The Garage Gym Online

Last week, I wrote about the great site that is The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban.  This week, I have a selection of articles from another old time strength site, Sandow Plus.  It’s called Sandow Plusbecause it features articles and books written by and about the great strongman Eugen Sandow plus articles and books written by and about a number of other great strongmen.  At least, I think so…

So who was Eugen Sandow?

According to Wikipedia, Eugen Sandow was born Friedrich Wilhelm Mueller, in 1867, in what was Koenigsberg in Prussia, which is now Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania.  He died in London in 1925.  He was one of the first, if not the first modern performing strongman.

In between being born and dying, he was variously found on stage performing as a strongman (in the great circus strongman tradition as opposed to the more modern strongman competitions) and showing off his impressive physique.  It is for the latter that he is often referred to as the “father of modern bodybuilding”.

Eugen Sandow

What can I find on Sandow Plus?

There are lots of articles by journalists writing about Sandow as well as the books that Sandow himself wrote.  He wrote about his training methods and his system for gaining strength, as well as about the importance of physical training.

I’ve detailed below my short-list of essential reading by or about Sandow.  I’ll do some more posts about the other strongmen featured on the Sandow Plus site later on.

A word to the wise

Two things make these articles a bit hard going: 

• the style of writing in these older books and articles isn’t the easiest to read and you often feel that they are telling you what they’re going to tell you, telling you and then telling you what they’ve already told you.  Several times over.
• they are scanned versions of original paper booklets and newspaper clippings.  So they can be difficult to read on screen.

With that in mind, I have found that a daily dose is a lot easier to digest than trying to read it all in one day…

Enough already!  Get to the articles

1. Size and Strength by Dr Terry Todd and Paul Anderson– this is a great brief introduction to Sandow and his life as a strongman and entertainer.  It’s interesting to see how marketing was often as important as ability, even in that day and age.  When in Holland and unable to raise a gig, Sandow went round all of the “test your strength” machines in a city and broke them, one by one.  The following morning, all everyone could talk about was this mysterious stranger who could break the machines with his strength.  Sandow soon found himself employed and on stage… 
2. Eugen Sandow by David Willoughby – I have enjoyed reading David Willoughby’s writing on The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban and this is no different.  David discusses and analyses Sandow’s measurements and discusses how his background as a circus performer makes him more like a gymnast than a more typical strongman.   This was also reflected in his agility.
3. Bodybuilding by Eugen Sandow– this is a fascinating read and it’s really interesting to see how the same criticisms were being fought by Sandow as by modern weightlifters and bodybuilders.  It seems that the same prejudices spring up in every generation.  For us modern readers, familiar themes emerge.  Sandow feels the need to say that “there is food and food”.  He notes that curvature of the spine (lumbar lordosis) is all too common.  He rails against the idea that strength training will make women bulky and sees obesity as a real problem for rich and poor alike.  He even picks up the modern powerlifting maxim of only being as strong as your weakest link.
4. The Gospel of Strength by Eugen Sandow– if you’re finding all of these articles a bit hard going (as I often do!) then this is a welcome reprieve.  It’s a much more accessible booklet and the resolution of the scanning is a lot better too.  There’s a fun chapter called “war of the titans” describing the duel between Sandow and Samson.  Another chapter goes into some personal information, including his height (5’9”) and weight (202lbs). 
5. Strength and How to Obtain it by Eugen Sandow– the first half of this book is about the system that Sandow developed to help people develop strength through the mind-muscle connection.  He used this to help them develop an awareness of how to use each of their muscles.  The second half is more of a set of rip-roaring yarns, with more in common with Chaucer than weightlifting.  The description of the 400lb Goliath is a case in point.

I hope you enjoy these articles as much as I have.

For a list of my key articles by category, please check out this index.

Tags:   Eugen Sandow · old school weightlifting · Sandow Plus · strongman12 Comments