A Website Dedicated to the Study of Strength, Health, Fitness and Sport Across Centuries, Countries and Contests.
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 →
I am currently working on my next book project, this time studying the history of women's Olympic weightlifting in the United States. Funded, in part, by the Olympic Studies Center, I had the pleasure of studying the International Weightlifting Federation's minutes and magazines from the 1970s to the present day. Housed in Lausanne, Switzerland, this... Continue Reading →
Today's post comes primarily from the Ma Strength Olympic weightlifting book written by Manuel Buitrago, an expert on Chinese weightlifting techniques. After the failure of the Great Leap Forward (GLF) and subsequent natural disasters affecting crop harvests, China entered the Great Famine of 1962–63 (Fan & Lu 2012a). Additionally, while the experience with Soviet teams laid... Continue Reading →
There was a time when people became strong from shoveling snow, hefting hay bales or wielding pick-axes in the mines, not from Nautilus machines, or steroids. They were cut from the land, products of their environment. They came from hard-working farms and hard-working towns. One of those towns is International Falls, Minn., known to some... Continue Reading →
Note: This article is about the legal history of Anabolic Steroids in the United States and not an endorsement or discussion about steroids and performance. There is perhaps no other topic in sports that garners as emotional a reaction than the use of steroids or performance enhancing drugs by professional athletes. For some the ends justify... Continue Reading →
Performance enhancing drugs seem to become more problematic every year. Athletes are getting bigger, stronger and faster. Spectators are getting curious, suspicious and concerned. Performance enhancing drugs have touched nearly every major sport at one level or another. It's a modern problem right? Well not exactly... Research into the Ancient Greek Olympics has uncovered evidence... Continue Reading →
Image source: The first Olympics, inspired by the Olympian Gods, was held in Greece in 776 BC. Centuries on, the game has been carried from country to country, through a range of wars, political developments, boycotts and above all, great human achievements. 120 years since the first modern Olympics took place in Athens in 1896,... Continue Reading →
Today, awards and trophies are a huge business. No matter if they are being lifted above winners’ heads after a grueling sporting match or if they are being handed to actors and singers at gala events, they have a clear purpose to award achievement. Each trophy tells you that the person holding it is a... Continue Reading →
Historically, people idealized woman’s femininity and frailty, frowning on female participation in sports that threatened to destroy those coveted qualities. However, in spite of that, there were always sporting outlets for women to participate in. Certain sports like tennis, croquet, archery and swimming were available for women ever since the Gilded Age. While today... Continue Reading →
When you think of the Olympics, you probably imagine Usain Bolt sprinting towards another world record or Yelena Isinbayeva pole vaulting over the crowd. These outdoor sports have somehow become synonymous with the Olympics, probably because we don’t get to see them every time we switch to any sports channel. However, indoor sports are continuing... Continue Reading →