Translated from the pen of Sheiko
The story of powerlifting counts many adepts and exemplary
athletes in different countries of the world. More than any other century,
strong men appeared in the 19th century, though many of them were
heavy, with poor mobility, who stood out based solely on their raw strength.
There were many championships, which included: the picking up of barrels of
various volumes, the pressing of two dumbbells, the pressing or pushing of
weights, lying on the back, squatting with weight on the shoulders, squatting
with kettlebells in extended-upwards arms, the pressing of weights with the
legs while lying on the back. Competitions were held with an awkward “orb”
barbell. Big popularity was enjoyed by the competition of lifting weights from
the floor. Each athlete tried to stand out in those movements, in which he had
the biggest chance of success. One of the first famed strongmen of the 19th
century was the 136kg Canadian Louis Cyr.
Louis Cyr (1863 –
1912)
Louis Cyr was called a (North) American wonder, as he competed in and
won all tourneys. Though he was only 5 ft 10 inch, his biceps and muscles
earned the respect of other lifters.
He pushed a train car up a slope, with one hand lifted 131 ¼
pounds (59.5 kg) and held it at a right angle, picked up with one arm a barrel
of cement weighing 433 pounds, put it on top of a piece of paper, and then, by
slightly lifting the barrel, removed the paper.
Once, under the eyes of a crowd, he lifted and held on his
back a platform, on which were 18 people, with a total weight of 4337 pounds
(1967 kg). To modern day, this record has yet to be beaten.
In 1886, Louis emerged victorious against 40-year-old
American Richard Pennel.
From 1895 to 1900, Louis Cyr traveled through many
countries, gathered worldly experience and he was officially named the
strongest person on the planet.
Louis Cyr is considered the first athlete, who started to do
the press while lying on a bench (before it was done while lying on the floor).
His best records while weighing 136kg (299lb): press with one arm – 124kg
(273lb); two arms – 150kg (330 lb); deadlift[0] – 860kg (1895lb); one-armed
deadlift – 447kg (985lb); deadlift with one finger – 247kg (544lb); back lift[1]
- 1950kg (4300lb) (this is considered to be the highest result in modern
history of strength athletics).
Moreover, Louis has a large collection of officially
registered records:
·
A 73.7k kg (162.5 lb) one-armed kettlebell
press, 36 reps.
·
Lifting of weight from the ground with two hands
of 860.5kg (1897 lbs)
·
One-armed lifting of weight from the ground of
448kg (987 lbs)
·
One-fingered lifting of weight from the ground
of 251kg (553 lbs)
James Kennedy
(1860-1894)
In 1893, in New York, there was a contest that was meant to
find the champion of the world in the lifting of heavy weights. It attracted
the strongest athletes of the time. From Canada came Louis Cyr, from Europe – Eugen
Sandow. The winner turned out to be the James Walter Kennedy, an American. He
lifted a metal sphere of 36 poods and 24.5 lbs (1320.5lbs or 598.9kg) four
inches off the platform, for two repetitions. Not one of the other athletes was
able to repeat this feat. After the setting of this record, James Kennedy only
performed in demonstrations of his musculature.
Louis Attila
(1844-1925)
Born in Germany in the city of Karlsruhe as Louis Durlacher,
Louis began interested in strength training in earnest after meeting Felice
Napoli, an Italian circus strongman. Durlacher asked Napoli to teach him. In
1863, at the age of 19, Louis changed his last name to Attila and began to
perform under it as a strongman.
In 1886, Attila opened a gym in Brussels, Belgium. It was
there that he met Eugen Sandow. The two were often seen together, and up to
1889 toured together. In 1889, they parted ways: Sandow left for Italy, and
Attila – London. In London, Attila opened his second gym. Soon after, Sandow
and Attila announced a renewal of their temporary partnership, but by 1893,
they were once again followed separate paths. Sandow left for America.
In 1893, Attila arrived in New York on the invitation of
Richard K. Fox, the publisher of The
Police Gazette. There Attila opened his most famous gym, where he taught an
entire generation of American physical culturists[2]
using progressive resistance.[3]
His gym, on New York’s Broadway,[4]
was a Mecca for professionals and the celebrities of the athletic world. At his
gym trained: John Pierpont Morgan, Alfred Vanderbilt, Florenz Ziegfeld and John
Philip. Attila achieved success in his coaching role thanks to an emphasis on
committed training and progressive overload. He discovered the mechanics of
bodybuilding, as we know them today. In that age, many protested against the
use of heavy weights, because they were afraid that they could bring about
trauma, muscle tears and even death. This was part of the genius of Attila – he
admitted freely that more big weights were the only reliable method for
strength development and the building of a massive body. In that time, this
method of training was revolutionary.
