SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 11 - The Swing and the Snatch - By Alan Calvert

So far I have said practically nothing about the upper arms, and have mentioned the arm muscles only incidentally, as they were involved in chest or shoulder-developing exercises. I did this deliberately with the attempt to make you realize the greater importance of back and leg strength to the super-strong man. Suppose we now analyze one lift in which a dumbbell is lifted to arms' length above the head in order that you may see how, in that lift, the bulk of the work is done by the shoulders, back and legs, and only a small part of the work done by the upper arm muscles.

In this lift, which is called the "one-arm swing," it is best to use a dumbbell. You stand with the feet apart and well braced with a dumbbell parallel to the feet, and the rear sphere a couple of inches beyond the toes. You lean over by inclining the body forward from the hips and by bending at the knees. Gripping the dumbbell with your hand close to the front sphere you lift it from the floor and swing it back between the legs - as in Fig. 62 - keeping the arm straight.

This is simply to give you a start, because after the bell has reached the position in Fig. 62 you swing it forward again (keeping the right arm straight) in a semicircular movement until the hand which holds the bell is above your head. This is only a general description. What actually happens is that when the bell is opposite your eyes you quickly bend your knees and sit on your heels (as in Fig. 63), thus lowering your body in a way which enables you to get underneath the mounting bell. If you omit this second dip of the legs you will raise anywhere from 40 to 80 lbs. less than if you do use the legs correctly. If you will compare Fig. 62, showing the position at the commencement of the upward swing, with Fig. 12 in the chapter about back exercises, it will be seen that the positions are practically identical. The amount of vigor which you can put into swinging the bell forward and upward depends on the power with which you can press against the floor with your feet, and the vigor with which you can bring the body back to the erect position. The more time you have spent in practicing the back and leg exercises, the more weight you will be able to "swing" aloft.

The arm movement, which is forward and upward, is caused by the vigorous contractions of the muscles on the shoulder and upper back; therefore, exercises like the one illustrated in Fig. 12, which develop the shoulder, also give you the kind of strength you need in this one-arm swing. In the chapter on leg exercises you were advised to practice constantly the exercise illustrated in Fig. 28, because that particular exercise not only developed the muscles in the thighs, but gave you the confidence necessary to sit on the heels while holding a weight at arms' length overhead. Unless you have practiced that exercise diligently you will find that you have not the confidence necessary to successfully complete a one-arm swing. There are lots of fine points about this lift; as for instance the pressing against the left thigh with the left hand which gives you a brace and assists you in straightening the body. There are a lot of details about "timing" - which is the art of selecting the exact fraction of a second when the bell has lost the impetus given it by the act of straightening the body and legs, and at which instant it is necessary to lower the body by the second bend of the knees. Some lifters at the start of the swing place the bell on the floor behind them and dispense with the preliminary backward swing. Some lifters bend the body sideways instead of straight downwards at the completion of the lift.

But it is not the aim of this book to give instructions in scientific lifting. Its object is to show you how to get more strength and to tell you about what constitutes real strength. It is necessary to tell you something about the technique of the lifts so that you can understand why it is that some of these skillful experts are able to lift such enormous weights. It is perfectly possible for you to get a beautifully proportioned and magnificently developed body without ever practicing any of what we call "the standard lifts," but it is very likely that after you have developed super-strength you will like to occasionally make a test to know how you compare with others; and such a test would be greatly to you disadvantage if you did not employ the methods which skilled lifters employ.

In the old times a man who attempted the swing would stand with his legs almost straight, and bend over by arching his back. He would by a tremendous effort swing the bell at arm's length above his head, and would not employ the second bend of the legs as modern lifters do. Consequently, even the biggest and strongest old-timers could not do more than 125 lbs. in the one-arm swing; whereas modern lifters do a great deal more than that. The old-time lifter was considered good if he could make a one-arm swing with a dumbbell which weighed a little more than half as much as he did himself; while the aim of a modern lifter is to make a one-arm swing with a dumbbell of his own weight. The world's record (so far as I know) is 199 lbs., which was accomplished by the French lifter, Jean Francois (Fig. 64). Several professionals and a few amateurs have swung over 190 lbs., and 175 to 180 lbs. is nothing extraordinary for a big man to swing. I have never yet seen or heard of a big man swinging a dumbbell of his own weight, although the feat has been accomplished by several small men. I believe that Thos. Inch, of London, weighing 160 lbs., did a one-arm swing with 160 1/2 lbs. The present English record in the heavy-weight class is the 170-lb. lift of Edward Aston, and I believe that Aston himself does not weigh much more than that.

To successfully perform a one-arm swing with a bell almost as heavy as you are requires great speed of movement and accurate muscular co-ordination, as well as great bodily strength. To be successful in the quick lifts; such as the swing, the snatch and the jerk, you must have the speed of movement and the clever footwork of a boxer.

