One of the core fundamental aspects of weightlifting, whether for self-improvement or as part of official competition, is that there is an even, fair playing field whenever you load up the bar.

The entire point of Olympic weight plates is not just that they will protect the floor during challenging lifts, but also that you know the exact weight you are trying to lift.

Weightlifting and powerlifting plates are designed with exceptionally low tolerances in order to maintain the high standards required for competition regulations.

However, the use of a standardised bell and weights is a remarkably recent invention, as different national governing bodies used different weights and measures up until the kilogramme became the standard in the 1970s.

Weightlifting and powerlifting are not the only strength athletics, however. There have been countless feats and tests of strength over the years, many of which have been truly unusual and esoteric.

Here are some of the most truly mind-boggling, and why they were used for competition.

Fishtanks Full Of Cheese

One of the earliest examples of strength athletics as a popular spectator sport was the World’s Strongest competitions, beginning with the World’s Strongest Man in 1977.

Before the “odd lifts” or “strongman” competition was standardised, they featured some truly baffling events, from running with a refrigerator on your back, to sumo wrestling, to pushing sledges laden with people in them.

Perhaps the strangest of them all, however, was the 1983 deadlift event, where competitors were tasked with performing a partial deadlift using two clear plastic tanks filled with blocks of cheddar cheese.

Quite why cheese was chosen has never been explained, least of all to the winner, Canadian strongman Tom Magee.

Murderball

Over a decade later, and following a raft of bizarre competitions, one of the most infamous one-off events in strength athletics has its one and only appearance.

A rubber globe filled with 100 gallons of water, the Murderball was used in a type of sumo competition where two strength athletes pushed the ball against each other and whoever managed to push it out of a circle entirely whilst it inhabited their opponent’s part of it, won a point.

Car Carry

Pushing a car makes a lot of sense for a strength athletics competition, as it is a huge weight that people immediately understand to be very heavy. Lifting a car onto its side is similarly a feat of strength that many people would deem superhuman.

A car carry, on the other hand, takes the idea of car lifts to a ridiculous extreme.

A car carry involves cutting holes in the floor and the roof of a hatchback car, before a strength athlete gets in, lifts the car up and starts walking from the start to the finish.

This was not the only similarly strange weight-walking challenge seen in WSM history, as there was also a similar "Refrigerator Race” where athletes are tasked with running whilst carrying a fridge on their backs uphill.

Atlas Stones

In recent years, Atlas Stones have become incredibly popular for competition weightlifting, as they are not only extraordinarily heavy, but their usual shape and considerable challenge have made them an icon of strength athletics.

Despite their name implying a Greek origin, the round Inver Stones were originally made in Scotland and were typically used as part of an overhead press.

The standard Atlas Stones were made by Stewart McGlashan, a stonemason inspired by the original Inver Stones. Following their use in the 1986 World’s Strongest Man competition, they became a symbol of the sport, and carefully manufactured versions are now more widely available.

Dinnie Stones 

Possibly the most famous of all of the Scottish lifting stones, the Dinnie Stones are a pair of boulders that have a combined weight of 332.5 kg. Worse, this weight is unevenly distributed, with one stone 43.5 kg heavier than the other.

The most iconic feature of the Dinnie Stones is the two iron rings, which allowed them to be carried by one of Scotland’s greatest ever athletes.

The name comes from Donald Dinnie, one of the most famous strongmen of the 19th century, who in 1860 carried both stones barehanded along the Potarch Bridge, which at the time was 5.22m wide.

Only seven people have ever achieved this feat without the use of weightlifting belts, and even fewer have managed to achieve a farmer’s walk with them without any assistance.

What makes these stones unusual is that they are almost the opposite of the Atlas Stones; they are uneven, unhewn and unmodified except for the iron rings, making them particularly challenging to lift whilst maintaining your balance.