Bodybuilders and athletes alike are hearing more and more about the “new” tissue drugs and anabolic steroids, but down to earth facts and information has been hard to come by.
Just what are these steroids ? Are they harmful ? Do they really work the miracles some claim ? These are but a few of the many questions that more and more weight trainees are asking, and this article hopes to give the answers in plain, every day terms.
In many ways the gold standard of the Iron game, few lifters will go through their careers without using an Eleiko barbell at some point in time. An iconic range in the weightlifting community, the history of this Swedish company is often forgotten. Indeed, so commonplace have Eleiko products become, be they barbells or plates, that we often take their very existence for granted. Having previously examined the history of the barbell, it seems only fitting to examine one of the most iconic barbells around.
When one digs a little deeper however, a bizarre story of waffles, weightlifting and innovation begins to emerge.
As parents, it is our responsibility to keep our kids healthy. Physical activity helps them build strong muscles and bones, and also gives them a really good night’s sleep. Researchers say children need compulsory physical exercises not only to prevent obesity but also to improve their cognitive skills and academic performance.
When we talk about physical activity for young children we don’t mean signing them up for the gym. It is all about being active and moving around instead of sitting in one place.
In a modern urban environment, it’s sometimes hard to find new challenges and get your blood pumping with excitement. These experiences are precious – they make us feel invigorated and help us push the limits of our abilities. Extreme sports are the best way to experience such thrills and also meet new people who enjoy similar risk-taking activities.
Participating in these sports takes a lot of preparation. Moreover, following the rules and safety instructions is imperative. The excitement isn’t going to be worth your while if you don’t come back in one piece, so make sure to inform yourself on all the possibilities and necessary precautions.
In the decades before bodybuilding became fashionable, when young men wanted to workout, they would say, “Hey, lets’ go to the YMCA and lift weights” In fact, during the early part of this century, weightlifting was much more popular than bodybuilding, in part because bodybuilding was regarded as too narcissistic.
Inveterate observers of weight-training history will recall how prevalent “odd lift” contests were back around the time of World War I. Competitions were held and records established for such odd lifts as the “two hands anyhow.” the “bent press” and the “one-hand deadlift.” For various reasons, these eventually fell from grace and were replaced by the three Olympic lifts: the press, snatch, and clean and jerk. These new movements required considerable athletic ability and, thus, were viewed as more respectable by the international sport community. They even were accepted as official events in the Olympics and are still quite popular today.
Eventually, some of the esteem reserved for Olympic lifting was wrested away by powerlifting, which has long had a strong following and gained even more recognition and acceptance after it became an official sport in the 1960s.
Finally, due primarily to the efforts of Joe Weider, bodybuilding assumed its rightful place in the sun in the ’60s and has progressed to its current predominance. It has thoroughly supplanted Olympic lifting and powerlifting in public appeal.
INTERVIEWER:
Your approach to training has always been to use heavy weights for quality lasting muscle. It was in articles about your training as far back as 1953. You always combined pushing movements and lateral movements for total development of all three heads of the deltoid muscle. Will you update us on your deltoid training here, Bill?
BILL:
If you know enough about anatomy, you understand that you have three deltoid heads, all of which are important in bodybuilding.
The posterior delt is just as important as the lateral and front heads. Whenever I make out a delt routine, I always make sure I include exercises for each head. I also do it on triceps, biceps or whatever muscle. I try to get a muscle from every angle. I was always impressed with weightlifters’ deltoids. They convinced me that the only way you are going to get thick deltoids is with overhead presses. I have always been included toward heavy presses behind neck, military and dumbbell presses. The rear deltoid’s seems to get lost because no one gets to see it on themselves. It’s totally lacking on some people because they do nothing to attack that area. I stress bent-over exercises and incline exercises facing into an incline-bench.
Every year, roughly 100,000 people die globally after taking prescription pills. Who can think of even one person dying after using marijuana? Just one? Recreationally or medicinally? There is not a single case. Nowhere. Not even one. In 10,000 years of man’s use of marijuana, not a single death is attributable to it. In fact, the benefits of smoking pot outweigh the cons, and weed is actually good for you.
Here are five exercises published in the New York Evening World for developing the muscles and improving the health and strength. No. 1 is a stretching movement for strength. Carry the left foot and leg […]
A legend in the Iron Game both for his physique and the intensity brought to his training, Tom Platz or the ‘Golden Eagle’, is synonymous with one of the most impressive quad sweeps in bodybuilding. In a rare bit of training footage, uploaded to Youtube courtesy of ‘neandertalensis66‘, the below clip details Platz’s understandings of the Squat, Hack Squat, Leg Extension and Leg Curl.
Of interest to us should not be the poundages lifted by Platz but rather the focus he placed on technique and also the variations to these exercises which he believed gave him the edge. Of particular interest to me was Platz’s technique on the Hack Squat machine, which at the bottom position resembled the sissy squats favoured by Gironda. You’ll no doubt find other interesting tidbits…
Famed for his remarkable strength and at times, his flair for the theatric, the early twentieth-century physical culturist Thomas Inch has left quite a mark on the current strength training population. Not least for competitors […]
