This is the final post in a long series about the remarkable weightlifting insights that we can learn from the oldtime strongmen.  The majority of the resources on the internet can be found at Sandow Plus and Maxalding so please do visit them and dive into the many books and pamplets that you will find there.

However, I have tried to find any other resources that I can (although I did give up after page 10 on Google) and refer to them as appropriate.  So if there is a Wikipedia page or a reference on a mainstream strength or fitness website than I will probably have it linked.

Who I’ve talked about

To look back and see who I’ve been rattling on about, you can follow these links:

• Eugen Sandow
• Apollon, Otto Arco, Edward Aston, Don Athaldo and Charles Atlas
• William Bankier Apollo, Sanford Bennett, Joe Bonomo, Zishe “Seigmund” Breitbart and H Broom
• Martin “Farmer” Burns, Ottley C Coulter, Louis Cyr, Alfred Danks and Don Dorans
• James Evans, Herman Goerner, The Good Brothers, George Hackenschmidt and Bob Hoffman
• Thomas Inch, Prof. K V Iyer, George F Jowett, Siegmund Klein and Earle Liederman
• Bernarr MacFadden, Antone Matysek, Staff Sergeant Alfred Moss, Lieutenant J P Muller and Adolph Nordquest
• Bobby Pandour, Harry B Paschall, W A Pullum, Tony Sansone, Arthur Saxon and T W Standwell
• Lionel Strongfort, Alois P Swoboda, Frederick Tilney, Al Treloar, George Walsh and Alexander Zass
• Max Sick (Maxick) and Monte Saldo

The Golden Age of Strongmen

As I’ve been going along, I’ve been trying to keep a record of when the various strongmen were alive.  This picture shows my representation of this remarkable generation.

What I’ve learned

I’ve learned a huge amount since I started this series and it’s hard to put it all into words.  I thought about trying to systematise all of the lessons learned and decided against it.

Here it all is in it’s messy, unadulterated glory.  Enjoy.

• Edward Aston was probably the most honest and upfront about the type of training he did;
• all of the strongmen probably trained with dumbbells and barbells at some point;
• the training was probably mostly pulls, presses, jerks and cleans;
• the training was probably lower reps and higher sets than most bodybuilders would use today;
• they ate meat, vegetables and fruit and drank lots of milk;
• the mind-muscle connection is important and I have probably been neglecting this;
• isometric training might be a way to improve strength and muscle gains (Christian Thibaudeau has written about this);
• marketing was just as much an issue in those days as it is today;
• bending steel is probably overlooked as a way to develop strength by many people (including me);
• the bent press probably gets a lot less airtime than it should;
• rope climbing is good for building big biceps (now I just need somewhere to hang a rope from);
• people quibbled over their measurements just as much then as they do now, if not more;
• if you’re going to drive nails into blocks of wood, don’t rest them on your knees;
• it’s very easy to focus on the success of a rival who has come before you but that’s not necessarily the best way to proceed, you just guarantee them more exposure;
• Zishe Seigmund Breitbart is probably my favourite strongman ever;
• wrestling is probably overlooked as a way to develop strength;
• if you want to be really, really strong, then it helps to be really, really big;
• the combination of good GPP and frequent sub-maximal, low rep lifting that comes with manual labour (like lumber work) is almost certainly the key to exceptional strength;
• it could be quite fun to try and pick up some of my friends using one arm
• deadlifts of all kinds are probably a key to overall strength as well as grip strength;
• strength and fitness has been a big business for a very long time;
• 400lbs is a really, really, big bench press for normal human beings;
• Yorkshire seems to have had something in the water that creates strongmen.  If we can bottle it, we could make a fortune;
• the fascinating history and heritage of the vintage strongmen, like Inch, live on in modern times through our attempts to match or even surpass their feats;
• Mark Henry is a monster;
• I wish I could get my Roman Chair set-up to work;
• lifting people over your head (whether riding a bicycle or not) is cool;
• I want magical tattoos like Staff Sergeant Alfred Moss;
• you can be quite small and really very strong and in percentage terms it may be advantageous;
• it is possible to be in good shape and strong into old age;
• if you want to be really, really good at something, learn it from someone who has already been there and done what you want to achieve; and
• people are more likely to remember you for a small number of really good lifts than for a large number of mediocre ones.

