VIDEO: Rishton strongman Mark Felix lifts a new world title (From Blackburn Citizen)

VIDEO: Rishton strongman Mark Felix lifts a new world title

4:00pm Friday 8th March 2013 in News By Sophia Rahman, Reporter

AN East Lancashire man has smashed the world record for dead-lifting, raising 511kg in one go.

Mark Felix, a plasterer from Rishton, amazed spectators across the world by trouncing others vying to beat last year’s maximum of 507kg.

Mr Felix said the battle at the Arnold Strongman competition in Ohio was as much one of wills as of brute force.

He said he could not have done it without support from back home.

“Seeing my wife and boys’ faces when they knew I’d done it was just magical,” he said.

“The difference between the two weights doesn’t sound very much, but when you are talking about these sorts of weights, it really is a massive difference.

“I can’t pretend I wasn’t scared.

“It is scary when you think that no other person has done this before.

“You ask yourself, can I really do it, and will I get hurt?

“But I did warm-ups, and when I lifted the first one, it felt easy.

“So I did what my trainer told me to do and I concentrated my mind and made myself believe the heavier ones were just the same, and it worked.”

Mr Felix previously broke the world record for deadlifting in 2011, with 500kg.

He trains two hours a day, seven days a week, deadlifting at a garage he stores equipment at in Rishton, maintaining smaller support muscles at Tyson’s gym in Accrington, and with a trainer managing his technique.

He regularly attends strongman competitions and sports exhibitions internationally, and will next compete in Uzbekistan in April.

He said: “It’s such an incredible high being in front of all those people and TV cameras, with people wanting me to sign autographs.

“It’s an amazing rush.

“I just feel thankful for the opportunity to go to all these amazing places and have my family waiting for me at home.”

Originally from Grenada in the Caribbean, Mr Felix moved to East Lancashire after meeting his wife Denny on a cruise ship and returned with her to her home in Rishton.

He said: “Since I was small, I always wanted to be strong.

“It was in Accrington 10 years ago that I was first persuaded to take part in a deadlifting comp- etition by a friend.

“I came third, beating guys who had won World’s Strongest Man, and I thought, I can do this.”