The point to be particularly noted is that when you perform a one-arm swing you do not feel the arm muscles working. The arm itself is held straight (though not rigid) throughout the entire lift, and it is just the part of you that transmits to the bell the power exerted by the contraction of the leg, back and shoulder muscles. If you use a moderate weight and perform a one-arm swing several times in succession, you get a fine exercise and one which will be valuable in teaching you co-ordination. It is necessary to learn all these "quick lifts" with a bell of such weight that you can handle it easily; but once you have mastered the principle governing the lift you will be able to increase the weight used very rapidly. In this one-arm swing you will probably be able to increase your record one hundred per cent within a few weeks after you do learn the methods, providing you have properly trained your back and legs. The advantage of making several successive lifts with a moderate weight is that the beginner always has a tendency to use too much arm strength and to try to finish the movement by an arm push. When making several repetitions the beginner's arm will tire rapidly, and about the third repetition he will find that, unconsciously, he is bending his knees more, and thus getting under the bell by lowering the body instead of by pushing with the arm. The more tired his arm gets the more he will bend his legs, and after a little experience of this kind he will be wise enough to do the second bend of the knees properly every time he swings the bell aloft. (Note: It is possible to use a kettle-bell instead of a dumbbell in the one-arm swing, but when using a kettle-bell you have to rotate the arm when the bell is opposite your face, so as to make the bell swing around and land on the back of the forearm, as in Fig. 65 (Frontispiece). This is a complicated motion that can be learned only by practice. If you do not rotate the arm correctly the kettle-bell will land against the upper arm with a jar that might break a bone.) Since you can swing more weight in the shape of a dumbbell than in the shape of a kettle-bell it is hardly worth the bother to learn the method of using a kettle-bell. Sandow made a one-arm swing with a kettle-bell weight, I think, 173 lbs. (I never heard his record with the dumbbell, but I am sure that he could swing a 190-lb. dumbbell.)

A somewhat similar and more popular lift is known as the "one-arm snatch," in which a bar-bell is used. The lifter stands back of the bell with the handle touching his ankles, leans over by bending the knees and inclining the body forward from the hips. In this lift you don't bend as far as you do in the one-arm swing and, therefore, it is necessary to round the back slightly. The bell is supposed to be pulled straight upwards in one unbroken line until it is at arm's length above the head, but most lifters raise the bell slightly forward as well as upward. In the one-arm swing the lifting arm is held straight throughout the entire performance of the lift, but in the one-arm snatch the arm is bent almost double when the bell is opposite the face. Just the same as in the swing, the lifter gets under the bell by lowering the body, and the correct instant at which to make the shift is when the bell has reached the level of the eyes. At the start of the snatch you stand up quickly, which means that you press hard against the floor with the feet, and straighten the legs and back at the same time; and if the movement is done correctly the bell will almost fly from the floor until it is opposite the chest. Continued practice is needed before you can exert sufficient power to make it fly up as high as the eyes. When the bell is that high you loosen your grip on the handle bar and instantaneously sit on your heels by bending the legs. This has to be done so quickly that you are under the bell with a straight arm, as in Fig. 66, before the bell has had time to drop an inch.

In the old times 100 lbs. was a good record in the snatch lift, because the lifters tried to throw the bell aloft solely by back and arm strength. The present record is somewhere between 215 and 220 lbs. Three years ago I erroneously stated that Henry Steinborn had created a new record when he made a one-arm snatch in Philadelphia with 208 lbs. I thought that the best previous lift was Vasseur's 205 lbs. I find that Vasseur has done close to 220 lbs. The night that Steinborn made his American record he had a few minutes before just barely failed to snatch 218 1/2 lbs. One of the most important parts of the snatch lift is where you ease up on your grip at the instant when you're getting under the bell, and in some cases they have gotten over this difficulty by using plate bar-bells in which the plates revolve very easily. Steinborn made his lift with the bell shown in Fig. 23. The plates fitted snugly over sleeves, which, in turn, fitted over the handle bar of the bar-bell. Between the sleeves and the bar there was a coating of vaseline; consequently the sleeves and plates would rotate very easily on the bar, making it unnecessary for Steinborn to loosen his grip. The night he made his record he snatched 208 lbs., and I know he could have done 220 in a one-arm snatch if that had been the only lift on the program. He did not push himself in the snatch, which was the first lift of the evening, because he was anxious, later on, to break Cyr's record in the two-arm "clean and jerk"; which he did.

I was told that Steinborn had a special bar constructed in which the sleeves revolved on ballbearings fitted between them and the bar. He came to me several days after he made his records, and when I told him I had found that Vasseur had done nearly 220 lbs. he wanted to make a bet with me that he could beat anything Vasseur did. He told me that he would try for a new record in the one-arm snatch, and if I would give him $100 for every pound over 230, he would give me $10 for every pound under 230 if he failed to reach that mark. As I had seen the man do over 220 in practice, I knew that he could do (especially if he trained for one particular lift), I declined the bet and saved my money. This man, although very powerfully made, was as quick on his feet as Benny Leonard, or any light-weight boxer. The records in all quick lifts are at his mercy. When, to his prodigious strength, he adds his speed of movement and his sense of timing, he can transmit to a bar-bell an incredible momentum. (By the way, when he does the snatch he uses a peculiar grip. Instead of holding the bell with the thumb outside the fingers he bends his thumb and puts it under the center of the bar and holds it there by placing the fingers outside of it. He claims that this makes it easier for him to make the "shift.")

In mentioning the records I have had to give those of the European lifters. This positively does not mean that the Europeans are any stronger than the men of this country. In Europe they have used bar-bells for years and competitive weight-lifting is a major sport. Consequently, the European lifters have, by the use of bar-bells, developed enormous strength and, by frequent competitive work, learned all the niceties of style. We, in this country, can do the same thing; in fact, we have done the same thing. Arthur Gildroy, who weights 135 lbs., has made a one-arm snatch with 146 lbs., and the other American lifters who have specialized on the snatch-lifting have done practically as well as the foreign lifters. There is no country of its size which produces as many really "Strong Men" as does this country. The Dominion of Quebec, Canada, produces natural "Strong Men" in wholesale quantities. In Finland they breed enormous men; but both Quebec and Finland are comparatively small, while this country is big. We have such an abundance of high-grade raw material that if we cared to go into competitive lifting I believe that America would hold the world's supremacy in that sport, just as it does in most other sports.

