While the diskos (discus) and javelin were thrown for distance and were often heavier than our modern implements, the early forerunners of the dumbbell—called by the Greeks alteres or halteres are the first man made implements used for purposive exercise by the Greeks. In the beginning, halteres were mainly used to help add distance in jumping contests. In fact, the oldest jumping weight ever found is known is the Halter of Epainetos, and bears the inscription: "Epainetos by means of this won the jump." Made of lead, it was discovered at Eleusis, near Athens, and is believed to be from either the late seventh or early sixth century B.C. It weighs four pounds two ounces. Paul Tasch, "Conservation of Momentum in Antiquity. A Note on the Prehistory of the Principle of Jet-Propulsion," Isis 43 (September, 1952): 251-2.

Additonal Resources

"From Milo to Milo: A History of Barbells, Dumbells, and Indian Clubs," by Jan Todd, Iron Game History 3(6) (April 1995).

Plaster copy of the ancient Greek statue known as the "Boxer of Quirinal" on display at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center.

Nearly every book that mentions the history of strength training cites Milo, a six-time champion in wrestling in the ancient Olympic Games, as "the father of progressive resistance exercise." The claim is then made that Milo lifted a calf (generally referred to as a bull calf) every day and that as the calf grew larger Milo grew stronger. While Milo was prodigiously strong and had a wrestling career that spanned 24 years (536-512 B.C.) and included victories in 31 Panhellenic contests, there is relatively scant evidence to support this claim. Writing several hundred years after Milo's own Sixth Century B.C., the Roman essayist Quintilian provides the only tale describing Milo using an animal for training purposes. ["Milo, quem vitulum assueverat ferre, taurum ferebat." (1.9.5)] The genesis of the legend appears to come from an exhibition Milo supposedly gave at Olympia when he reportedly walked a distance in the main arena carrying across his shoulders a four-year-old bull. Since the author Athenaeus then reports that Milo killed the bull and ate it in a single day there is room for skepticism about this story. However, like many other athletes of the ancient period, there is no reason to think that Milo didn't train with rocks and other kinds of weights as was common in the ancient period. Jan Todd, "From Milo to Milo: A History of Barbells, Dumbbells, and Indian Clubs,"Iron Game History 3(6) (April 1995): 4-13.

Nigel B. Crowther, "Weightlifting in Antiquity: Achievement and Training," Greece & Rome, Second Series 24 (October, 1977): 111-20.

Rachel Sargent Robinson, Sources for the History of Greek Athletics in English Translation, (By the author, 1955), 195.

Donald G. Kyle, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World (Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 200-1.

Milo reportedly died when, as an older man, he was walking in the woods and spied a stump that woodcutters had been trying to split. A wedge had been left in the stump and so Milo decided to see if he could pull the stump apart with his bare hands. As he pulled, the stump opened enough for the wedge to fall out but then the tree snapped shut, trapping his hand. Unable to release himself, he was helpless when wild animals discovered him and then devoured him. The painting by Charles Meynier (1768-1832) entitled "Milo of Croton, Attempting to Test His Strength, Is Caught and Devoured by a Lion," is provided courtesy of the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, in Montreal, Canada.

In the early Roman era, Classicist H.A. Harris suggests that the pestle and mortar reference may refer to larger than normal implements bearing the same name as our modern ones but that these used for weight training exercises. Epictetus describes the use of the pestle, which normally was a cylindrical carved rock with one end larger than the other, in a passage that discusses the fact that some exercises, although painful are also beneficial. "The trainer is acting rightly," he writes, "when he says 'Lift that pestle with both hands'; and the heavier the pestle is, the more good it does me." As for the mortar, traditionally a bowl with handles in which grains or spices are ground by the use of the pestle, Harris suggests that this may be a slang name for circular weight—perhaps one with handles—that could be lifted overhead.

However, another possible explanation exists for this passage. India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and many other early cultures have wrestling traditions that predate the written records in those countries. (In India the sport is believed to have existed at least as early as the Fifth Century B.C.) Throughout this region—much of which became part of the Roman Empire--resistance training played a major role in the preparation of wrestlers in all these cultures. Common to all of them was the use of heavy clubs, which in India were called gadas and closely resemble a pestle in shape. The Indians also used mugdals, clubs with rocks attached to one end that are believed to be the precursor of modern Indian clubs, and they used a variety of stone weights—called nals--which were hollowed out like bowls and then had a handle inserted in the middle for lifting. Although we cannot know for certain, gadas and nals do resemble the "mortar and pestle" mentioned by Epictetus. Indians also trained with another implement—a heavy circular stone ring called a gar nal that at times weighed as much as 100 pounds. These rings were worn around the neck when doing deep knee bends or squats. Some men even wore them when running. In the early twentieth century, Gama Bakesh, the wrestler who became known as The Great Gama, reportedly ran a mile every day with a 120-pound ring around his neck in his training. N.E. Gardiner, Athletics of the Ancient World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), 6.

