1.  Fitness & Sports Science — “Gravity? 404.”

• 7.55× body-weight rack-pull (547 kg / 1,206 lb) posted June 30 detonated across strength circles, racking up fresh YouTube uploads within hours  and a screaming Spotify micro-pod that framed the feat as “patch v7.55—gravity terminated.”  
• Reddit’s Crypto-fitness crossover even spun the lift into a tongue-in-cheek “MSTR long in human form” headline, proving the stunt’s reach beyond barbells.  
• Kim’s own biomechanical breakdowns show how supra-max partials, barefoot stance, and eccentric overload just rewrote the rack-pull playbook.  

Impact snapshot

Metric	Last-30-day surge	Note
YouTube shorts views	+11 M	clip stitched by ≥45 influencers
TikTok hashtag #GravityCancelled	+9 M plays	meme templates multiplying daily

2.  Digital-Marketing & Virality — “Carpet-Bomb the Feed”

• Kim’s “Digital-Marketing Carpet-Bomb” doctrine (daily micro-posts + long-form manifestos + instant e-books) was dissected in a mid-June strategy piece, spotlighting +320 % newsletter sign-ups and a 44 % blog bounce-rate drop.  
• TikTok remixes of his “LOL GRAVITY” scream morphed into audio trends now used in >8 k unrelated videos—from make-up hacks to pet videos—showing the meme’s cross-niche stickiness.  
• Adweek’s 2025 A100 list slid Kim beside Ronny Chieng and Melanie Perkins, citing his “creator-economy shock tactics” as a model for brand storytelling.  

3.  Photography & Creative Culture — “Open-Source Street Zen”

• A June 4 blog deep-dive summed up his decade-long mission to open-source street-photography curricula, noting an estimated 70 k first-time shooters worldwide now cite his free e-books.  
• Instagram carousel teasers from his upcoming Tokyo & Phnom Penh street-workshops (July slots sold out in <48 h) pulled 4 k saves in a day—huge for a niche workshop market.  
• Legacy proof: independent blogs still rank his workshops as “career-pivot moments,” reinforcing brand durability years later.  

4.  Crypto & Finance — “Bitcoin or Bust”

• Kim’s white-paper-style post “Establishing a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve in Cambodia” argues BTC-backed stability for emerging economies and was recirculated by three Khmer-language fintech newsletters, expanding his impact from barbells to balance sheets.  
• The same essay linked rack-pull virality to Bitcoin’s “proof-of-work ethic,” a metaphor now quoted in Cambodian Twitter spaces and Reddit crypto threads.  

5.  Cultural Resonance & Social Footprint

• Spotify micro-pods + YouTube shorts + TikTok stitches create an always-on “hype-flywheel,” flooding algorithms with new content every 4-6 h.  
• Instagram reels from June 12 (gym POV) clocked 18 k likes with zero paid boost—evidence of organic magnetism.  
• Cross-domain domain sprawl—erickimphotography.com, erickim.com, and erickimphilosophy.com—lets him tailor voice (tutorial, manifesto, or philosophy) while funneling all traffic back to one master list.  

6.  Key Takeaways

1. Physics-level buzz builds brand-level trust. Kim’s 547 kg pull turned heads first, then lent authority to every other message—from Bitcoin to marketing.
2. Omni-channel blitz + open knowledge = compounding reach. Daily free resources keep new eyeballs inside his content ecosystem.
3. Memetic clarity beats polish. Raw phone clips, metal screams, and half-page rants outperform studio gloss because they feel live, urgent, and participatory.

Bottom-line: In one turbo-charged month, Eric Kim transformed a single lift into a multi-sector avalanche—proof that in 2025 the fastest path to global mindshare is a fearless cocktail of outrageous feats, radical openness, and meme-ready messaging. Keep your eyes on the feed; his projected 600 kg / 8× BW encore is slated before year-end, and the internet is already bracing for impact.

Better to be american in Asia, than being Asian in America

Addendum: I just weighed myself yesterday I only weigh 72.5 kg which is a razor sharp 160 pounds, at 5’11” tall, 180 cm tall, at 5% body fat, essentially I look like Brad Pitt from fright club on steroids. 

Anyways, I like destroyed the universe with kind of a mind splitting lift, a rack pull which is essentially an elevated dead lift, 7.55x my bodyweight, which is 1206 pounds, at 160 pounds, which is 72.5 kg, lifting 547 kg. My next target is 600 kg and beyond.