I have a friend in Philadelphia by the name of Jas. B. Juvenal, an ex-champion oarsman. From the time he was sixteen, Juvenal owned and used a 75-lb. dumbbell and a 150-lb. bar-bell. he had no adjustable bells because they were hard to get when he was a boy. He kept these bells at his boat club, and one day when he went to practice with them they were missing. The janitor said that he had been ordered by the captain of the club to throw the bells into the river. Juvenal hunted up the captain and have his orders that the bells should be fished up again. As his reason for disposing of the bells the captain said that he was afraid that some of the younger club members would start exercising with them, and in that way get "stiff and muscle-bound." Whereupon, Juvenal stated that he had been using those bells for a dozen years, and that in all that time no man out of the hundreds who rowed on that river had been able to keep abreast of him - much less beat him - and that by using the bar-bells he had vastly increased his muscular power and never lost a bit of his speed of movement. This Mr. Juvenal is so strong that when we once held a competition at the "one-arm pull-over" the only man who could beat him was the famous Joe Nordquest; Juvenal took second place over a lot of celebrated "Strong Men." I once asked him to try a one-arm snatch with a 135-lb. bar-bell. This bell was a solid affair with a handle bar 1 1/2 inches thick. Juvenal made the lift, but it was not a true snatch. He actually made a back-handed swing with the bar-bell; that is, he kept his arm straight just as though he were swinging a dumbbell. If he had used a thin-handled bar-bell and known the correct way to snatch the bell, he could easily have done 180 to 190 lbs., as he weighed over 200 lbs. himself. Although he must be over 50 years of age I know that he could make an American amateur record in the snatch if he were enough interested to practice the method.

In concluding this chapter I wish to say that I have never seen a star at the snatch or swing of was not beautifully built. The top-heavy man - the man with the big shoulders and thin legs - falls down utterly when he is asked to "swing" or "snatch" a really heavy weight. The men who hold the records in the swing and snatch are beautifully made. Their proportions are admirable, and they are of surpassing symmetry. Since the "quick lifts" require bodily strength it means that to succeed at these lifts you must have a body which is developed from head to heel.

But don't let us forget to analyze the action of the arm in the one-arm snatch. Because the weight it pulled almost directly upward the arm has to be bent as the bell mounts. When you first take hold of the bar the arm is straight and the knuckles of the hand are forward. (It would be impossible to make a snatch if you held the hand with the palm forward.) Therefore, the action of the arm is just the same as in the exercise for the upper back, illustrated in Fig. 49; and that, by the way, is the reason I described that exercise before I described the snatch lift. After the bell has reached the height of the face and you make the shift, the arm muscles are used hardly at all; because, if you bend your knees quick enough and far enough, your haunches will drop so that you can get your body straight up and down, and your lifting-arm straight up and down under the bell. Then all you have to do is to stand erect to complete the lift. Here is another reason for practicing the exercise shown in Fig. 28.

Now let us go back to Mr. Juvenal. When he was in his racing shell and started a stroke, his body was bent forward almost double, and his knees against his chest; and as he made the stroke he straightened his legs, drew his body backwards and pulled his hands straight in; using the same muscles as you would use in a snatch lift. I understand that he could put such immense power into his stroke that he never was beaten in a quarter-mile sprint rowing race, and so it is no wonder that he is able to make a fine record in a one-arm snatch. Also it will be noted that as a young man he claimed the world's championship in the stunt where you sit down facing another man, and both of you pull on a broom handle. The winner is the man that pulls the other man off the floor. In this stung one competitor presses the soles of his feet against the feet of the other man; and, as it is necessary to bend the knees slightly so as to lean forward and grasp the broom handle, the position is very much the same as at the beginning of the stroke in rowing. (I said "broom handle," but in lumber camps they use an ax handle. A broom handle would not last very long when gripped by two men of gigantic strength.) Once again let me say that I have found oarsmen to be far above the average in strength, especially those oarsmen who have devoted a lot of time to single sculling. They are an erect, square-shouldered, flat-back crowd, and their rowing has developed in them a keen sense of co-ordination. Almost any oarsman can be developed into a fine bar-bell lifter and can, if he cares to, greatly improve his physique by using bar-bells. He starts out with the advantage of knowing that it is important to know how to apply his strength. Juvenal, whose shoulders are immensely broad, has a chest of unusual depth. When he lies flat on his back and does the chest-developing exercise (Fig. 42) his chest swells up almost like a balloon as he lowers the bell.

Read More »

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 10 - The Shoulder Muscles - By Alan Calvert

The true shoulder muscles are the ones on the points of the shoulders which cover the shoulder-joint. These muscles are called the "deltoids" because they are triangular shaped like the Greek letter Delta ((). The base of the triangle is fastened to the bones which form the shoulder-girdle, and the point of the muscle is attached to the bone of the upper arm. When the muscle contracts it lifts the arm outwards and upwards. The anterior (forward) set of fibres (that is, the fibres nearest the collar bone) lift the arm forwards and upwards; the lateral muscle-fibres lift the arms sideways and upwards, and the posterior fibres lift it backwards and upwards. The posterior fibres are brought into active play when you lift a kettle-bell, as in Fig. 49, and that exercise, which develops the latissimus muscle, also develops the back of your deltoid muscles.