H.A. Harris, Sport in Greece and Rome, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 148-149

Joseph Alter, "Gama the World Champion, Wrestling and Physical Culture in Colonial India," Iron Game History 4 (October, 1995): 3-4.

Additional Resources

Gama the World Champion (Iron Game History, Vol 4 Num. 2)

De Arte Gymnastica's author was one of the most famous physicians of the Renaissance. Educated at Padua, Mercurialis served as personal physician to Emperor Maximilian II and was knighted by him in 1573 following a successful cure. De Arte Gymnastica introduced to Western thought many of the training principles that continue to influence contemporary approaches to physical training. The book revived an interest in Galen and the training methods of the ancient Greeks; and its numerous illustrations—though primitively drawn by modern standards—suggest a bodily ideal which could only be possible through systematic resistance training. Medical historian L.H. Joseph noted of Gymnastica, "In reality, all the books on gymnastics [physical training] of the next centuries are based on this standard work of Mercurialis."

Mercurialis advocated a variety of exercise methods and exercise devices. He discussed the advantages of walking, throwing the discus, rope climbing, and ball games. For purposive training Mercurialis recommended heavy balls filled with sand—forerunners of modern medicine balls—and halteres or dumbbells. One of the most interesting aspects of Mercurialis' text was the shape of the handweights. No longer curved like the ancient halteres, the dumbbells pictured in Mercurialis' text resemble two conical pyramids stuck together by their heads. Mercurialis also described the use of the "tabula plumb" [plummets], the heavy sheets of rock or lead described by Galen hundreds of years earlier. Hieronymus Mercurialis, De Arte Gymnastica (Amsterdam: 1672). Reprint edition, The Scholars Press, Ilkey England.

John W. F. Blundell, The Muscles and Their Story, from the Earliest Times; Including the Whole Text of Mercurialis, and the Opinions of Other Writers Ancient and Modern, on Mental and Bodily Development (London: Chapman & Hall, 1864).

This illustration from Hieronymus Mercurialis' Sixteenth Century work, De Arte Gymnastica, show dumbbells, and heavy plates being used for training in an ancient gymnasium. Note the heavy musculature of the men.

The ideas contained in these two small volumes were then condensed in Sinclair's magnum opus, a four volume anthology called, The Code of Health and Longevity; Or, A Concise View of the Principles Calculated for The Preservation of Health, and The Attainment of Long Life also published in 1807.

Sinclair saw in the bodies of pugilists, jockeys and wrestlers a strength and vigor he found missing among his peers and so decided to systematically investigate how athletes trained, what they ate, and what other methods of conditioning they employed in preparation for competition. In this era, the "physicking" of athletes was considered as important as sport-specific training so throughout these three works there is detailed information on how boxers, wrestlers, jockeys and pedestrians (runners) were sweated, purged, and denied water in the mistaken belief that the body's tissues should be as "dry" as possible for competition. There is also a wealth of information on conditioning methods, massage, and nutrition for athletes. Much of what Sinclair's experts then recommended is diametrically opposite of what is now considered common wisdom. Water, for example, was rarely recommended.

Sinclair's attempt to understand the state of training in Great Britain was in essence an attempt to assess the value of exercise through scientific inquiry. Though Sinclair was also interested in historical confirmation of his theories, and the Code of Health contains lengthy passages from many ancient and Renaissance writers, one of the great contribution of Sinclair's work is the accurate picture it presents of sporting practices at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Like Adair and others in this era, Sinclair was also an advocate for weight training as a method of working toward improved health. Sinclair refers to them as swing-leads or dumb-bells, writing: "A quantity of lead is sometimes formed into a shape, by which it can be grasped by the hands, for the purpose of being swung about. Articles of that sort are known under the name of swing-leads, or dumb-bells. They are mentioned as a mode of exercise, by an author who wrote in the time of Queen Elizabeth; and a pastime, of nature somewhat similar, in one of the numbers of the Spectator as excellent for opening the chest, exercising the limbs, and giving a man all the pleasure of boxing without the blows. As commonly used, dumb-bells are certainly a partial exercise; but by frequent[ly] altering the posture of the body, and taking the exercise with open windows, it is found highly beneficial." Sinclair refers in this quote to John Northbrooke and Joseph Addison, and directly quotes Dr. Adair, also mentioned in this timeline. Sir John Sinclair, A Collection of Papers on the Subject of Athletic Exercises (London: printed by E. Blackader, 1806).

