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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 6 - The Sides - By Alan Calvert
Illustrations are randomly selected from the book (too numerous to post them all) and are not necessarily from the same chapter.
In his book on physical education, Dr. Felix Oswald said, in some parts of England, the title of "the strongest man in the neighborhood" was awarded to the man who could take the heaviest weight on his shoulder and walk with it
the longest distance with the firmest step. That, by the way, is a very fair test of bodily strength. If a man is weak in the back he cannot even get the weight on his shoulder in the first place. If he is weak in the knees (that is, if his leg muscles are weak) his legs will "buckle" at the knees, and he will shamble along after he has carried the weight a very short distance; and
a little after that he will collapse entirely under the weight. A man with strong back and legs must successfully carry a weight which rested on both shoulders; but, unless he had strong sides he wouldn't get very far with the weight on one shoulder, because when you do have a heavy weight on one shoulder the tendency of the weight is to pull you over sideways. With even
a moderately heavy weight on the right shoulder the tendency is to thrust the hips toward the right in order to better balance the weight. When the hips are thus thrust out of thier proper alignment, it becomes impossible to walk
with a firm, even tread. Again, no man can hold a heavy weight on the shoulder unless he has great strength in the trapezius muscle, which lifts, or sustains the shoulder. If the trapezius is weak, the shoulder under the
weight will slump, and the weight will roll off. There is a concrete example of what I mean by bodily strength; and I again want to emphasize the fact that super-strength is immense bodily strength, and not just arm-strength.
If you have ever tried to carry a 200-lb. Box or trunk on the shoulder, it will make you appreciate the bodily strength of a man like Horace Barre, who one put a 1270-lb. bar-bell on one shoulder and walked about fifty feet with it. CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE
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