Yah, it is strong, but not even close to elite.
Look, we are all made differently. Dad was a very briefly NFL football player. When he went to LA for training camp, he was on the roster with Rosie Greer, Jack Pardee, Deacon Jones and Merlon Olson. Dad was a gifted athelete and everything came easy to him in college. He said when he got to LA that he understood the phrase, "God made all men equal. He just made some men more equal than others."
I first ran into this at A&M. I was an all state offensive/defensive lineman. I was relatively skinny and received no offers from a division one school, plus I wanted to go to A&M. I already was told I had a non-scholorship spot for Spike Dykes at Tech. So my thought was I'd walk on at A&M. I had fundamentals of kinesiology with Marcus Buckly. That dude was a beast. As part of the class, we had to do basic fitness testing. One of the tests was the 50 yard dash. We had another guy in the class who was the first Olympic alternate for the US high hurdles. As you can imagine, that dude was unbelievably fast. Well, Marcus asked the Olympic guy to pace him for the 50 yard dash. Marcus was 6'3 and 240 - y'all know him. I watched Marcus finish behind the Olympian by maybe half a step maybe a step. I was sitting in the north endzone of Kyle Field (had a track around it back then). I can remember looking at my cleates and thinking to myself, "A man that big, running that fast, if he hit me, he could killl me." That was the first time I realized what dad was saying.
Fast forward to me cometitively powerlifting. The superheavy weights that were competing in the open class were occasionally topping a 3,000 total. My best total was just south of 2,000. Yes, deadlift was my kryptonite. I never could break 600. Even if I had a deadlift mildly equivalent to my squat, I still was just over 2K. I know, in my heart, that I had tapped out genetically - even with using gear. I never went full blown committed to gear - I knew better than that. If I did, I know I did not have another 1,000 in me.
So you ask how strong is strong enough? That is a question you have to answer. But as you push the boundry of your limits you really have to weigh the cost an ask yourelf if it is worth the results? Taking years off of your life. Sacrificing quality of life. Not to mention the time and effort it takes. Time and effort that probably would be better put towards family. Hindsight, for me, it wasn't Not even the satisfaction of pushing myself to what I believe was close to my absolute limit. Divorce (more to it than powerlifting), time away from my daughter, injuries, health issues (to be strong you got to be big - to be big you gotta me fat).
Maybe this expresses how I ultimately feel. When I hit 800 and 600 and after I broke the seal on a bottle and started driinking whiskey and then after completeing my deadlift, I retreated back to the warm up room. I knew I was done with really trying to compete. I knew I was going to continue to train for powerlifting, but I also knew I need to lose a lot of weight and get healthy. So I'm sitting there amongst all my equipment that needs to be packed up and having just made my lifetime goal. Guys were occasionally coming around to congratulate me on the meet. All I can think of was, "That's it? All that work, all that time and that's it? I was disgusted. I didn't even feel like I accomplished anything. In my mind it was all for nothing. Today, there is some sense of self satisfaction. I pushed myself to a point few people ever do. However, I am very disatisfied with what I got in return for all the time and effort.
I still keep in touch with my old crew. All of us are out of the competitive game - even the younger ones. Some are still training like it is off season, but no one wants to go through the time and effort to prepare for a meet. If you ask them if they have another meet in them, most will say "Hell no!"
So how strong is strong enought, for me,? my answer is you are never strong enough and at the same time as long as I am functional and healthy that is strong enough.