Sir John Sinclair, Result of the Inquiries Regarding Athletic Exercises Recently Made by Sir John Sinclair (London: 1807).

In 1809, Jahn began holding voluntary outdoor exercise classes near his school in Halle, Germany. His methods caught on quickly and soon throughout Germany Turner (gymnastics) clubs formed where men and boys met together to exercise

The exercise system they preached was called turnen or "gymnastics" although the exercises performed in their classes were a combination of jumping, leaping, rope and ladder climbing, weight training and work on traditional gymnastics apparatus such as parallel bars and an early version of the pommel horse. According to German weight training expert Edgar Mueller, Turnen included "exercises with iron bars," a meter in length and weighing from two to three kilos. Mueller claimed that these iron bars, called Eisenstäbe, were first introduced by GutsMuths and were "used for different two handed lifts, especially for exercises with straight arms (in front, overhead and back)."

As the century wore on, the Turner clubs helped spread the idea of resistance training throughout Germany in the nineteenth century, and in a few isolated pockets the lifting of heavy weights became a major focus of the Turner program. "Carl Schöbig told me," Mueller wrote, "that in Leipzig's oldest Turnverein . . . weightlifting with heavy globe barbells was practiced by the gymnasts (Turners) since 1865." Mueller explained that this claim was based not on Schöbig's personal experience but on what he had been told by older members of the Turnverein used a weightlifting club had formed in Munich by 1878, and the next year a second club formed at Wandsbeck, near Hamburg. By the end of the nineteenth century the lifting of heavy weights as part of the turnen experience was common throughout Germany.Jurgen Giessing and Jan Todd, "The Origins of German Bodybuilding: 1790-1970," Iron Game History 9(2) (December 2005): 8-11.

Edgar Mueller, "History of the Two Hands Jerk," original manuscript, The Ottley Coulter Collection, The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, The University of Texas at Austin.

Additional Resources

The Origins of German Bodybuilding: 1790 to 1970 (Iron Game History, Vol 9 Num. 2)

Triat's gym, located in central Paris, had nearly 10,000 square feet of floor space on the main floor with two two tiers of balconies above for spectators. If you look closely on the right side of the image you can see a rack of barbells that were used for group exercise classes

Triat was born in the small village of Saint-Chaptes, France in 1813. Raised by gypsies, he worked as a travelling acrobat up to the age of fifteen, then went to school for approximately six years before deciding to return to the stage as a professional strongman. By age twenty-two, he stood 5'10 1/2" tall and weighed two hundred pounds, making him a large man by early nineteenth-century standards. In 1837, he opened a gymnasium in Liege, Belgium, where dumbbell training played a significant role in the exercise routine. In 1840, he opened a gym in Brussels that he managed until 1849. He then moved to Paris and constructed an enormous gymnasium unlike any other in the world at the time. It had approximately ninety-five hundred square feet of space on the first floor with two tiers of balconies above for spectators. Many of Paris' most distinguished citizens signed up for classes. Engravings of Triat's gym from 1854 include the first known depiction of what we would now call a barbell. An advertising brochure for the gym describes "Barres A Spheres De 6 Kilos," (bars with spheres of six kilos) as well as "Gros Halteres et Barres A Deux Main," (large dumbbells and bars for two hands). How heavy these larger barbells might have been, and how they were loaded, is unknown, although Triat reportedly had a dumbbell at his gym weighing over two hundred pounds that he used in his own training. As the logo for his new enterprise, Triat adopted the emblem of a globe-ended barbell draped with a medallion and ribbon, a fact which suggests the importance of the barbell concept to his new gymnasium and training system. His motto was, "For the Regeneration of Man."David Chapman, translator & Edmond Desbonnet, "Hippolyte Triat, from Les Rois de la Force (Paris: Librairie Berger-Levrault, 1911)" in Iron Game History (July 1995).

Additional Resources

Hippolyte Triat (Iron Game History, July 1995)

In The Indian Club Exercise, Kehoe differentiates between the short, light-weight "bat"—a one to four pound club used in calisthenics drills such as those popularized by Donald Walker and American exercise proponent Dio Lewis —and what Kehoe called the "long Club, or Indian Club proper." Long clubs might vary in appearance, Kehoe explained, but their length should be between twenty-four and twenty-eight inches and they should weigh at least four pounds. Most beginners, Kehoe suggested, could start with a club of around ten pounds.