Any time that you lift and object above your head you are giving your deltoids very vigorous work. In light-exercise courses the pupil is told to take a 5-lb. dumbbell in each hand; to stand with the arms hanging at the sides, and then raise the arms until they are level with the shoulders. Part of the time he is to lift the arms straight out in front of him, but most of the time he raises them sideways. These two movements leave the back of the deltoids untouched, and I think it was Prof. Barker who suggested that the body be inclined forward from the hips before lifting the bells sideways. This variation brings more of the muscle into play. The deltoids are so powerful that it takes more than 5-lb. weights to develop them. For some reason or other straight-arm raising is one of the most exhausting of all exercises, and when you use 10, 15, or 20 lbs. the work of raising the arms from the hang to the horizontal position is very tiring.

A much easier way to develop the deltoids is to practice lifting moderately heavy dumbbells or bar-bells to arms' length above the head; and if you use a dumbbell in a certain way you can get a most beautiful development of the deltoids. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred have the idea that when a "Strong Man" pushes a big dumbbell overhead the work is done entirely by the muscles of the upper arm, forgetting that, while the triceps muscles on the back of the upper arm will straighten the arm after it is bent, the actual work of raising the arm above the head is done by the deltoids. This explains why so many men with fine upper arms fail utterly when they try to push aloft even a moderately heavy weight. Every one of you is familiar with what we call the "floor-dip," where the athlete first assumes the position shown in Fig. 50, and while keeping his body rigidly straight, raises and lowers it by bending and straightening the arms. The average physical culturist, who can do this only three or four times when he first learns it, becomes able in a few months' practice to repeat it 30, 40, or even 50 times. By so doing he gets a fair development of the outer head of the triceps muscle, and a good development of the pectoral muscles on the breast, but hardly any development of the deltoids on the shoulders. When he is asked to take a 75-lb. dumbbell in his right hand and raise it to arms' length above the head he can't even start it on its upward journey away from the shoulder, and this puzzles him very much, because he knows that his upper arms are strong. He is still more surprised if he sees a workman, who has been accustomed to using a pick and shovel, push the dumbbell up fairly easily - especially if that workman happens to have an upper arm smaller than his own. The explanation is that every time the workman raises a pick-ax above his head he uses his deltoids, and every time he scoops up a shovelful of dirt and chucks that dirt onto a high pile, it is his deltoids which lift his arms. I hope eventually to convince you that his upper-arm muscles are the last thing a "Strong Man" worries about. He knows that if he fully develops the deltoids and the muscles on the upper body which control the movement of the whole arm, and if he develops the wrist and forearm to the full, his upper arm muscles will develop almost of their own accord, and will be equal to any demand he can put upon them.

If you take a moderately heavy bar-bell in your two hands, stand with your feet apart and well braced, keep your body upright, and push the bar-bell to arms' length several times in succession, as in Fig. 51, you will develop the triceps and deltoid muscles at the same time; but you will get more effect in the shoulder muscles than in the arm muscles. No one of you should go anywhere near the limit of your arm strength in this exercise until you have strengthened the lower back by practicing the exercises in Chapter II. An easier way to develop the deltoids is to use a pair of kettle-bells and to push the arms aloft one at a time, as in Fig. 52. As you raise the right arm you should lower the left arm, and at the completion of the movement, after the right arm has been straightened, you should reach up with the right shoulder and reach down as far as possible with the left elbow. When the left arm goes up and straightens you reach up with the left shoulder and down with the right elbow. This little extra motion at the end of the lift will add greatly to the strength and development of the shoulder muscles, and should not be omitted. If you start with 15 lbs. in each hand you can quickly work up until it is easy to do it with 40 lbs. in each hand. I have seen a professional start his work out by doing this exercise with 75 lbs. in each hand; and he did it not as a feat of strength but just as an exercise to warm up the shoulder muscles.

There is another and even better way of using a dumbbell for shoulder and upper back development. (The two things cannot be separated.) In your upper arm the biceps-flexor bends the arm, and it is opposed by the triceps which straightens or extends the arm. The deltoids and some of the back muscles oppose each other in the same way, and when you find a man with big, rounded muscles on the points of his shoulders you almost invariably find that that man has an equally remarkable development of the muscles of the upper back and broad of the back. (By the way, in our line of business the broad of the back does not mean the widest part of the back between the shoulders. The small of the back is that part of your back at your waist-line. The broad of the back is where the back starts, just above the waist, and spreads out to the arm pits. That part of the back above the arm pits is always alluded to as the shoulders, or the upper back.) There is a great deal of difference between being broad backed and broad shouldered. A man with a big frame, but no muscular development, can have broad shoulders and yet, owing to lack of muscular development, be narrow in the broad of the back. The following exercise develops both shoulder and back muscles.

Take a 25-lb. dumbbell and lift it to your shoulder. Step forward with the left foot, which makes you stand about as in Fig. 53. Rest most of your weight on that advanced left foot; lean your body over in the direction to which the left toes point, and as you lean over push the bell to arm's length with the right arm. Straighten up, and, as you do so, lower the right arm slowly, so that when the arm is down the hand holding the bell will be just opposite the shoulder and about 8 inches away from the shoulder, as in Fig. 54. The arm must be lowered slowly. And as it is lowered you must deliberately harden the muscles on the right side of the upper back, so that the horizontal right upper arm will be supported on a shelf of muscle. If you get the trick correctly you will find that all you have to do is to again bear your weight on your left foot, bend your body over and the bell will go up almost of its own accord. You should use a bell of such a weight that you can repeat the movement ten or twelve times. All the benefit comes from the way you do the exercise, and the weight used is of less importance. It is folly to use a 5- or 10-lb. dumbbell, because so little weight would throw no "developing strain" on the muscles. It is just as much of a mistake to use a bell which requires all your strength to put it aloft. If you think this is a "lift" and waste your time in seeing how much weight you can push to arm's length, the development you get will be very disappointing. If you use a moderate weight and do the exercise correctly you will get simply wonderful shoulder and back muscles. The back muscles are developed through the act of contracting them as you lower the arm. The deltoid is developed by the act of raising the bell, but even more by the way you lower the bell. In Fig. 54 the hand holding the bell is almost halfway to the muscled-out position. Practically every man can start with 25, 30, or 35 lbs. This movement develops the muscles so rapidly that it is possible to increase the weight of the bell a couple of pounds per week. If you are a light man 50 lbs. should be your limit; if you are a big man you can go as high as 65 lbs., but you must always keep firmly fixed in your head the idea that this is a developing exercise and is not a lift in any sense of the word. No man could make a big one-arm lift in this style, although it is almost the best possible training for some of the muscles used in overhead lifting.

