Who are some people who have held the bench press world record?

The current bench press record holder as of 2015, Kirill Sarychev, benched 739 pounds to overtake Eric Spoto's then-record 722 pounds. Prior to Spoto, Scott Mendelson had spent more than a decade as the record holder.

Recent bench press record holders, such as Kiril Sarychev and Eric Spoto, bench more than double the weight of the earliest known record setters. For example, when Georg Hackenschmidt set the bench press record in 1898, he pressed 361 pounds. Beginning in 1950, the weight pressed by world record holders increased rapidly, with Doug Hepburn setting record 400-, 450- and 500-pound bench presses over the course of just 37 months.