A Website Dedicated to the Study of Strength, Health, Fitness and Sport Across Centuries, Countries and Contests.
How did you become a strength performer in the early 1900s? It's not a trick question but something that I've become fascinated with in the past two weeks. This was a time before mainstream competitions. This was a time before social media and it was a time when to be strong was to be truly... Continue Reading →
Olympic weightlifting for men dates to the very first Olympic games in Athens in 1896. The first iteration for women came in 2000 at the Sydney Games. It took until 1987 for the first world weightlifting championship for women versus 1891 for men. Likewise, the first recognizable meets for women only came in the 1970s... Continue Reading →
For reasons that I will happily discuss later, I was recently in London with my family and had a to-do list of physical culture-related materials that I wanted to check out. First, there would be a meal at the German Gymnasium. This was one of the first public gymnasiums to open in nineteenth-century London and... Continue Reading →
I should be untruthful did I follow the example of certain strong men who have made it their business to say they are weakly invalids at the commencement of their training, but, by the secret method, made themselves into strong men … Arthur Saxon, The Development of Physical Power (London, 1905), 3. I'm hurt, I'm... Continue Reading →
A point previously discussed on this website was the regularity with which early physical culturists promoted light weight training as opposed to heavy lifting. The reasons for this are numerous. In the first instance, light weightlifting is easier to promote to the general public than heavy weightlifting. It requires less equipment, can be done in... Continue Reading →
I love feats of strength. Admittedly that's not the most surprising admission given the purpose of this website but it is one worth stating every now and then. It doesn't matter if it is someone lifting a barbell or a bale of heavy. Make it heavy enough and I will watch it or, if I... Continue Reading →
“SANDOW, as a muscular phenomenon is of comparatively limited interest to the public, save as an exciting, and doubtlessly engaging, curiosity; but Sandow, as the culmination of a system which will enable even the weakest to attain a perfect physical development, is an object of stu- pendous interest to everybody.” The above forceful dictum is... Continue Reading →
IT needs no emphasizing to say here that it is incumbent on every one to conserve, and, as far as one can, increase, to their full development and vigor, his bodily and mental powers. What- ever agents will best promote this, it is admittedly a duty to make use of. One of the chief means... Continue Reading →
Are bodybuilders becoming too large? It’s a simple question but one loaded with controversy. Today most Internet forums are filled with heated arguments about whether the ‘mass monsters’ of today are helping or hurting the sport. Rather than continue the common narrative that the 1990s and the Dorian Yates era was the dawn of the ‘Mass... Continue Reading →
Given the number of bodybuilding shows held every month, let alone every year, in places like the UK and USA, it's difficult to imagine a time when there bodybuilding shows were relatively unheard of. Yes, vaudeville shows were performers would show off their muscles had been established in the 1800s but it took some time... Continue Reading →