Attila was a pioneer of using strength training as a means
to achieve results in sports. He was one of the first trainers that personally
began training the rich and famous. He was a supporter of equal rights and
opportunity for women in the gym[5]
and insisted that strength training slowed the process of aging.
Attila continued to lift heavy weights up and through his 77th
year, and was a great strongman until his death. He died on March 15, 1925.
Attila’s influence on the growth of world athletics is impossible to overvalue.
At the turn of the 20th century, rough and
formless strongmen began to fall out of fashion. To replace the systemless
strongman exercises arrived new forms of sport: weightlifting, bodybuilding
(physical culture), and conditioning-focused forms of strength training. At the
sources of new growth and development of strength stood a man, who is today
considered the founder of physical culture: Eugen Sandow.
Eugen Sandow (1867 –
1925)
Though Sandow belonged among the strongmen of the previous
era, he was already underlining the importance of beautiful composition.[6]
Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, later in life to be known under
his pseudonym Eugen Sandow, was born in Konigsberg, Prussia to a Russian mother
and a German merchant[7]
father. Friedrich left Prussia in 1885, in order to avoid military service.
At nineteen years of age, young Sandow began performing in
circuses as a strongman and acrobat. In 1887, on the platforms in Brussels, he
was noticed by a famed circus strongman: Louis Durlacher, famous under the name
of Attila.
When Sandow arrived in London in 1899, he opened his own
gymnasium, which he called a studio of physical culture. The walls were trimmed
with wood and adorned with giant mirrors in gilt frames. In the corners stood
pots with palm trees in them, and the floor was covered with Persian rugs. The
studio attracted a distinguished[8]
clientele, who, under the instruction of Sandow began to practice difficult
exercises. Sandow not only had beautiful muscles and could perform
awe-inspiring tricks of strength, but he also wrestled. He earned the fame of
being an unbeatable athlete in his sport.
One of his favorite numbers was a performance with a large
ball-barbell, the total weight of which was 145kg (319lbs). It was made up of a
bar of 120 cm in length and two spheres on the end, with a diameter of 90 cm
each (barbells with sets of discs and adjustable dumbbells didn’t appear until
two decades later). Sandow would carefully one-arm press the bar above his
head, before dropping it and immediately catching it, after which he would
return the bar to the platform. After the noise from the audience died down,
the spheres would open and two fairly short men emerged, one from each sphere.
In the span of four minutes, he could do two hundred pushups[9].
By propping his heels on one chair and the nape of his neck[10]
on another, Sandow could hold two people on his chest, and in his outstretched
hand – a 22kg (48.5lb) kettlebell. A platform would be placed on his chest, and
he held could hold three horses on it. A different number included the same
platform, but with a piano and 8-man orchestra instead.
Another circus number was the handkerchief trick. While
holding a 24kg (52lb) kettlebell in each hand, he stood on a handkerchief and
did a backflip, landing exactly on the same spot he started on.
In 1895, Sandow successfully performed a difficult trick: he
lifted and pressed, with his right hand, a 115kg (253.5lb) barbell, before
transferring it to his left hand, crouching and laying on his back. Without
lowering the barbell, he would stand back up.
Sandow advertised his strength achievements as an
accomplishment of advanced science and a revival of the ancient Greek ideal
(his trainer was Attila). In the beginning of the 90s,[11]
Sandow displayed his prowess across England and Europe by beating all of the
strongmen and wrestlers that wished to test his strength. After achieving
European recognition, Sandow spent four years in America (1894-1897), where he
also became a star.
On September 4, 1901, in a large London concert hall, with
the cheers of British royalty in his ears, Sandow successfully led the first
tourney of beauty, athletic symmetry and body composition in history. It was
called the “Great Competition”. The judges consisted of three celebrities:
Sandow, Arthur Conan-Doyle and the sculptor Charles Lawes. The tournament had
56 participants, athletes from all over Great Britain. The winner was William
L. Murray from Great Britain, who was given a bronze statuette of “Sandow with
a ball-barbell in one hand”, made by the sculptor Frederick Pomeroy. A replica
of this statuette is still awarded in the contests “Mr. Olympia” and “Ms.
Olympia”.