Interest in club swinging was so high in this era that competitions and exhibitions were frequently held. On 1 May 1866, for example, J. Edward Russell won a solid gold medal, cast by the Tiffany Company, when a panel of judges found Russell to be the best club swinger at a gymnastics competition at Irving Hall. In another event, Charles Bennett, the "California Hercules," gave an exhibition in which he used twenty-pound clubs "in a variety of movements and held fifty-two pounds in each hand, at arms' length, with ease." A drawing of Bennett used as the frontispiece of Ed James's, How to Acquire Health Strength and Muscle, gives some indication of how such feats might be possible. The heavy, defined musculature of his arms and upper body was highly unusual for the mid-nineteenth century. Sim D. Kehoe, The Indian Club Exercise (New York: American News Company, 1866).

Ed James, How to Acquire Health Strength and Muscle, 12th ed. (New York: by the author, 1878).

Jan Todd, "The Strength Builders: A History of Barbells, Dumbbells and Indian Clubs," The International Journal of the History of Sport 20(1) (March 2003): 65-90.

Additional Resources

The Indian Club Exercise, by Sim D Kehoe (external link)

MacLaren and Sargent, who primarily viewed themselves as physical educators concerned with the health of average men—not athletes—recommended lighter training methods aimed at improving posture and body symmetry. Blaikie believed that heavy weight training and rigorous sports such as rowing, caused the body to create too much muscle on certain parts of the frame and not enough on others: "He who starts able to put up a heavy dumbbell over his head, too often devotes himself simply to putting up a heavier one, and then one heavier yet, so taking one arm, already stronger in its extensors, if not in all its muscles, than its mate, and making it still stronger, while the other is neglected, until the contrast between the two, instead of disappearing, grows more marked than ever."

Although Blaikie—using our modern definition—still favored resistance training—he pushed for a lighter approach, believing that weights of one tenth of one's bodyweight were sufficient. He also appears to have introduced to the athletic lexicon a word that will haunt strength training for athletes for the next century—muscle-bound. He used that word for the first time in an 1877 article in Harper's Monthly Magazine when he wrote, regarding rowers, "But the oarsman will more than likely have the slouch forward of the head and neck so common in the laboring man and that muscle-bound look about the upper back, as if it would be impossible for him, as is often the fact, to carry his hands out behind his shoulders until the backs of them are even within a foot of each other." After Blaikie, the terms "muscle-bound" and "musclebound" would become widely used as a pejorative to describe an athlete who had large muscles and lacked flexibility and speed. William Blaikie, "Free Muscular Development," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 56 (May, 1877): 916-8.

Doug Bryant, "William Blaikie and Physical Fitness in Late Nineteenth Century America," Iron Game History 2 (July, 1992): 3-6.

Terry Todd, "Historical Perspective: The Myth of the Muscle-Bound Lifter," National Strength & Conditioning Association Journal 7 (June, 1985): 37-41.

Additional Resources

William Blakie and Physical Fitness in the Late 19th Century By Douglas Bryant (Iron Game History, July 1992)

Dudley Allen Sargent: Health Machines and the Energized Male Body By Carolyn de la Peña (Iron Game History, October 2003)

Historical Perspective: The Myth of the Musclebound Lifter By Terry Todd, (NSCA Journal, Vol 7 Num. 3 1985)

The German strongman known as Professor Attila opened a gym in New York City in 1893 with backing from Richard K. Fox of the sporting newspaper called the National Police Gazette. To publicize the gym, Fox arranged for Attila to give strength exhibitions during several major prize fights, and in these exhibitions, Attila's combination of strength and athleticism made a big impression on the public and the boxing community. Attila soon had a number of athletes training at his gym and was delighted when Fox brought to him the reigning world heavyweight champion, "Gentleman" Jim Corbett for training advice. Corbett, who was preparing for a title defense against Charles Mitchell of England, asked Attila to help him with his physical conditioning, especially his punching power. Attila wasn't Corbett's only trainer, of course, but he helped guide the champ in matters of physical conditioning that summer and when the New York Times visited Corbett at his training camp in mid-September, they reported to their readers that Corbett was took long walks in the morning followed by "dumbbell work, pulley weights and wrist machine," and of course, punching the bag." After defeating Mitchell easily, Corbett sent Attila a letter telling him: "Well old boy," "it (meaning your system) done me a great deal of good and I must say it is a wonderful method and might have not a little to do with my recent success." Corbett expressed his appreciation even more publicly in March of 1894, when, during a performance of his theatrical revue "Gentleman Jim," he presented Attila with a gold medal to commemorate the important role he'd played as his strength coach for the title defense. Attila's work with Corbett is one of the most clear-cut examples of weight training being used to prepare an athlete in the nineteenth century. Following Corbett's lead, a number of other boxers also began using Attila's system and added light-weight training to their regimen. Kim Beckwith and Jan Todd, “Requiem for a Strongman: Reassessing the Career of Professor Louis Attila,” Iron Game History 7(2&3) (July, 2002): 42-55.

