A Website Dedicated to the Study of Strength, Health, Fitness and Sport Across Centuries, Countries and Contests.
So often in today's world of World's Strongest Man, Olympic Weightlifting and Powerlifting, the assumption that strength is defined by maximum weight lifted goes unchallenged. It is as if we accept unquestioningly that the person who can lift 500 pounds once is stronger than the those who can 'only' lift 400 pounds for reps. It's... Continue Reading →
So often in today's world of World's Strongest Man, Olympic Weightlifting and Powerlifting, the assumption that strength is defined by maximum weight lifted goes unchallenged. It is as if we accept unquestioningly that the person who can lift 500 pounds once is stronger than the those who can 'only' lift 400 pounds for reps. It's... Continue Reading →
Earlier in the week I was fortunate enough to spend time with a friend of mine who has recently qualified as a physiotherapist. Discussing the relative merits of different exercises and training protocols, my friend lamented his profession's reliance on cookie cutter protocols for rehabbing patients. In their view, many physiotherapists tended to prescribe 10... Continue Reading →
As Jan Todd noted in her article on classical fitness systems, physical culture historians have tended to devote their attention to the latter half of the nineteenth-century and beyond. This has, perhaps unsurprisingly, led to a dearth in materials on the forbearers to modern strength training and strength sports. Weightlifting, as we well know, is... Continue Reading →
Although sporting historians have long noted the importance of Englishwomen in the development of sport in general, few studies have devoted themselves to the study of callisthenics. Those that do, often employ problematic timelines. Indeed, although Fletcher, McKrone and Holt famously argued that women used sport and callisthenics to gain some form of social freedoms,... Continue Reading →
So often in today's world of World's Strongest Man, Olympic Weightlifting and Powerlifting, the assumption that strength is defined by maximum weight lifted goes unchallenged. It is as if we accept unquestioningly that the person who can lift 500 pounds once is stronger than the those who can 'only' lift 400 pounds for reps. It's... Continue Reading →