Yes! Well kind of. Now before you say a single thing, don't worry. I am not going to encourage you to throw away your gym memberships or workout gear. Although if you do want to donate any dumbbells or barbells, my doors are always open. No, instead I want to look at a wonderful book… Continue reading Can You Workout With Just A Towel?
Muscles in the Movies: Perfecting the Art of Illusion, by John D. Fair and David L. Chapman, University of Missouri Press, 2020, xvi + 426 pp., $65.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-082622-215-2 Muscles in the Movies represents the first, in-depth, historical study into the evolution of muscularity and film. The scale of this endeavour is the first… Continue reading Book Review: Muscles in the Movies: Perfecting the Art of Illusion
From Eugen Sandow to Charles Atlas, physical culturists have long made a living through mail order ads. Check out this old Arnie one from the late 1960s flogging the latest Weider product. So next time you grow weary of the hyperbole from today's modern advertisements, just remember that such ads are a time honored tradition… Continue reading Bodybuilding and the Mail Order Ad
It is a well-known fact that the majority of men to-day are relatively weak, whereas the struggle for existence demands now more than at any previous epoch that we should all be strong! The reader may think that physical strength is not a necessity, but I will try and prove to him that man cannot… Continue reading George Hackenschmidt, ‘Why Should We Be Strong?’
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 How did you become a strength performer in the early 1900s?
The following post is taken directly from Thomas Inch's 1920s work, On Strength. Inch, as we have previously discussed on Physical Culture Study, was one of the early and influential British physical culturists. Inch was a weightlifter, weightlifting organizer and a prolific writer. He wrote for several decades with Health and Strength magazine, likely contributed… Continue reading How Do You a Single Handed Dead Lift? 1920s Style
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 How do we define strength?
When people think of the father of modern day Bodybuilding, Eugen Sandow is the name that comes to mind. Without denying the incredible work done by Sandow in the spreading of physical culture, to speak of a ‘father’ of bodybuilding does a great disservice to the men and women who preceded Sandow. One such man… Continue reading Who Is Professor Attila?
Named after French Canadian strongman Louis Cyr, the Cyr dumbbell is one of the most recognisable lifts in modern strongman competitions. Who can forget last year's Arnold Strength Classic which saw competitors run through a gauntlet of Cyr Dumbbells? Cyr's dumbbell is so popular in modern strength contests that it is sometimes difficult to remember… Continue reading What is the Cyr Dumbbell?
Most readers will be familiar with the name of strongman Eugen Sandow. Born in Prussia in the mid-nineteenth-century, Sandow helped usher in the modern day interest in health and fitness. In fact, some scholars have argued that Sandow was the 'father' of modern bodybuilding! What most people forget is that the strongman Sandow also fancied… Continue reading Why did Eugen Sandow Sue the Strongman Arthur Saxon?