Professor Attila, Professor Attila's Five Pound Dumb-bell Exercise (New York: Richard K. Fox Publishing Company, 1913).

Additional Resources

Requiem for a Strongman: Reassessing the Career of Professor Louis Attila By Kim Beckwith and Jan Todd (Iron Game History, July 2002)

View a copy of Attila's Five Pound Dumbbell Course (external link)

A letter from Jim Corbett to Professor Attila

Sandow posing. Taken from the Library of Congress

Al Treloar was the winner of Macfadden's 1904 physique competition.

Within two years it had 100,000 subscribers. Quick to understand the value of photography and personal success stories to the magazine's growth, Macfadden announced a worldwide contest for the "Best and Most Perfectly Developed Man and Woman." Contestants submitted photos and measurements that Macfadden then used in his magazine. The most likely candidates then competed in 13 regional competitions in the U.S. and England for the privilege of entering the finals. Macfadden's first "Physical Culture Extravaganza" began on December 28, 1903 and was held in Madison Square Garden. Albert Toof Jennings (1873-1960), known professionally as Al Treloar, won the men's division. In 1907 Treloar was hired as the physical director of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, a position he held for the next 42 years. During those years Treloar encouraged hundreds of young men to lift weights to enhance their sports performance.Jan Todd, "Bernarr Macfadden, Reformer of Feminine Form," Iron Game History 1 (4&5) (March, 1991), 3-8.

Mark Adams, Mr. America: How Muscular Millionaire Bernarr Macfadden Transformed the Nation Through Sex, Salad, and the Ultimate Starvation Diet (New York: Harper Collins, 2009).

Robert Ernst, Weakness is a Crime: The Life of Bernarr Macfadden (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991).

Macfadden held a second physical culture competition in 1905, only this time in addition to posing and showing their physiques, the men and women involved in the contest had to also participate in a series of athletic events. They ran races, lifted weights and visibly demonstrated to the audience at Madison Square Garden that that weight training was not antithetical to sport. Macfadden's other great contribution to the cause of strength training for sport was his inclusion, over the more than 40 years that Physical Culture (remember to keep italics) was regularly published, of dozens of articles linking various forms of resistance training with sport. He also featured images of athletes on his magazine covers hundreds of times.

Additional Resources

Babe Ruth Brought Back by Physical Culture (Physical Culture, August 1926)

Exercise Your Swimming Muscles (Physical Culture, July 1926)

"Bernarr Macfadden, Reformer of Feminine Form" (Iron Game History, March 1991)

In the beginning, the Milo Company sold shot-loading barbells with canister-shaped "bells" on each end. To change the weight, a wing-nut was unscrewed and the lid removed. In 1908 Calvert began producing barbells that used a combination of plates and lead shot to vary the weight which he called the Milo Triplex. Calvert's mass production of barbells and variable resistance dumbbells allowed the practice of lifting to spread much more quickly across America than it would have otherwise and made it easy for universities and YMCAs to purchase reliable weight training equipment.

Calvert's other major contribution to the furtherance of strength training for athletics came through his decision to begin America's first "muscle magazine" in 1914. In Strength magazine, Calvert introduced his readers to what were then considered to be the best methods to build an impressive physique and usable strength. For athletes of all sorts, Strength magazine was considered to be the best and most reliable source of training information in the early twentieth century. Kim Beckwith, “Weight-lifting ‘as a sport, as a means of body building, and as a profession’: Alan Calvert's The Truth About Weight-Lifting,” Iron Game History 10(4) (January 2009): 22-33.

Kim Beckwith "Building Strength: Alan Calvert, The Milo Barbell Company and the Modernization of American Weight Training" (PhD. diss., University of Texas, 1966).

Kim Beckwith and Jan Todd, “Strength, America's First Muscle Magazine: 1914-1935,” Iron Game History 9(1) (August 2005: 11-28.

John D. Fair, “Father Figure or Phony? George Jowett, The ACWLA and the Milo Barbell Company: 1924-1927,” Iron Game History 3(5) (December 1994): 13-25.