Look at any illustrated book written by those travelers who have visited South Africa, the South Sea Islands or other parts of the globe where the natives wear by few clothes. In the photographs showing the natives you will see that all of the men have quite large pectoral or breast muscles, even though they show by little development in the arms. I have never been able to satisfactorily account for such development, because in civilized lands the only men who show that development are gymnasts. These same muscles are distinctly outlined in the old Greek statues. Some of the great "Strong Men" have highly developed pectoral muscles, but these muscles are not particularly noticeable, because they are accompanied by equal development in the neighboring part of the body. At present there seems to be a cult among physical culturists for development of the breast muscles. If you will turn to the various pictures of celebrated "Strong Men" which appear in this volume you will not find one man who shows anything abnormal in the way of breast-muscle development. If a man has big muscles on the upper front chest and little development elsewhere, naturally, these muscles will appear abnormally large, but if the shoulders are wide, the deltoids well developed, and the arms covered with muscle, then the pectorals don't seem nearly so big. In the picture of Sandow, Fig. 55, you can see pair of pectorals just as big as those of the average Zulu, but you don't notice these muscles unless you look for them, because they harmonize with the rest of his development. These pectoral muscles are not nearly as important as some of you think they are. Anyone who has spent a lot of time at the "floor dip" or "dipping" on the parallel bars, or who did Roman-ring work, is bound to have highly developed pectoral muscles, but the finest pectorals I ever saw on any man were on a weight-lifter who rarely practiced dipping. If he did the floor-dip at all he did it with his arms straight, holding them stretched out beyond the head or straight out to the sides. When you do the floor-dip with the arms straight, the chest can be raised only a few inches from the floor, and the work of raising the body is done by the muscles which control the arms. The pectorals get the hardest work in that variation of the floor-dip when the arms are stretched straight out to the sides. The lifter in question, instead of doing the floor-dip, would lie flat on his back with a 40-lb. dumbbell in each hand (Fig. 56), and spread his arms out to the sides, and while keeping the arms stiff and straight bring the hands together by lifting the arms. Few people can do this with 40 lbs., and 20 lbs. is enough for the average beginner to use at the start.

The pectoral muscles are not nearly as important as the muscles on the back, although they should not be neglected. It is a fatal mistake to try to increase the size of the chest just by thickening the pectoral muscles. Those muscles are fastened to the breast-bone at one side and to the upper arm bone at the other, and so their tendency is to pull the shoulders forward and closer to the breast-bone; which explains why some of these parallel-bar specialists have become permanently round shouldered. Development on the front part of the chest must be balanced by even greater development on the upper back. This is another case where the mirror is to blame. The beginner will work like mad to develop the chest muscles, because he can see them in his mirror, just the same way that he develops the muscles on his abdomen and on the front and outside of his thighs. Because he cannot examine them with ease he neglects the far more important muscles on the upper back, the small of the back and the back of the legs. Man is an upright animal, and one of the main objects of training is to make the individual as upright as possible. When you find a man who is possessed of super-strength, you find a man who is as "straight as an arrow."

All the muscles on the upper trunk, the pectorals, the deltoids, and the muscles across the back of the shoulders can be quickly and easily developed by what is called "straight-arm work," because when the arm is held straight all that the muscles on the upper arm do is to keep the arm in alignment, and the arm as a whole is moved to various directions by the contraction of the muscles which have their origin and base on the bones of the upper part of the trunk, and their attachments on the upper arm bone. The exercise in Fig. 42 develops the back muscles, because the arms are held straight as you lift the bell. In the ordinary shoulder exercise the arms are likewise held straight, and the same thing is true of the chest exercise, Fig. 56.

One of the greatest strength stunts on a pair of Roman rings is for the athlete to hold himself in the position known as "the cross," with one ring in each hand, the arms held straight out to the sides and the body upright. This is possible only for those men who have great strength in the upper body muscles. It is not hard to keep the arms straight, but it requires a great exertion to keep the body from immediately falling down so that the athlete is hanging by the hands. To maintain the "cross" position it is necessary to press downwards against the rings, and if you have read the text carefully up to this point I do not have to tell you that the muscles which enable you to press down with the hands are the ones on the broad of the back. (A lesser working strain is thrown on the deltoids and the pectorals.) This stunt is easy for a man with a powerful upper body and small lower limbs, while it is very difficult for a big 200-lb. man who is fully developed from head to foot.

A man who can do "the cross" on the rings may be able to "muscle-out" quite a heavy weight in each hand, although it is quite likely that he cannot muscle-out an even heavier weight in one hand.

