Much to my surprise, and great shame, Edward Aston is not someone mentioned a lot on this website. This, I hasten to add, has everything to do with my own deficiencies. Born in England in the late nineteenth-century, Aston was known to contemporaries as one of the strongest men around. In 1910, he won the… Continue reading Forgotten Devices: Edward Aston’s ‘Anti-Barbell’
Now admittedly this is not the catchiest title I'm ever going to use but it hopefully conveys the purpose of today's post. Back when I started training, assisted pull up machines were a thing of scorn. Who, we would wonder, would bother with such an oddity? Couldn't individuals muster a solitary pull up by themselves?… Continue reading Who Invented the Assisted Pull Up Machine?
Who helped transform American fitness and who, more importantly, has often been overlooked in the fitness industry? Frederick Tilney. It is a name that I have constantly seen in writing but not one that I have ever really researched. From my vague memories, I knew that he was born in England in the late ninteenth… Continue reading The Unknown Man Who Transformed American Fitness
Arm training can be more complicated than larger body parts such as legs, back, or chest. If you think about it, your arms are relatively small in comparison to the rest of your body. When I first started training, I thought that in order to have great arms I needed to life as heavy as… Continue reading Guest Post: Colette Nelson, “The Ultimate Arms: Pro Training Secrets,” Reform, Issue 6 (June 2003).
Kolar Venkatesh Iyer, or K. V. Iyer (1897-1980), is one of the most fascinating Indian physical culturists of the twentieth century. Someone I have studied quite a bit in my own career, Iyer was a well-known figure in India, the United States, and Europe. Often submitting images of himself to physical culture magazines, Iyer struck… Continue reading K.V. Iyer on Diet and Health
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
Some time ago I published an article here on the 'death wish' in bodybuilding. For those who haven't read it, and shame on you, it focused on the most obvious problem with the sport I love - it is killing people. This isn't mere hyperbole. Over the past three decades, a significant number of bodybuilding… Continue reading Are Steroids Killing Bodybuilders?
I love origin stories. And fitness is full of them. Eugen Sandow and the first major bodybuilding show of 1901. When women first competed in weightlifting at the Olympics. The first man or woman to lift/press/pull insert world record number here etc. etc. We also have those critical originators and thinkers who helped to popularise… Continue reading Pavel Tsatsouline, ‘Vodka, Pickle Juice, Kettlebell Lifting and Other Russian Pastimes,’ Milo, Vol 6, no. 3 (1996).
Late last year, in 2024, Bodybuilding.com did the unthinkable. They closed the infamous bodybuilding.com forum down. In an age of Tik-Tok and Instagram, younger readers may question why anyone should care. The answer lies in an interesting mix of influencers, trolls, questions about how many days are in a week (yes really!) and a community… Continue reading The Birth, Life and Death of Bodybuilding’s Most Important Forum
In 1967 Sergio Oliva, one of the greatest bodybuilders to ever grace the sport, won the Mr. Olympia. The previous two years Larry Scott had won the title but, following Scott's retirement, the floor was open for Oliva to step into the spotlight. The Cuban bodybuilder, and former Olympic weightlifter, was himself new to the… Continue reading Lost Footage of the 1967 Mr. Olympia