Additional Resources

Kim Beckwith and Jan Todd, Strength, America's First Muscle Magazine: 1914-1935, Iron Game History Vol 9 Num. 1 (August 2005: 11-28)

John D. Fair, "Father Figure or Phony? George Jowett, The ACWLA and the Milo Barbell Company: 1924-1927," Iron Game History Vol 3 Num. 5 (December 1994): 13-25.

This original Milo dumbbell now resides at the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center. It is the only known example of Calvert's original design for his dumbbells and barbells.

In nearly every issue of Strength & Health that appeared during its 52 year run, Hoffman provided readers information on weight training and sport, often by profiling prominent athletes who'd benefited from using a progressive resistance exercise. Hoffman also authored two of the most important early books in the field of strength and conditioning. In 1959 he wrote Better Athletes through Weight Training and in 1961 brought out Weight Training for Athletes. These two books helped launch the weight training for sport boom of the 1960s.

What's more, whenever possible Hoffman made the case for weight training and sport publicly in numerous speaking engagements and exhibitions of muscular strength and dexterity featuring athletes like John Grimek and John Davis. Although other magazine publishers also followed his lead, there is no argument that, during the middle decades of the twentieth century Hoffman was the pivotal figure in dispelling the "myth of the musclebound athlete." Hoffman's tireless preaching on the benefits of weight training for athletes influenced thousands of individuals such as strength coaching pioneer Alvin Roy and sport scientist Dr. Peter Karpovich, both of whom helped to shift the paradigms of their respective fields toward a more accurate understanding of the benefits of strength training for athletic performance. Bob Hoffman, "How to Improve at Your Chosen Sport," Strength & Health 1 (December 1932), 8.

Bob Hoffman, Better Athletes through Weight Training (York, PA: Strength and Health Publishing; 1959).

Bob Hoffman, Weight Training for Athletes (New York: Ronald Press, 1961).

John D. Fair, Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell (State College: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999).

John D. Fair, "America's Mecca for Muscle Builders" Pennsylvania Heritage 25 (2) (Spring, 1999): 24-31.

Jim Murray, "More Memories of Bob Hoffman," Iron Game History 3(2) (January 1994): 5-7.

Terry Todd, "Remembering Bob Hoffman," Iron Game History 3(1) (September 1993): 18-23.

Additional Resources

More Memories of Bob Hoffman (Iron Game History, January 1994)

Remembering Bob Hoffman (Iron Game History, September 1993)

"Bob Hoffman Biography" From (ExplorePAhistory.com)

In addition to covering Olympic weight lifting and bodybuilding, Hoffman included at least one article in nearly every issue extolling the benefits of weight training for sports. Among the most compelling of these articles were those profiling prominent athletes such as the one on Olympic decathlete Bob Richards, who won a gold medal in 1952 and was also a dedicated weight trainer. This slide show includes a few other early examples.

Stranahan was featured several times in Bob Hoffman's Strength and Health magazine in the 1940s and 1950s and though his main avocation was golf he also participated in a number of weightlifting contests in the early years of his career. Because of the scarcity of gyms in this era, Stranahan often carried weights in the trunk of his car and, as can be imagined, the press made a great deal of his unusual training method. He was even invited to appear on the Ed Sullivan show where he deadlifted 500 pounds.

Said Stranahan of his involvement with weight training,

"I'll tell it to you straight...my lifting was an enormous advantage to me. Quite frankly, without it, I'd never have been able to hold my head up with the likes of Snead and Hogan. My natural talent for the game wasn't nearly what theirs was, but I was so determined to become a great golfer that I made myself so strong and fit that I could overcome some of my weaknesses. I started lifting when I was in high school to help me with my other sports but I noticed that it really put some distance on my drives. And through the years I kept getting stronger. I was even the longest driver on the Tour for awhile. But I was almost twice as strong as most of the other men and I got that way by doing full body exercises with heavy weights—things that make your whole body strong."

Despite his success, few other golfers in this era followed in Stranahan's footsteps as the sport of golf was one of the last strongholds of the myth of musclebinding. In fact, many golfers didn't enter the modern era of strength training for sport until 1985 when the Diversified Products Company asked to sponsor a travelling gymnasium for the tour. That travelling gym revolutionized the game of golf.

Additional Resources

The PGA Tour's Traveling Gym: How it Began (Iron Game History, April 1994)

When John Grimek began working for Bob Hoffman in 1938, Hoffman quickly realized that Grimek was not only the living embodiment of most men's dream of muscularity but, that he was also the perfect person to demonstrate to coaches, physical educators, and the public at large why the notion of musclebinding was so wrongheaded. Photographs of Grimek's amazing flexibility and stories of his athleticism filled the pages of Strength & Health in the 1940s and 1950s and those articles and images helped to convince many skeptical readers that regular weight training would help them, as Hoffman always said, "in their chosen sport."

