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDLYnQSqcQI/

I would think that if anything he’s leaving a lot on the table by not cutting weight, but in terms of total in wraps he’s way ahead of the rest so there isn’t much to gain. I’m pretty sure he could get his squat without wraps to around 800 if he put more time into it, this meet seemed like a waste. If he could squat almost 700 at 93kg while passing drug tests then 800 should be no big thing.

He has a noodle bar at his gym from what I can see on his insta. Pulled 420 with it before the meet. Russian knock off brand

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEWx5HYqc-a/?igshid=59s90fdutf6k

Might just be a not-so-stiff stiff bar, not a ton of flex for 900lbs. Anyway, he has to squat and bench before pulling in a meet so exceeding gym lifts isn’t guaranteed. The way his squats went was probably a big blow to his confidence, that can fuck up the rest of your meet. Only he can tell you what really happened.

Maybe but I think I looked into this a few months ago because some other Russian lifters were using it.

This is his stiff bar but still whips a bit at these weights
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDg01JmKDvT/?igshid=o1n8ujpsci4v

I don’t know, flex looks only slightly less and 80kg less on the bar. All I know is I read one of his responses to a comment a while back where he said he prefers to train on a stiff bar so it feels even easier in a meet with the DL bar and I remember his pulling something big about two weeks out from BOB last time and saying it was on a stiff bar, and he was at that CETC gym in California where they definitely have DL bars. Like I said, only he can tell you the truth. There are some bars like the Texas power bar where the flex is somewhere between other stiff bars and a non-Texas DL bar, maybe this is the Siberia power bar or something.

Yury Belkin just beat Cailer Woolam’s ATWR total in sleeves in the sub 100kg class. Just edged him out by 2.5kg with a 965kg total by way of 320/225/420 SBD.

Belkin was red lighted on his second with 320kg but came back to hit it. Quite a ways off his 420kg squat in wraps but depth is judged strictly in Russia apparently. Nonetheless I reckon he is capable of a little bit more with some more training in sleeves.

Bit more competition in sleeves because Belkin is a far cry from being as dominant as he is in wraps. Cailer Woolam is probably the closest to taking the record. Kevin Oak with a cut down to the 100kg class. Ashton Rouska is kinda a dark horse because his training numbers are impressive (good for 2100 / 950kg ish) but hasn’t put it together well on the platform thus far. Drug tested too FWIW

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF7BHjnAZEX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/p/CF6oo62gG3X/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFU238xAkJ-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

3 Likes

I don’t understand how he gets 200lbs out of his wraps, something is not right. He was squatting almost the same in sleeves back in his IPF days, lighter, deeper, and drug tested. I’m seriously confused.

I believe Oak is currently around 100kg, he was supposed to compete in the showdown meet but dropped out for some reason (maybe because half the other people did too?). He said something on IG that sounded like he was doing a bodybuilding comp and every post now he’s not wearing a shirt so I don’t know what the hell is going on, seems like he’s losing it or something. But in sleeves he totally destroys Belkin’s squat, he’s got over 800 for sure even at 100kg/220lbs.

Very strange because it looks like a lot of his training involves heavy singles on all three lifts in a session, almost like the Bulgarian method. You would think he would do great in a meet.

Not worth much apparently.

Is there a video of the squat he missed on depth? I’m curious to see what happened. Looking at his 3rd attempt, I would say he’s good for at least another 40lbs with the way I have seen him grind before.

Re Belkin. Squatting relatively high and having big strong posterior chain dominance soo when he throws on a pair of wraps that act as big strong knee extensors he is strong everywhere, no technically breakdown.

Re Oak. I think he opened his own gym. Dunno how hard he is pushing things. Maybe he isn’t pushing his calories or drugs as much rn. Maybe COVID makes it harder to get the gear. Definitely a threat. Dunno what Woolam has been up to. Hasn’t posted for a while

Re Rouska he is definitely gonna be one of the best only a matter of time. Is built like a midget gorilla so makes sense. IIRC he said he trains low volume because he’ll blow up BW wise into the next weight class with volume work.

Shitty view but is all I could find. I’m less certain there’s a lot in the tank looking at it again. He has got grinding power at least in wraps because he maintains perfect positions with the wraps assistance. In sleeves he has to fight a lot not to get thrown out of position right on the reversal deep in hole.

He seems to be sinking it notably past parallel here, could explain some. But the undisputed p4p best lifter in wraps looks much more beatable in sleeves and I can see Haack beating this total once he fills out 100.

I would look at it more like his quads are a major weakness, but yeah something like that. His legs look pretty skinny for a guy squatting over 900 in wraps.

He is or was cutting weight, I thought it was for the showdown but then he started doing a bunch of heavy non-comp lifts and said something about bodybuilding, I’m not sure if it was a joke or what. I really have no idea.

I think I know what happened with the showdown though. It was supposed to be somewhere in New York state (Buffalo I think) but got moved to Kansas, probably due to the widespread coronaphobia in NY.

That doesn’t really make sense as long as diet is the same. He obviously responds well to a particular style though.

1 Like

It wasn’t as deep as his other two squats but based on what I see it looks like it should pass. WRPF isn’t normally into ATG bullshit so I don’t know what’s up with that. We would need a side view to be certain, but red lighting good squats just because you are too lazy to pay attention is bad judging.

Yeah that would account for some of it, but still I don’t hear of anyone getting that much out of wraps unless they never squat without them. I don’t think I get more than about 50lbs, maybe I should just stick to squatting in sleeves.