By pulling a 20,300-kg (44,753-lb) hydraulic crane across a five-metre distance, Australian strongman Jordan “Biggie” Steffens, 33, has smashed the record for the heaviest vehicle pulled with the upper body.
This record requires the challenger to be in a seated position, meaning they can’t use their legs to generate power.
The previous record was set in 2021 by Kevin Fast (Canada), who pulled a 13,086-kg (28,850-lb) public bus along 67th street in Manhattan.
Jordan, who works as a strength coach in addition to performing as a professional strongman, trained for this record attempt for six months, focusing mostly on his back and arm muscles.
This tremendous feat of strength is especially impressive considering the two major injuries which Jordan has overcome in recent years - in 2019 his left biceps ruptured, and in 2021 he suffered the same in his right biceps.
On each occasion he went through 12 weeks of surgery and rehab, requiring him to “start at square one and rebuild” afterwards.
“This is always hard mentally and physically,” Jordan said. “I have an amazing support network around me of healthcare professionals.”
A few weeks after breaking the record, Jordan incredibly performed the stunt again at the 2023 Royal Adelaide Show, where he raised almost 40,000 Australian dollars (£20,987; $25,477) for Starlight Children’s Foundation by pulling “Barney”, a giant purple crane.
“I am only a small part of a large group of wonderful people that made this happen,” Jordan said, thanking the event organizers and Load 28 Crane Hire, who regularly use Barney to help raise money for Starlight Foundation.
Jordan says his life as a strongman has been “amazing”. He began at age 21 and enjoyed a successful career competing for Australia in events around the world, before retiring from competitive strongman in 2018 to focus on “performance-based strongman,” which involves things like plane pulls, train pulls, and now crane pulls.
His daily diet consists of a lot of food: “What a normal person has daily for their main dinner, I have every three hours,” he said.
For breakfast, he consumes 6-8 eggs, four pieces of toast, some fruit, and a protein shake. Then every three hours after that he eats a full meal consisting of a portion of meat (chicken, beef, lamb, kangaroo, or fish) alongside some vegetables and a large serving of rice or pasta.
In addition to his latest record, Jordan currently holds one other Guinness World Records title for the fastest 20 m by a three-person tower, which he achieved with fellow Australians Shani Stephens and Josh Strachan in 2021.
With Shani standing on Josh’s head, and Josh standing on Jordan’s, Jordan walked 20 metres in a time of 11.20 seconds, breaking the 16.23-second record he'd set earlier in the year with two other friends.
In 2021 Jordan also achieved a record for the heaviest locomotive pulled after successfully hauling a 184.97-tonne train. This record has since been broken by Ashraf Mohamed Suliman (Egypt), who pulled a 221.6-tonne locomotive in 2022.
Jordan says he has “big plans” in the coming months to break more records, performing more incredible strongman stunts in different locations around the world, all while raising money for charity.
Australia and the world are big places and there are lots of people to help. - Jordan
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