Another important way in which Grimek helped the cause was by taking part in the many public exhibitions arranged by Bob Hoffman and the York Barbell Club in front of YMCA personnel, physical educators, and other interested groups. Whenever Hoffman was asked to bring some lifters and put on an exhibition, he would accept if at all possible—and he almost always brought John Grimek, the two time Mr. America with him. Grimek would normally demonstrate some Olympic lifting, then do some posing, and would finish by doing a full split and then bending over and touching his elbows to the floor. The vision of Grimek's large, powerful, yet extremely flexible muscles on the people in the audience was always dramatic and more than one individual has argued that Grimek's body was as important as any book to the change among athletes on the matter of strength training. Hoffman, a skillfull promoter, knew that change would only occur when the public had visible evidence that a man could have large muscles and still be flexible and quick in his movements. John Grimek was that evidence. Jan and Terry Todd, "John Grimek," St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture Jan 29, 2002 viewed at findarcticles.com.

John D. Fair, Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell (State College: Pennsylvania University Press, 1999).

David L. Chapman, "John Grimek: The Glow that Never Failed," viewed at musclememory.com.

Earle Liederman, "Strong Men I Have Known," Vim (June 1940): 8-9. 24.

Gordon Venables, "John Grimek As I Know Him," Your Physique (April 1952): 20-23, 47-50. 

David Webster, Barbells and Beefcake (Irvine, Scotland: author, 1979).

Terry Todd, "John Grimek: 1910-1998," Iron Game History 5(3) (December 1998): 1-3. View at: http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/IGH/IGH0503/IGH0503a.pdf.

Terry and Jan Todd, "John Grimek—The Man: A Special Double Issue of Iron Game History Commemorating the Life of John Grimek," Iron Game History, 5(6) and 6(1) (April 1999), 1-72.

Additional Resources

John Grimek: 1910-1998 (Iron Game History, December 1998).

John Grimek- The Man: A Special Double Issue of Iron Game History Commemorating the Life of John Grimek (Iron Game History, April 1999).

When Abbye "Pudgy" Eville and her boyfriend, Les Stockton, began to meet on the beach in Santa Monica in the summer of 1939, they were originally just interested in practicing gymnastics with a small circle of friends. However, as their numbers grew, a platform was built just south of the Santa Monica pier, space was designated for barbell and dumbbell training, and the area became known as Muscle Beach.

By the early 1940s, Muscle Beach was famous internationally and most of the participants were interested in both weight lifting and gymnastics. On weekends, the several dozen young men and women who regularly gathered at Muscle Beach to work out and practice acrobatics would often be surrounded by enormous crowds, as if they were putting on a show. As they built pyramids and threw each other through the air, some of them also stopped by the weight pit doing their training in public so that the crowds saw them participating in both activities.

The physical beauty and amazing dexterity of many of the weight-trained athletes made Muscle Beach popular with photographers and film makers. Hundreds of photos were taken in the two decades when Muscle Beach was at its height that appeared in newspapers across America. Further, the example of athletes such as Jack LaLanne, Pudgy and Les Stockton, Relna Brewer McRae, Harold Zinkin, Steve Reeves, George Eiferman and other less well known athletes went a long way toward convincing those who dropped by the platform and saw them lift and tumble that the use of barbells and dumbbells would not make a person "musclebound." Harold Zinkin and Bonnie Hearn, Remembering Muscle Beach Where Hard Bodies Began (Los Angeles: Angel City Press, 1999).

Jan Todd, "The Legacy of Pudgy Stockton," Iron Game History 2(1) (January 1992): 5-7. PDF at: http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/IGH/IGH0201/IGH0201c.pdf.

Additional Resources

The Legacy of Pudgy Stockton (Iron Game History, January 1992)

Murray's profile of Richards was a coup for Bob Hoffman and his crusade to promote the benefits of strength training for improving athletic performance. Richards, who won the AAU's Sullivan Award in 1951, given to the nation' best amateur athlete, was arguably one of the most high profile athletes in America in the 1950s and to have his image on the cover of Hoffman's magazine undoubtedly inspired many other young track and field athletes track athletes throughout the United States. Until this point, profiles of Richards in other media outlets such as the Saturday Evening Post, had failed to mention the importance of Richard's training with weights as a factor in his athletic success. Murray, however, outlined Richards's specific training program and analyzed how the exercises contributed to his success in related track and field events. According to Murray, the Richards workout routine emphasized 1) approximately 30 vaults, 2) five to ten 60-yard wind sprints, 3) rope climbing, 4) 15-20 minutes of weight training, 5) freehand exercises such as handstand pushups, and 6) gymnastic exercises.Jim Murray, "Training Program of Rev. Bob Richards," Strength & Health (July, 1952), 10-11, 36, 39, 41.

