Maybe one or two guys could deadlift 600lbs in a town that size. It's really rare in a gym to that isn't a pure powerlifting gym to see anyone deadlift 500lbs.
Agreed completely - if we were to look at an average, I would assume it would be either around where you said, or at most, a single digit number of 600+ deadlifters in a city with a population of 100,000. So...<10 men who deadlift 600+ in a city of that size.
The only reason why my city may have been an exception to this is because we had a disproportionate number of men who competed in the Ontario's Strongest Man contest, where the qualifying deadlift to enter the contest was 585-lb. One year we had something like seven guys compete - so all of those guys deadlifted 585-lb or more, and we probably had another seven guys who could also deadlift that amount of weight.
So we may have had 15 guys who could deadlift 600-lb or more. My figure of 25 above was just a way to project strength in the most unrealistic way in my city. Saying there may be 50 guys was just doubling a number that was likely already doubled.
Like I said - I doubt anyone could list 50 guys in my city deadlifting 600-lb. Even 25 guys would be high.
My friend saying that he knows there are "hundreds of guys who deadlift 600+"...please...
I don't know why some people can't just objectively think about these things. Because it really doesn't take that long to be realistic that deadlifting 600-lb is very hard, and not too many men can do it!