Fig. 57 shows what the English lifters call "the crucifix lift," and which the European lifters call "holding in the balance." One of the most popular of all strength tests is to hold a weight straight out from the shoulder in one hand; and it is a common thing to see a group of workmen or athletes in an impromptu competition with the object of seeing which one of them can "muscle-out" the heaviest weight. In some parts of the country they allude to this stunt as "off-arming." No matter what you call it, it is a fine test of strength, because anyone can do it without practice, there being little skill required. The proper way to "muscle-out" a weight is the European style, where you hold the weight by the ring with the knuckles of the hand up. You can do more if you hold the bell straight out in front of you, and while the athlete is allowed to advance one foot he is forbidden to lean back from the waist. If the average man does 25 lbs. in this style he is lucky. Any man who has practiced lifting bar-bells overhead has thereby developed such strength that he can muscle-out 40 or 50 lbs. at the first attempt. Bodily weight is a decided advantage and most of the records are held by big men. In France and Belgium, where this stunt is very popular, there are a number of athletes who have muscled-out between 80 and 90 lbs., but the record (112 pounds) was made by a German named Michael Meyer. (The old-timer, Carl Abs, is unofficially credited with 110 lbs.) Under the European rules the lifter does not raise the weight with a straight arm, but he lifts it with a bent arm until the weight is hanging right in front of the left shoulder, as in Fig. 58. Then he extends the right arm which holds the weight straight out in front of him, as in Fig. 59. When doing this stunt with a really heavy weight, there is an almost irresistible tendency to lean back from the waist in order to balance the weight; and this must be avoided, because as soon as you lean back, while your arm may be horizontal, it is no longer perpendicular to your body; whereas if you stand upright the body and arm are at right angles. If you and your friends have every tried holding out a weight it is probably that you pushed the weight to arms' length over the head and then lowered the arm to the side with the weight resting on the palm of the hand, which is a perfectly admissible style, providing you keep the body upright and have the arm absolutely straight. A bunch of young huskies who are not acquainted with the rules are apt to hold the lifting arm slightly bent at the elbow, and to lean the body to the side in an effort to balance the weight, as in Fig. 60. In this lift the correct style is shown in Fig. 61. I have never seen more than 85 lbs. held out correctly at the side in one hand, although I have seen an athlete hold out correctly 80 lbs. in each hand. (There is a legend to the effect that the gigantic Louis Cyr once muscled-out a 135-lb. dumbbell; but I am quite sure that if this is true he must have broken the rules.) When you do muscle-out a bell to the side with the palm up, you're apt to feel a sharp pain at the lower end of the biceps, right on the inside of the elbow-joint; whereas if you're holding a weight out in front with the knuckles up there is no pain whatever.

Holding out one weight in each hand is in some ways easier than holding out a weight in one hand, because the two weights balance each other, and that is especially true if an illegal style is used. To take a 65-lb. dumbbell in each hand, "curl" the weight to the shoulders, push them aloft and then lower them with absolutely straight arms, as the position shown in Fig. 57, is a feat which requires tremendous strength in the arms and shoulders. Hackenschmidt is said to have done this with 90 lbs. in the right hand and 89 lbs. in the left hand, and the Russian lifter, Khryloff, did it with 90 lbs. in each hand; and Khryloff, if I can judge by his pictures, has the most magnificent-looking arm on record. There is an illegal method in which after the weights have been pushed aloft the arms are bent slightly at the elbow, and then the hands are lowered outwards until they are level with the top of the head. While holding the bells in this position the lifter bends his body backwards at the waist and rotates the hands until the palms are pointing to the rear of him. In this attitude the arm and shoulder muscles are "locked" in a sort of mechanical way, and because the lifter is leaning so far backwards a spectator standing in front of him gets the impression that the bells have been lowered as far as the shoulder-level.

In 1916 I saw a 145-lb. wrestler take in his right hand an 81-lb. dumbbell, and in the left hand a 79-lb. dumbbell, and do this stunt so cleverly that some of the spectators thought he was making an actual crucifix lift. This particular athlete had trained for years with bar-bells and was very clever in handling them. His flesh was of an extremely tough variety and he was almost insensible to pain; which was a good thing, because otherwise he could not have borne the strain of holding out the weights in the way he did. The two bells together weighed 15 lbs. more than he did himself; whereas no man had ever been able to properly hold out two dumbbells whose combined weight equaled his own. I doubt whether this man could have correctly held out more than 55 lbs. in each hand. The act of holding bells at arms' length; that is, of "muscling them out," is a feat of super-strength or a test of super-strength, but not a developing exercise. The exercises in the first part of this chapter, where you raise a weight, develop the shoulder strength which will enable you to "muscle-out" big weights.

Read More »

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 9 - The Upper Part of the Back - By Alan Calvert

If you have been a steady reader of the magazines devoted to body-building, you must have noticed that they constantly publish pictures of athletes displaying the upper-back development; and that most of the athletes pose as in Fig. 43. There are two reasons for this. The first one is that when you raise the arms in that position, you can flex both the upper-arm and forearm muscles so as to make your arms look big from wrist to shoulder. The act of holding the upper arms horizontally makes the deltoid muscles flex in a pleasing manner. Another reason is that this is the accepted position for showing the muscles across the upper part of the back. It is easier to build muscles across the upper back than on almost any other part of the body. So most men who take up exercise show results there more quickly than in their arms and much sooner than in their legs. Again, upper-back exercises are so easy, and cause such little fatigue, that the beginner is tempted to spend all his time at such exercises. Many a man has had a reputation as a "Strong Man" because he shows up well when he has his picture taken in this pose; whereas, if he had a full-length back view taken, it would reveal that the lower part of his back, his haunches and his legs, showed no more development than that of the average 16-year-old boy. Understand me, upper-back development is important, but not nearly as important as development in the lower part of the back.

