[1] During his career, Bednarski won five national championships and set 12 ratified world records.

In 1966, he placed second at the world championships, but during the 1967 Pan American Games suffered a career-threatening elbow injury.

He won the world title the next year in the new lower weight 110 kg class, and placed third in 1970.

In December 1969, Bednarski and three other weightlifters associated with the 1968 Summer Olympics met with President Richard Nixon for seven minutes at the White House along with Pennsylvania congressman George Atlee Goodling.

[3] Bednarski was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to parents John and Helen, and had three brothers, John, Gary, and Richard, and three sisters, Judie Valois, Carol Ferrelli, and Brenda Paris.