Training Strategy for Evander Holyfield The time-honoured -- but unfortunately ill-conceived -- practice of long, slow distance work as a conditioning regimen for boxers is what Evander learned from the training dinosaurs of his youth, and had continued with for years. When I was brought aboard his team, prior to his fight against Buster Douglas… Continue reading How They Train: Conditioning Methods of World Champion Boxer Evander Holyfield by Dr. Fred Hatfield
Forced Rep, Negatives, Free Weights & Machines - People have called me mad. They say no sane man would inflict my degree of discipline on himself. Perhaps they're right, but I feel that extremism in the quest of your best is no vice. If I seem to be in be in the iron grip of… Continue reading Andreas Munzer – The Ideal Way to Massive Legs (1995)
That Marvin Eder, sensational Eastern muscle and strength star, chose the bench press as his favorite exercise, is no surprise to any bodybuilding authority. For in this lift can be found the key to his determination to become a world beater, to overcome all obstacles and to gain immortality as one of the celebrated GREATS… Continue reading The Bench Press Favorite Exercise of Marvin Eder World’s Strongest Youth – Abe Goldberg (1953)
Recently I had the good fortune to stumble across Alan Radley's excellent History of Physical Culture work. A combination of fun facts, serious scholarship and enough photographs to keep any Ironhead happy, it's likely that I'll be dipping in and out of this work for years to come. In any case, Radley's scholarship highlighted a… Continue reading Forgotten Exercises: The One Arm Clean and Jerk
For whatever reason some training systems remain in the public psyche while others fall to the wayside, continued only by a few dedicated and often fixated trainers. Thus while nearly every intermediate and certainly every advanced trainee is familiar with manipulating rep ranges, few seem to stray outside the comfort zone of 5 x 5,… Continue reading Forgotten Training Protocols: 4 x 10 Clusters
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… Continue reading Mike Mentzer (1995) – Mr. Universe Mike Mentzer’s Training Invention
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 backward, and the right hand and right arm forward, stretching from the hand to foot consciously through the length of… Continue reading Five More Physical Culture Exercises (1900 Article)
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… Continue reading Tom Platz Leg Day
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 The (Somewhat Complete) History of the Deadlift!
Never afraid to promote his own products in line with good workout advice, Bob Hoffman and York Barbell were once the go to suppliers of knowledge within the Iron Game. A position Hoffman often used to great financial and sporting advantage. Nevertheless Bob and his team did produce some good pamphlets on training as evidenced… Continue reading Bob Hoffman (1943) – How to Build Super Strength, Health and Development with the York Leg Developing Course
