Douglas Ivan Hepburn (September 16, 1926 – November 22, 2000) was a Canadian strongman and weightlifter. He won weightlifting gold medals in the 1953 World Weightlifting Championships as well as the 1954 British Empire Games in the heavyweight division. He is also known as the first man to bench press 400, 450, 500, and 550 pounds (raw). During the 1950s he was publicly known as the "world's strongest man" for his many feats of strength. Hepburn has been inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame (1953), Canada's Sports Hall of Fame (1955), and the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame (1966).
Early life
Born in Vancouver with a deformity to his right foot (club foot) and a vision distortion called esotropia (cross-eyes), Hepburn had to go through surgery multiple times during his childhood. He began lifting weights as a high school teenager at the Vancouver YMCA, and upon dropping out of school, tried to find work that he could balance with his lifting. Having escaped the Second World War because of his foot, he set about becoming the strongest man in the world. After years of trying to attract public interest, the win in Stockholm had finally catapulted him into the media spotlight.
Strongman and Powerlifting
While training for the weightlifting championships, Hepburn performed as a strongman at two to three shows a week across Canada, ripping license plates, crushing cans of oil, and lifting weights with his baby finger, as well as more traditional lifting: shoulder presses, squats, bench presses, two-handed curls.
- Push Press off the Rack – 500 pounds (227 kg)
He is also the first man in history to squat 600 pounds, which he achieved in 1951.
Like his father and stepfather, Hepburn battled with alcoholism and consequently experienced depression.
Personal life
Hepburn was a singer and songwriter, releasing a Christmas tune, the "Hepburn Carol". He had literary ambitions and had a large output of essays and poems and other writings. At the age of 37, Hepburn opened his own gym. In his later years, he custom built gym equipment and marketed protein powder and other sports supplements. Hepburn suffered from alcoholism and was concerned about his health so became a vegetarian in the mid-1970s. He died of a perforated ulcer at age 74.