First, we will consider the trapezius muscles, which are situated along the upper third of the spine. The two muscles together look something like an old-fashioned kite. Their business is to raise, or shrug, the shoulders, or to pull the shoulder-blades closer together. When the vertical fibers of these muscles flex and pull the shoulder-blades together, the appearance is as in Fig. 44. When the upper fibers are flexed, the appearance is as in Fig. 45.

While everyone knows what is meant by "round shoulders," there are only a few people who know what is meant by "square shoulders." Some people think that "square shoulders" means that, when you look at a man from the front, his shoulders go out in a straight line from the base of his neck; whereas, "square shoulders" are shoulders which are flat across the upper back. Well-posted novelists have a trick of saying, "His shoulders were sloping, as is that case in every real 'Strong Man.'" That is true enough. If viewed from the front, the line of the shoulders should slope from the sides of the neck downwards and outwards to near the points of the shoulders; and when this slope is pronounced, it means that the athlete has properly developed trapezius muscles.

The simplest way to develop the trapezius is to hold a fairly heavy bar-bell in the hands and shrug the shoulders, as in Fig. 46. The exercise is amazingly simple. Your arms are simply ropes which attach the weight to the shoulder muscles. Every time you shrug your shoulders the hands are lifted two or three inches, and after the shoulders are raised high as possible, you squeeze the shoulder-blades together. The trapezius muscles are very much stronger than their size would indicate. They are called into vigorous action every time you raise a weight from the ground. If you practice the Jefferson exercise or a hand-and-thigh lift, the trapezius muscles are developed very rapidly. If you do a hand-and-thigh lift correctly, the only place you feel it is in these trapezius muscles and in the thighs. When you carry a very heavy weight in one hand, it is the trapezius that keeps your shoulder up. I have seen an athlete fasten one end of the chain to a 400-lb. weight, wrap the other end of the chain around his wrist, and then, while standing erect, raise the weight an inch from the floor just by shrugging the shoulder. Naturally, he gripped the chain with his hand, and the turns around his wrist were just to keep the chain from slipping out of his grasp. He stood straight-legged, and did not bend his arm at the elbow, and all the lifting-power came from the contraction of the right half of the trapezius muscle. The trapezius muscle and some of their smaller neighbors help to move or control the position of the shoulder-blades; and if the shoulder-blades protrude almost like sails, as they do in some people, it means that those individuals have probably caused that condition by unconsciously hunching the shoulders in a way that makes certain muscles contract and lifts the shoulder-blades out of their normal position. I know bar-bell users who can do the most astonishing things in the way of controlling the appearance of their upper back. They can move their shoulder-blades around as easily as you would move your thumbs. They can raise the blades, lower them, and make them project or lie flat at will. Later on I will have a few words to say about the so-called "muscle control."

The biggest muscles in the back are called the "latissimus dorsi," which means the "broad of the back." Their main function is to pull the arm backwards and downwards; and, therefore you find these muscles highly developed in gymnasts who have done much work on the Roman-rings. These muscles, like all others, work in two different ways, depending on which end of the muscle is flexed for the time being. In climbing a rope, the forearm is the fixed point in this case, and the contraction of the latissimus dorsi muscle helps to pull the body up towards the forearm. On the contrary, if you are standing on the ground and pull downwards on the rope of a hand-power elevator, your body is the fixed point, and the contraction of the muscle pulls the forearm down to the body.

The next chance you get to watch a man pulling up a hand-power elevator, be careful to notice the way he does it. Any man who is not used to the job pulls entirely by arm strength, but a workman who does it every day bends his body forward from the hips with each downward pull of the arms. In this way he adds some of the weight of his upper body to supplement the strength of his arms. (You can get a lot of points on strength economy and muscular efficiency by watching the methods of men who earn their living by doing heavy labor.)

These latissimus dorsi muscles are so big that they control the shape of your sides. The side-line of the body from the arm-pit to just above the waist is dependent on the size and shape of your latissimus muscles, and the ultimate size of your chest is influenced by the development of these muscles and other muscles in the back. Suppose, for instance, that the pectoral muscles on your breast and the upper back are each one-half inch thick. By developing them to a point where each is one inch thick you add one inch to the diameter and, consequently, more than three inches to the circumference of your chest. I remember one authority on physical culture who said that, while he acknowledged that the use of bar-bells and weights would develop all the muscles used in raising the weight from the ground, he did not see how, by using bar-bells, you could develop the muscles which would pull weights downward. (I suppose he meant the muscles you would use when pulling on the rope of a hand-power elevator, or in climbing a fixed rope.) In such stunts the work is done largely by the flexors of the arms (the muscles that bend the arms), and the muscles on the upper body which pull the arm downwards. When you lie flat on your back and do the two-arm pull-over, which was illustrated in Fig. 42, the work of raising the bell is done by the muscles just referred to. Steady practice of the chest-developing exercise would give you a fine pair of latissimus muscles; and if you wish to accentuate the development, all you have to do is to use a bell almost as heavy as you can raise with stiff arms, and repeat the lifting movement three or four times in succession. (You must not, however, use a heavy bell when you practice the two-arm pull-over as a chest-expanding exercise, because with a really heavy bell it is impossible to lower the arms as slowly as you should.)

