A Website Dedicated to the Study of Strength, Health, Fitness and Sport Across Centuries, Countries and Contests.
The following post is taken directly from Thomas Inch's 1920s work, On Strength. Inch, as we have previously discussed on Physical Culture Study, was one of the early and influential British physical culturists. Inch was a weightlifter, weightlifting organizer and a prolific writer. He wrote for several decades with Health and Strength magazine, likely contributed... Continue Reading →
Admittedly this is an exercise for your physical culture purist. Stemming from the early origins of physical culture in the late nineteenth-century, English style deadlifts are unlikely to be seen in your gym any time soon. Nevertheless, this style of lifting was hugely popular amongst British and European lifters of yesteryear. Used by Goliaths like... Continue Reading →
Many years ago, before most of today's weight trainees were even a gleam in their daddy's eye, a fellow named John Y. Smith used to specialize in the one-handed deadlift. The late Harry Paschall, who used to write quite regularly for Iron Man Magazine in the 1950's, had met Smith several years earlier and, in... Continue Reading →
I have, I believe, been fairly open about my love of the World's Strongest Man, specifically the opening decade of the competition. Whereas today's competition is professional, modern and scientific, the contests of yesteryear were undoubtedly more tongue-in-cheek. This is not to say that the contests were no less contested and the competitors impressive but... Continue Reading →
The following post is taken directly from Thomas Inch's 1920s work, On Strength. Inch, as we have previously discussed on Physical Culture Study, was one of the early and influential British physical culturists. Inch was a weightlifter, weightlifting organizer and a prolific writer. He wrote for several decades with Health and Strength magazine, likely contributed... Continue Reading →
"Friends don't let friends skip leg day." If you're looking for some inspiration for your next leg workout then you've come to the right place. Today we look at some of the greatest leg exercises that time has forgotten about. They were invented by iron legends like Gironda and used by men like Arnie. Needless... Continue Reading →
Paul Childress said that a big squatter is not always a big deadlifter, but a big deadlifter is al- most always a big squatter. How do you build a big deadlift if you weren’t born with one? Ernie Frantz always said that to increase your deadlift, you should just deadlift. Westside has always relied on... Continue Reading →
The following post is taken directly from Thomas Inch's 1920s work, On Strength. Inch, as we have previously discussed on Physical Culture Study, was one of the early and influential British physical culturists. Inch was a weightlifter, weightlifting organizer and a prolific writer. He wrote for several decades with Health and Strength magazine, likely contributed... Continue Reading →
"Friends don't let friends skip leg day." If you're looking for some inspiration for your next leg workout then you've come to the right place. Today we look at some of the greatest leg exercises that time has forgotten about. They were invented by iron legends like Gironda and used by men like Arnie. Needless... Continue Reading →
Having previously looked at the history of the squat, bench press and even the smith machine, it seemed about time that we did a history of the deadlift. We've been putting this one off for quite a while, even looking at the Romanian Deadlift en lieu of the actual thing. The stumbling block in approaching... Continue Reading →