Harry T. Paxton, "The Big-Talking, Pole-Vaulting Parson, Saturday Evening Post (January 19, 1952).

Additional Resources

Training Schedule of Rev. Bob Richards (Strength and Health, July 1952)

Billy Cannon on the importance of Al Roy in weight training for football

Alvin Roy: Strength and Conditioning Coach by the CSCA

Zinkin's dream was to sell "weight machines" that would make strength training accessible to a much broader range of potential trainers, including school children and athletes. The result, the multi-station Universal Gym, allowed a number of people to work out simultaneously at its different stations, took up a relatively small amount of floor space, and was extremely safe.

Zinkin was no doubt inspired in this quest by Walt Marcyan's similar multi-station weight-stack machine which had never really caught on with schools and universities. With his Universal machine and an ambitious advertising campaign, however, Zinkin quickly captured the institutional market and thousands of units were sold in the 1960s and 1970s to schools, colleges, public gyms, and professional sports teams.

Because of their convenience and relative safety, Universal Gyms helped to establish resistance exercise as an accessible part of a training program for athletes of all levels. Reflecting on his legacy and the impact of the Universal Gym on strength training for athletes, Zinkin once wrote, "If I'm proud of anything, it's that machine and the fact that there probably isn't one professional athlete in the world who hasn't worked out on a Universal at least once."Harold Zinkin, Remembering Muscle Beach (Los Angeles: Angel City Press, 1999).

“Obituaries: Harold Zinkin, 82; Muscle Beach Pioneer Invented Weight Machine,” Los Angeles Times, 24 September 2004, viewed online at: articles.latimes.com.

In the 1950s, common wisdom—based on work done in physical rehabilitation by Thomas DeLorme— held that trainers should use three sets of ten repetitions in order to increase strength. In 1962, however, after testing this hypothesis Berger published two important articles in Research Quarterly, "The Effect of Varied Weight Training Programs on Strength," and "Optimum Repetitions for Developing Strength," which suggested that lower repetitions, such as three sets of six would be more efficacious for real strength gains. Berger was one of the first researchers to apply modern testing procedures and statistical analysis toward an understanding of the effects of varying sets, repetitions, and loads on the development of functional strength for athletic performance and his findings helped athletes reah greater heights of strength. Terry Todd and Jan Todd, "Pioneers of Strength Research: The Legacy of Dr. Richard A. Berger," Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 15(3) (August, 2001), 275-278.

Richard A. Berger, "The Effect of Varied Weight Training Programs on Strength," Research Quarterly 33 (1962), 168-181.

Richard A. Berger, "Optimum Repetitions for Developing Strength," Research Quarterly 33 (1962), 334-338.

Additional Resources

Pioneers of Strength Research: The Legacy of Dr. Richard A. Berger by Terry Todd and Jan Todd (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2001, 15(3), 275-278)

In August of 1963 Weider changed the name of one of his publications, Mr. America, to All-American Athlete: Mr. America and shifted its focus to the topic of strength training for sport. All-American Athlete had a much larger circulation than Marcyan's Physical Power and because of the excellent photographers Weider employed, his athlete profiles proved inspirational as he chose photos that showed the bodies of athletes to best advantage and placed those photos in layouts that were dynamic and more aesthetically pleasing than those of any other magazine in the field at that time. Weider, along with his brother, Ben, also founded the International Federation of Bodybuilders, created the Mr. Olympia and Ms. Olympia contests, and made many other contributions to the world of weight training. Although All-American Athlete ceased publication in 1968, Weider remained committed to the idea of a sports-training muscle magazine and in January of 1985 launched Sports Fitness which ran for three years and featured such major celebrities as football star Lyle Alzado, baseball player Kirk Gibson, and marathoner Joan Benoit.Joe and Ben Weider with Mike Steere, Brothers of Iron: Building the Weider Empire (Los Angeles, Sport Publishing, 2005).

Jan Todd, Joe Roark and Terry Todd, "A Briefly Annotated Bibliography of English Language Serial Publications in the Field of Physical Culture," Iron Game History 1(4&5) (March 1991): 26-40.