Did I miss anything obvious?  Let me know in the comments.

Apollon (a.k.a J C Tolson)

Apollon was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire in 1903 and enjoyed a successful career on stage before writing a popular strength training postal course.  He took the stage name “Apollon” from the French strongman of the same name, Louis Uni.

He was not a large man, being measured at 5’6” and 184lbs but in 1927 he pulled 551lbs (250kg) and in 1928 performed a standing press of 214lbs (97kg). 

Apollon suggested that the key to strength was to force a strong contraction in the muscle, while concentrating on that muscle as hard as possible.  In this regard, his approach is similar to the proponents of isometric exercises, including Sandow, Charles Atlas and Alexander Zass.  As regards diet, he advocated plenty of meat and vegetables, washed down with milk.

David Gentle has written a brief biography of Apollon here.  David suggests that the postal course emphasising muscle contractions for building strength were essentially toned down versions of Apollon’s own training routine, which was a more typical weightlifting regime.

Otto Arco (a.k.a Otto Nowosielsky)

Otto Arco was born in 1881 and died in 1960.  He was also a proponent of what he called “muscle control”, the practice of deliberately flexing a muscle without accompanying resistance from another object.  He described it as creating a contraction without the accompanying motion.  Using this technique, he believed, was enough to develop significant strength and muscle mass.  His stage performances focused on gymnastic hand balancing and posing.

A very small man, he was said to weigh just 145lbs, and from the pictures I have seen, his muscle mass would suggest that this was accompanied by fairly short stature.

Edward Aston

Another Yorkshireman, Edward Aston was a contemporary of Thomas Inch and Max Sick and competed against them on several occasions between 1909 and 1911.  They competed against each other in a number of different lifts, including two-handed jerks, cleans, clean and jerks and one-handed snatches and jerks.

Aston wrote extensively about weightlifting and explained how his routine of low-repetition presses, jerks, cleans and pulls was the way to increase strength most effectively.  He talked disparagingly about higher repetition work as a way to increase muscle size without corresponding strength.

Don Athaldo

Don Athaldo was born Walter Joseph Lyons in New South Wales, Australia in 1894 and died in 1965.  It is said that he worked as a blacksmith before fighting in the First World War.  He performed on stage as a circus strongman and published several works on physical culture.

Like Apollon, he was said to be not a large man, being measured as only 5’4” and weighing somewhere between 154lbs and 168lbs.

He had a showman’s flair for capturing the public imagination and carried out his performances well-dressed, in a leopard skin and leather boots.  His most famous feat was pulling a touring car with six passengers more than half-a-mile up a hill.

Charles Atlas

Charles Atlas was born Angelo Siciliano in 1892 in Italy, moved to New York in 1905 and died there in 1972. 

In between, he created what was probably the most famous advertising campaign for muscular development that the world has ever seen: the 97lbs weakling has sand kicked in his face by the beach bully, goes home in anger and orders the Charles Atlas strength course before returning to exact his revenge. 

Talking about his strength gains, he claimed to have found no benefit from lifting weights but advocated an isometric technique, which he called dynamic tension.  This approach involved using the different muscles of the body to resist each other and was very similar to methods discussed by Sandow, Zass and Apollon, amongst others.

He worked as a strongman on Coney Island but was predominantly famous for his build and appearance rather than his strength feats.  He was said to be c. 5’10” and weigh around 184lbs.

So what have I learned so far?

In reading about these great strongmen, I have started to form a few opinions of my own.  They may be right or wrong but it will be interesting to see if I still hold them once I’ve worked through all the material on the Sandow Plus site!  Anyway, so far, I think that:

• Edward Aston was probably the most honest and upfront about the type of training he did;
• all of the strongmen probably trained with dumbbells and barbells at some point;
• the training was probably predominantly pulls, presses, jerks and cleans;
• the training was probably lower reps and higher sets than most bodybuilders would use today;
• they ate meat, vegetables and fruit and drank lots of milk;
• the mind-muscle connection is important and I have probably been neglecting this;
• isometric training might be a way to improve strength and muscle gains (Christian Thibaudeau has written about this); and
• marketing was just as much an issue in those days as it is today!

So that was Apollon to Atlas.  Next time, I’ll write about Bankier to Bennett!