By 1905, Britain was host to a network of physical salons
and institutions of physical culture, all under Sandow. Soon afterward, he
completed several world tours (South Africa, India, Japan, Australia, New
Zealand) to spread the knowledge of his system.
Sandow made an enormous contribution to the methodology of
strength training. He wrote several books on his methods: Sandow’s System of Physical Training (1894), Strength and How To Obtain It (1897), Body-Building[12]
(1904), Strength and Health: How illness
can be successfully overcome with physical culture (1912) and Life is Movement: Physical Reconstruction
and the Regeneration of People (1919).
In 1911, he trained his dearest client: the king of England
himself, George V, invited Sandow to be his personal trainer. The king, of
course, did not become an athlete, but Sandow acquired a number of other rich
clients. For his work in propagating a healthy lifestyle and physical culture,
Eugen Sandow was given the honorary Professor of Physical Growth title.
Bernarr Adolf Macfadden
(1868 – 1955)
In 1902, Alan Calvert began production of loadable barbells.
He also published several courses for strength training (which were sent with
his set of barbells and plates), the most popular of which was a course called
“Super Strength”. It described a series of 8-10 base exercises with the
barbell, which were recommended to be done three times a week, one set of 5-20
reps each. This was the first training program for mass application, and it was
created 110 years ago.
One of the people, for whom a practice of physical culture
because its own brand of religion, was a businessman – publisher named Bernarr
Adolf Macfadden.
Macfadden is an example of an “unhealthy fanatic[13].”
In 1903, Macfadden organized a whole series of contents in New York, in Madison
Square Garden, under the name of “The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man[14]”.
The winner of a contest won, along with his new title, one thousand dollars.
Competitors included boxers, rowers, weightlifters and other athletes.
In his lifetime, Bernarr Macfadden wrote 150 books on how to
be healthy and strong. He also published several magazines, the biggest of
which was Physical Culture, devoted
to forging[15]
muscle and physical exercise. Macfadden exposed his slogan to the public: “Weakness
is a crime. Don’t be a criminal!” and the slogan was heard.
In the beginning of
the 20s[16],
a few years after the First World War, a young German athlete named Henry “Milo”
Steinborn wowed America with his feats of strength. The trick he was most known
for was his ability to throw the barbell up to his shoulders without using any
other equipment, then squatting it multiple times. Milo became the first person
in the world able to hoist 500lb (226kg) to his shoulders before squatting the
weight. After him, squatting became a vital exercise for any athlete. Eventually,
squat racks were invented, thanks to which athletes could bring to their
shoulders a weight large enough to squat, but without spending the effort on
lifting it into position first.
In the 30s, Mark
Berry, publisher of the magazine Strength,
laid out his recommendations for exercise, which were henceforth known as the
system of deep squatting. The program, which included six to eight exercises,
was based on the training of famed boxer and lifter Henry Steinborn. In
general, his training consisted of heavy leg and back work, supplemented with
an equal amount of rest and food.
At the end of the 40s
through the beginning of the 50s in the United States, Canada, England,
Australia, Sweden, Norway and other countries barbell lifts became popular
almost at the same time. At first, these lifts were called “odd”. Athletes performed sitting and standing
versions of curls, behind-the-neck press and the traditional squat, floor press
and deadlift. There were however, no competitions. Of course, like in every
sport, there were enthusiasts.
[0] It should be noted that while the text does say "deadlift," a deadlift in the context of 19th century strongman means the ROM most likely left quite a lot to be desired.
[1] The Russian word for this is приподнимания, which means “slight lift.”
[1] The Russian word for this is приподнимания, which means “slight lift.”
[3]
Progressive overload, training, linear training, etc.
[4]
The street.
[5]
The original text says “тренажерном зале”, which means a hall with treadmills,
but this could refer to the overall gym as well.
[6]
Composition of the body, symmetry.
[7]
Literal translation: stall vendor
[8] In
this case insinuating that they had money to pay for this instruction
[9]
“To the ground” pushups, meaning complete pushups.
[10] затылок
[11]
The 1890s, that is.
[12]
In Russian, the title is actually “Бодибилдинг: человек в действии” which
translates to “Bodybuilding: The Person and the Movement”
[13]
Rather, someone who’s fanaticism is so intense that it damages their health.
[14]
The title in the text is actually “Man with the most complete body composition
in America” but outside sources point to the given being the proper name of the
contests.
[15]
The literal translation is forging, meaning a general development of body and
mind, in regard to hypertrophy and general fitness. The Russian word is
закалка.
[16]
1920s.
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