LIFT 6 - 183KG ‘DELILAH STONE’ PICK UP
The sixth challenge in the Temple Gauntlet is the 183 kg Delilah Stone, the heaviest natural stone housed inside The Commando Temple.
Named after the classic Tom Jones song, the stone owes its title to its owner, Morgan—a proud Welshman who couldn't resist giving it a suitably Welsh name. It's a fitting choice, because like the song, Delilah has a habit of breaking hearts.
At 183 kilograms, Delilah sits in a different league. Weight alone doesn't tell the whole story, though. Like all great natural stones, she's far greater than the sum of the number painted on her.
The first thing you'll notice is the surface.
Delilah is incredibly smooth. So smooth, in fact, that friction becomes one of your biggest enemies. At best, you'll usually find one decent handhold. The other hand is left to improvise, constantly fighting to maintain contact as the stone tries to slide away from you. There are no forgiving edges, no comfortable corners, and no obvious place to commit your grip.
Simply lapping the stone is a monumental effort.
The challenge isn't just the weight—it's persuading nearly 200 kilograms of slick stone to leave the floor in the first place. We have exceptionally strong lifters, including athletes capable of enormous deadlifts, who struggle to break Delilah from the ground at all. That should tell you everything you need to know about the difference between lifting a barbell and lifting a natural stone.
For that reason, the Gauntlet challenge isn't to chest Delilah.
It's simply to get wind underneath it.
If you can break the stone cleanly from the floor, hold it under control for a couple of seconds and prove you've mastered its weight, you've achieved something very few people ever have. That alone is an exceptional demonstration of real-world strength.
Of course, some lifters won't be satisfied with that.
Delilah has been successfully chested, but doing so requires another level entirely. Interestingly, once the stone tips onto the lap, the battle is only just beginning. The real challenge is wrapping your arms around such a huge, smooth object and compressing it tightly enough against your chest to stand with confidence. Even lifters blessed with tremendous hip power find themselves defeated by nothing more than the stone's enormous size and lack of friction.
The accompanying video shows Ben demonstrating an outstanding break from the floor, lifting Delilah cleanly under control.
Delilah occupies a unique place within the Temple Gauntlet. She reminds us that there are levels to strength that can't be measured by barbells alone. Sometimes the greatest achievement isn't completing the lift. Sometimes it's simply proving that something so heavy, so smooth and so uncompromising can be made to move at all.