You would expect a modern-day Hercules who can rip phone books in half and bend steel wrenches and hammers with his hands to be a mountain of a man, but standing at 5 foot 6 inches and weighing 168 pounds, Dennis Rogers looks like an average 55-year-old. Still, he is considered to be the pound for pound world’s strongest man.

Dennis Rogers weighed less than 80 pounds when he entered high-school. He looked so frail that he was put in Special Education gym, and he believed he would never be big enough to do anything sports-related in his life. But during the early 70’s something changed in Dennis’ perception of who he was and what he was capable of. The strongman remembers he and his brothers once saw a television program about a man who could rip a deck of cards in half, and drove to the nearest store to buy one and try the trick themselves. He was in the driver’s seat when his brother handed him the deck, and he just tore it apart on his first attempt. That was one of the first times he realized what he was capable of. Since then, Dennis Rogers has become a World Arm-Wrestling Champion and Grandmaster Strongman capable of bending steel hammers and wrenches and even stopping aircrafts from taking off with his bare hands.

Photo: Clint Fogie/Dennis Rogers

He might not be the only man in the world capable of bending steel, but it’s the unimpressive physique that makes Dennis so special. He weighs just under 170 pounds and has the muscle mass of a fit normal human being, and yet he can perform seemingly unbelievable feats of strength that have yet to be duplicated. Rogers has been featured on a number of popular television shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show, Ripley’s Believe It or Not, The Late Show with David Letterman and Stan Lee’s Superhumans, where he left both audiences and scientists baffled with his abilities. The legendary performer’s strength just doesn’t go with his small stature and mass, making his steel-bending tricks seem impossible. His body can generate over 1,000 pounds of force, more than a person several times his size, and tests have proven it’s the acceleration in his muscles that helps Dennis perform all these incredible tricks. Also he is able to activate more of his muscle fibers than the average human being, making him stronger than people with much larger muscles.

Photo: Dennis Rogers/Facebook

During his strongman career, Dennis Rogers has bent hundreds of steel tools and rods, ripped apart thick phone books, stopped four Harley Davidson motorcycle at full power and even prevented two U.S. Air Force T-34 aircrafts from taking off. It’s these feats that have made him the pound for pound world’s strongest man.