Bodybuilding, at a professional level, is a sport fuelled by anabolic steroids. This is not to take anything away from the competitors themselves, but is rather an acknowledgment that those at the elite level often resort to chemical means in order to further push the limits of human strength and muscularity. Certainly the Mr. Olympia… Continue reading A Drug Free Mr. Olympia? The Strange Case of the 1990 Mr. Olympia
Earlier this week I was given a very generous gift. The gift in question was a complete set of Wills' Cigarette Cards. Produced for an Irish and English audience in 1914, the cards depicted various physical culture exercises one could engage in to keep fit and healthy. The irony that the cards could only be… Continue reading The History of the Dumbbell Pullover
I'll admit it, although born in the early 1990s, I was a Hulkamaniac. Aside from growing up during the WWF attitude era, where individuals like Triple H, The Rock, Mark Henry and Stone Cold were living embodiments of strength, I regularly went through back catalogues of… Continue reading Wrestling and Weightlifting: The WWF and Fitness in the 1980s
In 2018 the strength and conditioning community lost one of the most creative, and controversial, coaches of recent memory, Charles Poliquin. Known primarily for his work with Olympic athletes, Poliqun's training methods and philosophies were often times at the cutting edge of the field. This is not to say that Poliquin was not without his… Continue reading Charles Poliquin’s Nausea Leg Routine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itfqFLTHtzk People of a certain generation will remember the importance of Bodybuilding.com in the late 1990s and early 2000s. At a time when internet culture was still slowly influencing the fitness world, Bodybuilding.com was a one stop shop for training and nutrition advice. Today's post looks at an exercise I first came across in the… Continue reading Forgotten Exercises: ATrainer’s Fly Movement
Who in their training career, has not used the Ab Wheel? As a teenager, I took to the device with a great deal of enthusiasm, often overextending my arms and producing undue pain in my lower back. I suspect the experience of pain is one shared by many. Despite a relatively simple premise, and a… Continue reading The History of the Ab Wheel
You cannot spend a third of a century around physical culturists and barbell men without coming to a few conclusions. You see many enthusiasts who thrive on their training schedules and attain a perfectly satisfactory degree of physical development. You see others work and strain without noticeable improvement for months or years. Quite often these… Continue reading Harry B. Paschall, ‘How Barbell Men Go Wrong’, Muscle Moulding (London, 1950)
nyone who has spent any time in- volved in any form of competitive athletics fully realizes the importance of mental con- trol. Hitting a baseball, spiking a volleyball, and catching a football all require a high degree of mental concentration. Tommy Kono, the great Olympic and world weightlifting champion of the 50s and 60s, contented… Continue reading BILL STARR, ‘Mental Preparation’, DEFYING GRAVITY HOW TO WIN AT WEIGHTLIFTING (NEW YORK, 1981), P. 24.
Mentioned at various points on this particular site, the Zercher Squat has been described by many as one of the most effective but painful methods of building big quads. Uncomfortable to the nth degree, this lift isn't exactly the most popular amongst gym goers. A point which leads us into today's post. Why invent such… Continue reading The History of the Zercher Squat
Although unknown to the modern olympic lifter, Abele was one of America’s finest lifters during the 1940s and 1950s. Unfortunately he was overshadowed by fellow US lifters John Grimek, Steve Stanko, and John Davis during the course of his career. Similarly the outbreak of the Second World War denied Abele the chance to lift at… Continue reading Louis Abele’s Back Program c. 1948