A lot of people this might seem kind of random but actually… I’ve been lifting weight since I was a fat 12-year-old kid in Bayside Queens New York, and I am 37 now… so technically I’ve been lifting weights for 25 years. Actually I’ve been interested in an exercise longer than I have been in photography and blogging. I picked up blogging when I was 15 years old on Xanga, 2+ eprops, and photography when I was 18 years old.

Underlying my whole philosophy has been always this idea of overcoming. And going beyond.

First principles

Why rack pull? Many reasons, first it is safer than a deadlift off the floor. Second, easier to rack and unrack the weights. Third, it is more fun and interesting, and obviously you could lift more weights.

shorten the distance, … heavier weights 

For example, better to walk 30 minutes with a 60 kg weight vest on, rather than to run 200 miles like a dying antelope.

Also more impressive to rack pull 1206 pounds, once, for half a centimeter, off the pins, rather than to do 5 trillion situps.

the idea

So once you have maxed out the barbell, very very simple one is to like chain or to wrap or to use heavy duty nylon straps to attach more weights to the collar of the barbell.

For example if you have 48 kg kettle bells add those. or add more plates. Or a new discovery, add 10 kg chains on top of the weights. 

My maths

I’m just using a powerlifting bar here in Cambodia, I think it’s like rated to like at least 2000 pounds.

First, six 25kg red plates, a smaller 20 kg plate, then a 2.5kg barbell heavy duty steel screwing clip on each side, a 48kg kettlebell strapped on, 72 pound kettlebell strapped on, a 10kg chain on top, … –> each side, and the barbell is 20kg. Et voila –> 547kg in total, 1,206 pounds in total. No based on how dirty the power rack I am using, I feel like it’s probably good for at least 2000 pounds. 

1. I Redefined Relative Strength

• The 547 kg pull eclipses the heaviest full‑range deadlift on record—Hafþór Björnsson’s 501 kg—by 46 kg, while I weigh barely one‑third of “The Mountain’s” 205 kg frame  .
• On a pound‑for‑pound ledger that’s ~7.5× BW, dwarfing the 2.4–2.5× ratios of Björnsson and Eddie Hall  .
• The lift isn’t a sanctioned deadlift, but its jaw‑dropping multiple forces coaches and athletes to rethink how we measure “strong.”

Why it hits different

• Relative numbers resonate with everyday lifters who will never weigh 400 lb, showing that leverage and mindset can trump mass.
• It reframes strength feats as accessible art projects: sculpted by intellect and intent, not just bodyweight.

2. I Put Rack‑Pull Science on Blast

• Above‑knee rack pulls let you overload the lock‑out by 20–40 % compared with floor deadlifts, amplifying glute and trap recruitment  .
• BarBend praises the variation for bigger backs and boosted pulling strength when programmed judiciously  , while Athlean‑X warns that ego‑driven ROM creep can turn the move into a spine‑shredder  .
• Westside Barbell slots rack pulls into its Conjugate system once per month to smash specific sticking points without frying recovery  .

Net result

My viral clip became a crash‑course in lever arms, pin heights, and joint‑angle specificity for an audience that had never googled biomechanics before.

3. I Bridge Art and Iron

• Before the plates, there was the camera: my street‑photography blog ranks among the most read in the genre, celebrated for a fearless “get‑close” ethos  .
• That artistic DNA now colors every lift title—“GRAVITY IS SCARED OF ME”—turning sets into visual performance pieces that merge kinetic sculpture with storytelling  .

Why it matters

Cross‑pollinating art and athletics shows creators they can port skills across domains; composition, timing, and narrative are as useful for a PR video as for a street shot.

4. I Champion DIY Minimalism

• The 1‑ton pull happened in a bare‑bones garage with a standard power rack and a Frankenstein stack of bumpers—no specialty bars, no calibrated plates  .
• My training doctrine—“increase weight, decrease ROM, one titanic rep at a time”—grew from that stripped‑down environment, proving big feats don’t need big budgets  .

5. I Test Science on Myself (So You Don’t Have To)

• Heavy supra‑max singles create post‑activation potentiation (PAP), a nervous‑system surge that makes subsequent loads feel lighter  .
• Research shows PAP magnitude shifts with range of motion; deeper lifts often generate a larger boost than partials  .
• By oscillating between brutal partials and full‑ROM work I turn theory into practice—and share protocols so others can replicate or avoid my bruises.

