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How much can Christian McCaffrey squat?

The star running back’s tree-trunk legs have clearly lifted plenty of iron over the years, but McCaffrey might’ve hoisted his personal best over the goal line in the 49ers’ 20-10 win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday night.

Seemingly stonewalled at the 3-yard line and locked into a crouch with his back to the goal line, McCaffrey unleashed a torrent of power that pushed about four Atlanta defenders backward.

So, how much weight did McCaffrey move with his squat? Was it about 1,000 pounds worth of Falcons?

Let’s just call it a season-altering amount.

“We felt we needed to win that game a certain way,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said, noting that bludgeoning Atlanta’s blitz-happy defense with the run game was his team’s only path to victory.

The problem: The 49ers entered Sunday night managing only 3.1 yards per carry, by far their lowest average of the Shanahan era. They certainly weren’t trending toward this vintage 39-carry, 174-yard performance, which was headlined by McCaffrey’s 129-yard outburst.

But superstar tight end George Kittle returned from a hamstring injury, and — even though he’s clearly still working back into shape — dynamics changed… massively. At his locker, 49ers quarterback Mac Jones marveled about how Kittle’s mere presence created three yards of running space on some plays.

“It’s a different ballgame when he’s in there,” McCaffrey agreed. “Even when he doesn’t have a big statistical game, the attention he draws, it opens so much up.

“When you’ve got guys like that on the field, just their presence alone strikes a lot of fear in coordinators. You have to keep eyes on ‘em.”

McCaffrey then launched into a few minutes of Shanahanian philosophy, providing a fitting segue on a night that the 49ers rediscovered the coach’s preferred statistical formula. Over the week, Shanahan challenged the 49ers to notch 40 runs in this game — and they did hit 39 carries.

“Kyle always says it takes a whole team to run the ball,” McCaffrey said. “It takes receivers, it takes tight ends, it takes the O-line, it takes a quarterback to be able to stay on the field on third down. And then it takes a defense stepping up so you have opportunities to run and you’re not super behind.

“To be able to run the ball is a huge team effort, and our guys allowed that to happen today.”

The plump cherry that McCaffrey placed on top of Sunday’s performance with his goal-line power exhibition — evocative of the 49ers’ pile-driving touchdown runs against the Los Angeles Rams in 2017 and Chicago Bears in 2021 — was representative of his team’s game-long dominance.

The 49ers pivoted away from their zone-blocking base to running predominantly power against the Falcons. The end result of middle-mashing madness was jaw-dropping. Consider how different the charting below looks when compared to the perimeter-based rushing attack that Shanahan had typically employed prior to Sunday night.

“We wanted to simplify things,” 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk said in the locker room. “We didn’t want to muddy the picture. Just make it a clean look for the line and the back.

“I think we ran ‘Power’ eight times. We ran ‘Counter’ twice and we ran ‘Slice’ — it was so much different. I’m definitely going to have a few more bruises tomorrow. But you appreciate the win. It’s like a badge of honor.”

To earn that distinction, the 49ers couldn’t just run into a brick wall 40 times. They had to execute the full team formula, which also required converting a 3rd-and-13 ahead of McCaffrey’s punishing touchdown run.

Jones, who threw for 154 yards on a night that saw the 49ers convert 9-of-15 third downs, delivered his biggest chain-mover with a 17-yard strike to McCaffrey on that play.

The running back had actually jogged to the sideline before that snap, assuming his coach wouldn’t want him on the field for the 3rd-and-long situation. But the stakes were too high. The 49ers needed McCaffrey — the NFL’s most versatile weapon — on the field, this time to run a deep pass pattern from a highly unusual alignment starting six yards behind the line of scrimmage.

“I looked at him and I said, ‘Go back,’” Shanahan said. “As long as you’re not hurt. And he knew the deal and went back in. Hell of a play, hell of a throw.”

And with that, the 49ers — who remain in the NFC West lead with a 5-2 record — had all but wrapped up what certainly seemed like a hinge-point victory. They recovered from the previous week’s loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a game low-lighted by star linebacker Fred Warner’s gruesome ankle injury.

Warner wasn’t in the huddle or on the sideline Sunday, but he still found a way to fire up his teammates and the crowd at Levi’s Stadium.

With the 49ers trailing 3-0 midway through the second quarter, cameras panned to Warner and his family sitting in the suite level. The All-Pro flexed his biceps on the massive video board and urged everyone to “Turn that s— up.”

Thirteen plays and 80 yards later, McCaffrey burst across the goal and line and even somersaulted for good measure to give the 49ers their first lead.

Later on, after the 49ers’ defense registered a handful of timely stops and McCaffrey had yet again plowed into the end zone, Warner — on a scooter which allows him to elevate the cast protecting his injured ankle — greeted the entire team as they entered the victorious locker room.

It was undoubtedly the type of team win that can make a linebacker such as Warner proud — and set the gritty 49ers up for a true surge, with quarterback Brock Purdy and Ricky Pearsall trending toward a return next week.

So even though McCaffrey is quite literally pushing a ton of weight, reinforcements are coming — just as the 49ers are already winning. That’s a good spot to be in.