Joe Ponder, from Love Valley, North Carolina, was a truck driver who injured his neck in an accident in 1970. As a part of his rehab, his doctor recommended strengthening his neck muscles and Ponder did so by lifting a bucket with a towel wrapped around the handle clenched in his teeth. Each day he added a little more water to the bucket until it became full.

Joe began to lift other heavy objects with the power of his teeth and jaws and it took him around the world: with his teeth, he lifted giant pumpkins, livestock, Miss Nude America and Miss Nude World (at the same time!) and towed a fully loaded tractor trailer. Ponder made it into Ripley’s Believe it or not, The Guinness Book of World Record, performed on the David Letterman Show and received a fitness award from President Jimmy Carter. Once Joe also smashed some concrete blocks while swinging a 20pound sledge hammer clenched in his teeth! The pumpkin above weighed “only” 343 lbs, he easily lifted one over 600 lbs.