Who is Anatoly Powerlifter (Vladimir Shmondenko)? (2024)

If you’ve been on TikTok recently, you might have seen a cleaner making heavy deadlifts in the gym.

In the videos, a man pranks people in the gym by dressing up as a cleaner and lifting heavy weights.

There are many reaction videos of people shocked by how much he can deadlift, bench press, and squat.

This is because he can deadlift the same weight as someone twice his size.

His videos skyrocketed in popularity on YouTube and TikTok—garnering millions of views.

In this article, you’ll learn who is Anatoly powerlifter (Vladimir Shmondenko), his height, weight, nationality, real name, and more.

• Anatoly statistics
• Who is Anatoly Powerlifter?
• Early life and education
• What is Anatoly Powerlifter’s real name?
• Vladimir Shmondenko’s career

Anatoly statistics

Who is Anatoly Powerlifter?

Anatoly Powerlifter is a famous Ukrainian YouTuber, powerlifter, and bodybuilder.

He makes prank videos by dressing up as different characters and outlifting people at the gym.

He plays a couple of characters in his videos—a cleaner and an old man.

In most videos, Anatoly pretends that he is a cleaner and approaches people who are lifting heavy weights.

Anatoly then asks them whether he can try lifting the same weight as them.

He then proceeds to lift that weight—shocking and humbling the person.

His videos have a similar concept to Nikita Zdradovskiy, a Russian YouTuber, who is a good friend of Vladimir.

Nikita’s pranks are in Russian and his YouTube channel is popular in Russia.

Anatoly’s original YouTube channel (@shmondenko) is also in Russian.

In 2022, Anatoly made an English YouTube channel (@vladimirfitness), so it caters to English-speaking countries like the United States.

In 2022, Anatoly collaborated with Larry Wheels, one of the most well-known powerlifters in the fitness industry,

He uploaded a prank video with Larry in it and it got over 15 million views.

His most popular video, titled “Crazy cleaner shocks girls in a gym prank” got over 27 million views in about 4 months.

Anatoly’s popularity skyrocketed after he posted video clips of people’s reactions on TikTok.

He has over 9 million followers on TikTok (@anatoly_pranks) and more than 130 million likes.

According to his Instagram page (@vladimirshmondenko), he has a deadlift personal record of 290 kg (639 lbs) and a squat personal record of 210 kg (462 lbs).

He has been powerlifting since 15 years old and currently weighs around 75 to 80 kg.

Early life and education

Vladimir was born on August 10, 1999, in a small village called “Krishtopovka” with a population of 200 to 300 people located in central Ukraine.

At the age of 14, he got access to the internet and began watching videos of American bodybuilders and bloggers.

According to Vladimir, he dreamed of becoming a blogger so that he can motivate people and become famous.

However, he did not have access to a gym in his village, so he created his own.

He called it “Golds Gym Krishtopovka” and he used old parts from Soviet-era tractors, wood, and bricks to build the necessary equipment.

At 15 years old, Vladmir’s diet consists of 7 meals per day—one meal every 2 hours—consisting of cottage cheese and eggs.

He also brought containers of oatmeal to school where he got laughed at by his classmates and teachers.

In the morning and afternoon, he would do a lot of farm work like feeding cows and managing a garden while he worked out in the evening.

In 2015, Vladimir moved his gym equipment to his room, recorded himself working out, and started working on his first YouTube channel, but there was no success.

In 2017, Vladimir enrolled in a university in Kyiv where he worked hard and excelled in his studies—but that didn’t satisfy him.

The same year, he started working as a courier and worked as a waiter while studying at a university.

He also tried competing in powerlifting in a regional competition and won first place.

In university, he achieved his academic goals and was one of the best students in his cohort.

He started working even harder, continued living in the dorm, and filmed everything with his new Canon 600D camera.

According to Vladimir, a lot of people were talking behind his back, calling him an addict, and doubting him.

However, he was working in a construction company during the day and filmed his workouts at night—gaining 7,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Vladimir mentioned that the person who motivated him the most at that time was @ingvarvoitenko, one of his closest friends.

At 18 years old, he realized that in order to get out of the rat race, he needed to earn at least $200 per month from his YouTube channel.

In addition, he needed to quit all of his jobs and side gigs and use the money he earned for collaboration and equipment.

What is Anatoly Powerlifter’s real name?

Anatoly Powerlifter’s real name is Vladimir Shmondenko.

He is a Ukrainian YouTuber, powerlifter, and bodybuilder.

He goes by “Anatoly” in his prank videos to hide his true identity.

“Anatoly” is the character that he plays, who is a cleaner.

Vladimir Shmondenko’s career

Vladimir started powerlifting around 2016 and he shared his progress on Instagram.

In 2017, he competed in his first powerlifting completion and he uploaded it on YouTube.

Vladimir started his first YouTube channel, @shmondenko in 2015 posting powerlifting content in Russian.

In 2018, he focused on eating challenges, and his videos started getting over 100k views each.

In 2020, he pivoted his channel and focused on gym pranks which he found the most success in.

His first gym prank video (old man prank) on his Russian channel got over 10 million views.

In April 2021, his main channel hit 1 million subscribers.

Currently, his English YouTube channel, @vladimirfitness, has over 2.2 million subscribers, and his Russian YouTube channel, @shmondenko has over 2 million subscribers.

His TikTok, @anatoly_pranks, has over 9 million followers.

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