Paul Childress said that a big squatter is not always a big deadlifter, but a big deadlifter is al- most always a big squatter. How do you build a big deadlift if you weren’t born with one? Ernie Frantz always said that to increase your deadlift, you should just deadlift. Westside has always relied on… Continue reading Louie Simmons, ‘Deadlift Training,’ Powerlifting USA, 33 no. 8 (2010), 24 & 94
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?
A point previously discussed on this website was the regularity with which early physical culturists promoted light weight training as opposed to heavy lifting. The reasons for this are numerous. In the first instance, light weightlifting is easier to promote to the general public than heavy weightlifting. It requires less equipment, can be done in… Continue reading Eugen Sandow on Heavy Weightlifting
Constant practice is the only way in which one may succeed in raising a heavy weight in this position. It will, no doubt, be useful to read below how the lift is performed, but it will be no use to expect an immediate increase in your present lift simply by reading my instructions as to… Continue reading Arthur Saxon, ‘The Bent Press’, THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL POWER (LONDON, 1906)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr9yUmYF7T4&list=PLOLn97IoZOb7WhKxje0uP7BYOB8QDbCr4&index=4 My love of old British Pathé footage aside, the above video marks a rather remarkable insight into the still existent world of strongmen training in 1960s Britain. Harold Cope, our Derby lifter shown here, is still doing many of the strongman feats found at the beginning of the century. What impressed me most about this… Continue reading British Pathé 1960s British Strongman
It’s a little known fact that the eruption of Mr. St. Helens, and the continuing subterranean growls in the area, are purely mythic. What really happened up there in the land of perpetual rain and majestic mountains was that Doyle Kenady took a heavier than normal deadlift workout. It’s not a coincidence that those after-rumblings… Continue reading Frederick C. Hatfield, ‘Dr. Deadlift’, Powerlifting USA, Vol 10 No 4. Novemeber/1986
A point previously discussed on this website was the regularity with which early physical culturists promoted light weight training as opposed to heavy lifting. The reasons for this are numerous. In the first instance, light weightlifting is easier to promote to the general public than heavy weightlifting. It requires less equipment, can be done in… Continue reading Eugen Sandow on Heavy Weightlifting
To gain great strength one needs to consider the factors that unite to produce it. For until this is done one cannot be sure upon what lines to work. The things that make for outstanding physical strength are great vital force, a high degree of nervous energy, and superlative quality of muscular tissue. Contrary to… Continue reading W. A. Pullum, ‘Great Strenth’, How to Use A Barbell (London, 1932), 21-24.
Many of the early physical culturists stressed the relationship between mind and body, viewing the two as symbiotic. The drive towards the physique above all else is a rather more recent phenomenon. It is for this reason that I am delighted to have had the opportunity to speak with Rob Allen from Wisdom of the… Continue reading Interview with Wisdom of the Body’s Rob Allen
The World Strongest Man competition is undoubtedly one of my favourite events of the year. It features the strongest athletes in the world, competing against one another in a variety of presses, pulls and runs. While today's competitions are undoubtedly professional, those from yesteryear tended to mix the serious with the spurious in a greater… Continue reading World’s Strongest Man and the ‘Flintstone Barbell’
