Owing to the increasing popularity of powerlifting, cross fit and olympic lifting, chances are you either own a weightlifting belt or see them on a regular basis on the gym floor. A means of bracing the abdomen, weightlifting belts are a source of controversy in the weightlifting world between those who see them as legitimate… Continue reading The History of Weightlifting Belts
In 90% of the training you do the emphasis should be on picture-perfect form AND heavy weights. Cheating is undesirable, and while it SEEMS that you are working harder because you are lifting moreyou are, in fact, working less intensively since the “heavier” work is being distributed over many hefty muscle groups – instead of… Continue reading Bradley Steiner, ‘Partials, Rack Work And Isometrics’, POWERLIFTING (1972), 16-17
Almost a decade ago, a retired Soviet hammer thrower came to the conclusion that traditional forms of squatting were not the best way to strengthen the muscles of the thighs and hips. Many in the Soviet Union considered this heresy, as the squat was the king of leg training in that country just as it… Continue reading Dr. Terry Todd and Angel Spassov,’Bulgarian Leg Training Secrets,’ Muscle and Fitness (1989).
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 Tom Farrey, ‘Tough, Determind: Arlys Kovach Has Come Back From a Shattering Accident to Become One of Top Female Weightlifters in the World,’ LA Times, June 26, 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
Face it. Every now and then you want to try something new in the gym. A new lift, a new rep range or an entirely new style of training. The mind gets bored of monotony, something which the lifters of yore were all too acquainted with. Today's post on the Sig Klein challenge will not only… Continue reading The Sig Klein Challenge
For a long time, men have dominated the sport of weight lifting. But tucked away at a YMCA in the small Midwestern town of Canton, Ohio, some 150 women are pumping iron, straining and twisting their feminine physiques, trying to smooth those flabby curves. They bench-press, lift barbells, dumbbells, do chin-ups, situps, leg extensions and… Continue reading Guest Post: “Weight Training Women Stay in Shape Without Getting Muscle-Bound,” Jet Magazine, 1 September (1977)
I frankly confess that when I was young I was just as much hypnotised by professional "strong men" as you are today. I was as strong as the average boy; maybe a little stronger, for I could take a 65 lb. solid iron dumb-bell and push it slowly above my head with my right arm. But… Continue reading Alan Calvert, ‘Are Weight-Lifters Stronger Than Other Men?’, Confidential Information on Lifters and Lifting (Philadelphia, 1926)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMXadANmrXc Admittedly a little bit longer than the normal videos I post here, the following film is too interesting to pass up on. Produced in the late 1980s in the final years of the Soviet Union, the film is part propaganda and part instructional exercises. Done to show the training needed to be a champion… Continue reading ‘Speed and Power Exercises for Wrestlers’, a Soviet Documentary from the 1980s
I HAVE often been asked what it feels like to press 350 pounds with one hand, and perhaps to my readers the different sensations experienced will be interesting. In the first place, immediately I start to press the weight away from the shoulder I become perfectly oblivious to everything except the weight that I am… Continue reading Arthur Saxon, ‘What It Feels Like to Lift 350 Pounds with One Hand’, The Development of Physical Power (London, 1905), 23-24.