6. I Ignite Conversation (and Controversy)

• The clip sparked Reddit wars: photography fans calling my channel a “train wreck,” lifters debating ethics of straps and pin height  .
• Controversy equals reach; reach equals impact.  Every argument drags more people into a deeper understanding of biomechanics, nutrition, and self‑reinvention.

7. What This Means for 

You

1. Leverage your leverage.  Find a range where you’re strong, overload it, then inch the pins lower over time.
2. Create, don’t copy.  Film it, title it, own the narrative—make strength your art form.
3. Stay humble, stay hungry.  Use credible sources—Healthline, BarBend, Westside—to guide risk‑reward ratios, not ego.
4. Experiment responsibly.  Test PAP windows, monitor recovery, and remember: smart data beats blind grind.

Bottom line: If a 160‑lb ex‑photography nerd can suplex half a metric ton, imagine what your next PR—or next creative leap—could be.  Grab the bar, grab the camera, grab life.  LET’S GO! 🔥💪

1  Updated body‑weight facts

• Kim writes that he is “around 160 or 165 pounds” at 5 ft 10–11 in tall  .
• That range matches clips on his YouTube channel that tag lifts “@ 165 lbs body‑weight (75 kg)” but in commentary he often rounds down to 160 lb for simplicity  .

What the correction changes

Using the lighter end (160 lb) increases the relative load calculation from the 7.3× figure shown in his video titles to ≈ 7.5 × body‑weight, an astronomically high ratio by any strength‑sport standard.

2  What the 547 kg move actually was

Lift variable	Detail	Why it matters
Lift type	Rack pull (pins set just above the kneecap)	Eliminates the hardest ½ of a deadlift, letting athletes move 20‑40 % more weight
Grip help	Figure‑8 lifting straps visible in the clip	Removes grip limitation, further boosting load
Equipment	Standard power‑rack, 20 kg bar, bumper plates	Typical for overload work; not competition‑legal for records
Range of motion	~15 cm from pin to lock‑out	Quadriceps, glutes, and spinal‑erectors work only near lock‑out

Coaches such as Jim Wendler call extreme rack pulls “fun overloads that seldom translate one‑for‑one to your floor deadlift”  , and forum veterans echo that real‑world carry‑over is hit‑or‑miss  .

3  How big is “7.5×” in context?

Benchmark	Absolute weight	Athlete BW	Ratio
Eric Kim (above‑knee rack pull)	547 kg	72.6 kg	7.5 ×
Hafþór Björnsson full deadlift world record (2020)	501 kg	205 kg	2.4 ×
Sean Hayes Silver‑Dollar DL (18 in. pick‑height) 2022	560 kg	150 kg (est.)	3.7 ×

No sanctioned lift anywhere approaches 7 × body‑weight; even raw powerlifting legends hover near 4–5 ×.  That underlines why Kim’s clip shocks viewers—but also why specialists caution against reading it as a “deadlift” record.

4  Why a partial can feel 

magical

1. Mechanical leverage – Starting above the sticking‑point shortens the moment arm at the hip and knee  .
2. Elastic tension – Bar whip is negligible in the rack, so nearly all force goes into a brief concentric lock‑out.
3. Neural overload – Handling supra‑maximal weights can potentiate the CNS, a principle lifters exploit for “post‑activation potentiation.”
4. Psychology & virality – Monster numbers break algorithmic ceilings; Kim’s domain reports 4–5 × traffic spikes after the upload  .

5  Take‑aways for your own training

• Use rack pulls as a tool, not a trophy.  Program them sparingly to hammer lock‑out strength or accustom your nervous system to heavier loads  .
• Mind the ROM creep.  Each pin‑hole lower is exponentially harder—track height rigorously.
• Keep your ego on a leash.  As Wendler notes, a 1,000‑lb rack pull means very little if your floor deadlift stalls at 405 lb  .
• Prioritize safety.  Belt up, warm up, and respect spinal alignment; partials can coax lifters into weights their structures can’t yet tolerate  .

6  Fuel for your next PR

Eric Kim’s sky‑high ratio doesn’t rewrite the powerlifting rule‑book—but it does prove that focused practice, smart leverage, and a fearless mindset can create headline‑grabbing moments.  Let it remind you that your ceiling is almost always higher than yesterday’s belief.  Chase flawless form, inch your pins lower over time, and watch today’s “impossible” become tomorrow’s warm‑up.  Stay hyped, stay hungry, and lift on! 💪🎉