Can Ashton Rouska Break The Untested Record (While Being Tested)

We did it guys, 20.000 subscribers. This is already a huge number and more than I could have ever expected. But this is not the end goal yet. Please subscribe to the cause and help me and my annoying voice surpass Strength Central in number of subscribers. But today we are here to talk about Ashton Ruska. Ashton was a 93kg lifter in the US APL, but recently he has decided to move up to the 105kg weight class. He has been pushing world record breaking numbers in both weight classes for a while now, but recently it has been looking like he could be able to break the untested record as well. Today we are going to look at Ashton's best performances and try to use them to make an educated guess on what he will be able to do in the future. We will also go over the fact that he is tested and assess if this actually means something, because on the video of his previous meet performance we received a lot of criticism for just mentioning that he is tested, with these people saying that he can't possibly be natural. But first, let's have a look at the competition that Ashton is up against. Ashton's strength has progressed so quickly in the past year that he has outgrown all the competition in the IPF. He is now up against the best lifters in the world that compete in untested federations and also pull on a deadlift bar, which makes it even more impressive that he is getting close to them. Caeler Woolham was still the world record holder in 100kg class two weeks ago, and just like Ashton he doesn't cut weight to get in that weight class. He is generally considered as a deadlift specialist, but in his last meet he squatted close to 700 pounds. On bench he is putting up comparable numbers to Ashton, nearing the 5 plate mark. And of course his deadlift makes up the biggest portion of his total at 432.5kg. This all added up to a total of 962.5kg, enough to set the record last year, but since then it has been broken by another deadlift specialist. Yuri Belkin has totaled over 10 times bodyweight numerous times in reps and also holds the record in the 100 and 110kg weight class. A few months ago he decided to switch to sleeves in an attempt to take Caeler's record. In his second meet doing so, he achieved his goal. He ended up squatting and benching a little more than Caeler, which caused him to break the record with lower deadlift. He broke the record with 2.5kg, so a 965kg total, and this is still the record to break today. However, there is a less obvious and lighter lifter that could endanger this record soon. In his last meet John Hack almost bombed out on squats, and this caused him to squat 30kg less than his previous meet PR. Despite this obvious setback, he was able to total 937.5kg and break the 90kg world record. Would he have matched his previous squat PR, he would have exceeded the 100kg record. Ashton's best meets. If you just saw Ashton's record, you would not believe that he would be coming close to the numbers of the people that I just mentioned. Ashton is a very active lifter, and earlier this year, after getting sick and dropping a bit of bodyweight, he set his best total at 93kg, also exceeding the IPF world record in his weight class. The year before that, he was able to total 900kg for the first time in the 105kg weight class. Since last week though, this is not his best total anymore, and this began his rise to the top. The tune-up meet. Ashton is currently 4 weeks out from his next competition, and 5 weeks out he decided to do a tune-up meet just to see where he was at. He took 7 easy attempts for this meet and wasn't really pushing it for any of the lifts. Despite this basically just being a heavy training day for Ashton, he was able to break his old PR total and set PRs in both squat and deadlift. All his lifts on that day added up to 920kg, beating his previous best by 20kg. The mock meet. A few months ago, after gaining the weight back that he lost, Ashton did a mock meet in his garage. On that day he was able to squat 365kg, bench close to 220kg, and after a successful pull-off 376kg, he had a close miss at 390kg. Ashton was really pushing his limits on that day, so the lifts weren't the cleanest, but since then he has been looking a lot stronger. So with a good peaking cycle, I do believe that he could pull off these numbers in competition, including the missed deadlift. But now the question on everyone's mind. Is Ashton actually natural? First of all, it's noteworthy to say that for this discussion it doesn't even matter. Ashton is going for the untested record, and even if he would take something, he would still be the best. Besides that, competing in a tested federation always gives you a disadvantage compared to an untested one. It will strongly limit what an athlete can take and when he can take it. Ashton has clearly stated on many occasions that he is not on PEDs. And for most world class athletes I would not be inclined to believe this, but Ashton's case is a little different. Ashton first started competing when he was only 16 years old, and at that first meet he was able to total 560kg. His noob gains were still in full effect back then, because it only took him one year to build this up to around 700kg. After this he gradually added bodyweight over the years, and it took him 5 years to build up to a 900kg total. While Ashton might be the only junior that is totaling over 900kg while weighing under 100kg, he is certainly not the only one that has added 200kg to their total between the ages of 17 and 22. This makes the assumption that he might be natural a lot more reasonable. The second thing that doesn't add up if Ashton would be cheating the system is his frequency of competing. Ashton loves competing, and in the past few years he has averaged 6 times a year. Not only does this make fluctuations in strength a lot more obvious, it also increases your chances of getting tested and thus getting caught. If you are actually breaking the rules and you're doing this, then it's probably the most dumb move you can make. And the thing is that Ashton doesn't strike me as a dumb guy, quite the opposite actually. Of course the only ones that know the full truth are the lifters themselves, but in this case I'm actually inclined to believe Ashton. With a sport that is so strongly driven by genetics and is rapidly expanding, I believe that we've not even seen the tip of the iceberg of what is possible. Conclusion I think with everything we've discussed, Ashton breaking the record might be really in the cards. And if he does so, I think we might have to revisit the Go discussion. A few weeks ago I did a poll on the channel, and right now John is a strong favorite. So I will do the same poll with the addition of Ashton in a few weeks and see if anything has changed. Thanks for watching everyone, that was it for the video. Please check out RPE Cash on Instagram, because he just hit a squat PR of 400 pounds. That is on Instagram. If you want to be featured in these videos, don't forget to like and subscribe and check out one of the suggested videos on the screen right now. I will see you in the next video.