The 12 Strongest Women of All Time

While social media is great for telling us who broke a world record or who failed a snatch and broke their gym’s doors, the constant influx of the latest trends can make us forget how we got here in the first place.

Sure, it’s cool that some 6 year old kid on Instagram or Facebook deadlifted twice their bodyweight, but what about the men, women, and events that paved the way to make it possible for that kid to touch a barbell in 2025?

Today we are going back in time to present you the women that opened new horizons in women’s strength.

Abbye ‘Pudgy’ Stockton

Pudgy is considered to be the pioneer in the world of women weightlifting.

She was born on August 11th in 1917 in Santa Monica, California and was a professional strongwoman and forerunner of present day female bodybuilders.

Abbye and her husband Les were frequent visitors to Muscle Beach, where they primarily worked on a hand balancing act and gymnastics. One of their most famous feats involved Abbye serving as the “under-stander”, supporting Les, who weighed 180 pounds, over her head in a hand to hand stand.

By the end of 1940s she was featured on the cover of forty two magazines. She posed with many of the top male bodybuilders during that time, including John Grimek and Steve Reeves.

Abbye organized the first sanctioned weightlifting meets for women that included 100 pounds (about 45 kg) press, 105 pounds (about 47kg) snatch, and a 135 pounds (about 61kg) clean and jerk in 1947.

After the World War II she opened a gym for women and began writing the column “Barbells” for Strength and Health Magazine – the world’s most influential fitness magazine at the time. At that time people used to say that if women worked out, they would become masculine looking or wouldn’t be able to get pregnant.

Abbye and her husband would have just laughed because they knew people saying that were wrong.

Bev Francis

Bev Francis was born in 1955 in Geelong, Australia. After obtaining a degree in physical education she became a member of the Australian track and field team. She competed in shot put, discus and javelin. She won the Australian shot put championships in 1982.

She later went into the sport of powerlifting where she was named a World Champion from 1980 – 1985. She set the world record when she bench pressed 330 pounds (about 150 kg) and becoming the first woman that bench pressed over 300 pounds. She has broken over 40 world powerlifting records in her weight class and is undefeated in her career as a competitor.

Her best lifts are: 226 kg – squat; Bench press – 152 kg; Deadlift – 227 kg

Chen Wei Ling

She was born on 4th January in 1982 in Taiwan. Chen is an Olympic weightlifter and powerlifter.

She can deadlift and squat over four times her body weight! She won the bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a year later she set new squat and deadlift records competing in the World Games.

In a competition in Australia she performed the 3rd heaviest squat of all time lifting 4.2 times her own weight (at 47 kg) with 197.5 kg. At the same competition, she managed to lift an incredible 185 kg (about 4 times her own weight) which was the greatest lift of all time. Including the bench press of 75 kg she got the all time world record lifting a total of 457.5 kg which is a total of 10 times of her own weight.

Iris Kyle

Iris Kyle is a professional female bodybuilding champion. She was born on 22nd August in 1974 in America.

She is the most successful, female of male, professional bodybuilder ever, with ten overall Ms. Olympia wins and two heavyweight wins, along with seven Ms. International wins. She is ranked as the best female bodybuilder in the IFBB Pro Women’s Bodybuilding Ranking List.

Aneta Florczyk

She is not a very big girl at all in comparison to some bodybuilders and powerlifters but her accomplishments are astonishing.

She was born in Poland in 1982. At the age of 18 she became a European Champion in powerlifting. As a first Polish athlete she has broken the barrier of 500 kg in powerlifting.

Since 2002 she started competing in strongwoman contests. Only a year later she won the World’s strongest woman in Zambia and in 2004 – Europe’s Strongest Woman in Ireland. Later, she was World’s Champion (World’s Strongest Woman in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2008.

According to the Guinness World Records she has won the competition more times than any other woman in history. She also holds a Guinness World Record in lifting up 12 adult men overhead in two minutes.

Tatiana Kashirina

She was born in 1991 and is a Russian weightlifting champion.

Tatiana won the world championship four times (2010, 2013, 2014 and 2015) in the category +75. She won the silver medal at the 2012 London summer Olympics in the +75 category with a total of 332 kg and the world record in a snatch – 151kg.

She holds the clean and jerk world record of 193 kg as well as the snatch world record of 155 kg and total world record of 348 kg. She also holds all three world records in the junior +75 kg class.

It should be said that she served a suspension for doping from 2008 to 2010. For the same reasons she was not allowed to participate in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Robin Coleman (Helga)

Robin Coleman, born 1974, has a diverse fitness background including a history in both figure and strongwoman competitions. Robin appeared as Helga (one of the stars) of NBC’s American Gladiators.

Robin competed in the inaugural World’s Strongest Woman in Zambia, Africa in 2001, where she placed third. She was remembered for the car squat challenge where the competitors had to squat a car as many times as possible. She completed 15 reps while others couldn’t lift it even once. Jill Mills was the closest to her score with 8 reps.

Heini Koivuniemi

Heini Koivuniemi – born in 1973 – is a Finnish strongwoman competitor who achieved numerous podium finishes at the World’s Strongest Woman contest.

Heini holds a Guinness world record for throwing a beer keg for height. She threw a 12.3 kg (27 pounds) beer keg over a bar at a height of 3.46 meters (11 ft 4.2 in)

Becca Swanson

Becca Swanson – born November 1972 in Nebraska) is an American bodybuilder, powerlifter, pro wrestler and a strongwoman who is often referred to as “The strongest woman on the Planet”.

She currently holds several powerlifting world records for women, including the heaviest squat (854.3 pounds which is about 387 kg), heaviest deadlift (683.4 pounds which is about 310 kg), heaviest bench press (600.8 pounds which is about 272 kg) and heaviest total lift.  She can lift approximately four times her bodyweight.

Jan Todd

Jan Todd – born 1952 in Pennsylvania – got into the sport of powerlifting in 1973 after marrying her husband, Dr. Terry Todd, who was a powerlifter and United States’ first powerlifter champion.

Two years later she broke the 49 years old Guinness record in the two hand deadlift of 394.5 pounds (about 179 kg) in the first competition. The subsequent year she exceeded the 400 pounds barrier with a deadlift of 412 pounds (almost 187 kg). She was the first woman to total over 1200 pounds (about 544 kg) in the three powerlifts (squat, bench and deadlift).

She was once named the strongest woman in the world by the “Sports Illustrated”

Jill Mills

Jill Mills – born 1972 – is an American world champion powerlifter and world champion strongwoman.

From pioneer to strength sports legend, Jill Mills’ competitive career has spanned nearly twenty years. Growing up in a time when muscular women were highly criticized, negatively judged, and an unpopular sight, Jill considered them to be beautiful. It was a physical perfection she desired and managed to obtain.

Her most notable accomplishment in the strongwoman competition has actually been winning the World’s Strongest Woman contests in 2001 and 2002, and finishing third in 2005.

Natalia Trukhina

Natalia Trukhina (Kuznetsova), a Russian, is extremely jacked. She is the largest Russian female bodybuilder, weighing over 225 pounds at the age of thirty.

At 14, she started working out, and at 16, she was crowned the unchallenged Zabaikalye Region champion, which led her to pursue a career in weightlifting.

Being average is not Natalia’s goal. Rather, it would appear that she wants to push the boundaries of what is thought to be possible for women. We wrote about Natalia before – Russian Girl Bench Presses 375 lbs, But Wait Until You Hear Her Voice.

Whatever you do, be different. If you are different, you will stand out.