You will find the latissimus muscles highly developed in most first-class oarsmen, and one of the best bar-bell exercises is somewhat like pulling on a pair of oars. You bend the body over at right angles, letting the bar-bell hang at arms' length, as in Fig. 47. Then you pull the bell up to your chest, as in Fig. 48. When raising the bell you should be careful to point the elbows outward, as well as upward, instead of bringing the elbows close to the side of the waist. The above exercise is for the beginner, and you can start with 20 or 30 lbs. and increase up to 75 or 80 lbs. That exercise is a favorite with German and Austrian lifters; but in my opinion it has a restricted value. One objection to it is that when the bar-bell gets heavy (more than half your own weight) you waste too much energy in trying to keep yourself from toppling over on your face. Another objection is that it does not give a full contraction of the back muscles, because the motion stops when the bar-bell handle touches your chest. It seems to me much better to use a kettle-bell or a dumbbell, and exercise one arm at a time. When you lean the body over at right angles, and rest one hand on the seat of a chair, then when you raise the kettle-bell in the other hand, you can bring the elbow of the lifting arm much higher, as in Fig. 49, and since the chair acts as a brace you can put a great deal more energy into the lifting movement. Also you can use very much heavier weights and get greater development without waste of energy. If you start with a 35-lb. kettle-bell, you will fin that in a few weeks you can pull up 75 to 100 lbs. almost as easily, and that there will have been a great improvement in the development and the shape of your back.

There are a number of smaller muscles in the upper back, but the ones I have mentioned are the main muscles, and in working these main muscles you involve the smaller ones. If I had the space I would tell you all about the other back muscles, but if I once got started I would be apt to write on that subject to the end of the book.

Read More »

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 8 - The Chest - By Alan Calvert

In the minds of most of you the word "chest" means the front part of your upper-body; and when you say "chest muscles," what you really mean is the "pectorals" or breast-muscles. Since the word "chest" means "box," your chest is your rib-box. When you take your chest-measurement, you pass the tape all around the body, and you will be disappointed, or pleased, according to the size of your rib-box. If the rib-box is small, you will never show a really big chest measurement, even if the muscles on the breast and upper back are thick and highly-developed. On the other hand, the man who has a really big rib-box always shows a fine chest measurement, even if the upper-body muscles are comparatively under-developed. When the rib-box itself is large and the exterior muscles are highly-developed, then you can get a phenomenal chest measurement, like that of Lange, Hackenschmidt and other devotees of bar-bell exercise.

The chest and lungs are the storehouses of your power. A big rib-box means plenty of room for the lungs. Big lungs are of immense value to the super-strong man. They enable him to keep up for many minutes at a time exertions which would exhaust the ordinary individual in the course of a few seconds.

Therefore, your first aim should be to increase the size of the rib-box; and even if you do not intend to try for super-strength, or if you are not interested in any other kind of exercise, I most earnestly recommend you to practise the movement described in the following paragraphs. A few months' daily practice will increase the girth of your rib-box by several inches. As the rib box grows larger, the shoulders will get proportionately broader; the lungs will get bigger; and you will find that you will have vastly more endurance as the size and power of the lungs increases. Furthermore, you will find that your arms and legs will develop almost automatically. A big-chested man can get arm and leg development at a much more rapid pace than can the man who has a small rib-box, and correspondingly small lungs.

It is comparatively easy to "pack" muscle on the upper-back; and it is no trouble at all to get big muscles on the breast; but the man who has such development of the superficial muscles, while he may present a nice appearance, will not have super-strength. I have found that if a man can increase the girth of the rib-box by six or eight inches, that his shoulder blades will set themselves farther apart, thus widening his upper-back; also, that in some mysterious way the shoulders seem to re-adjust themselves in a way that makes for longer leverage, and hence greater power, in the muscles on the upper-body. You will often find that a broad-shouldered man with moderate development is much stronger than a heavy-muscled man who has narrow shoulders. This is due, in part, to the extra lung capacity; that is, the bigger "power-storehouse" which the broad-shouldered man possesses; and, in part, to muscular leverage. It is almost impossible to conceive a really big-chested man with narrow shoulders; just as it is impossible to make a mental picture of a man with, say a 45-inch chest, with shoulders only 16 or 17 inches in breadth. A man with a 32-inch chest will probably measure less than 16 inches from the point of one shoulder to the other; a man with a 40-inch chest will go about 19 inches across the shoulders; whereas, a giant like Zottman has shoulders nearly 24 inches across, to match his 46-inch chest.

Part of the width of the shoulders is due to the development of the deltoid muscles on the point of the shoulders; and in most big-chested men these muscles are very thick and strong. The deltoids are involved in any scheme for chest development; by which I mean that in order to increase the size of the true chest, it is necessary to perform exercises which involve the deltoid muscles.

The very best exercise for increasing the size of the rib-box is the following: Lie flat on the back; take a light bar-bell and pull it across the face to the chest; push it to arms' length, as in Fig. 41; and then, keeping the arms stiff and straight, you lower the bell in a quarter-circle movement until it rests on the floor at arms' length beyond the head. (Fig. 42 shows it part way down.) Still keeping the arms stiff and straight, you raise the bell again until it is above the chest. I have seen some men practise this exercise faithfully and get only a 2- or 3-inch increase in chest measurement; and I have seen others do it no oftener and get an increase of 8 or 9 inches. Prof. H.B. Lange, who had a 36-inch chest at the age of 30, has gotten his chest measurement up to more than 50 inches. Most of the increase he ascribes to intelligent practice of this exercise. Occasionally, when a student complains to me that while his strength is rapidly increasing, he is not gaining in size, I take him off all the other work and make him practise this exercise exclusively every day (and sometimes twice a day), for a period of a month. I have seen men add 4 inches in one month to the size of their chests by this special work; and after they resumed their regular training program, the muscles all over their bodies grew in size at a surprising rate.

By developing the upper back muscles, anyone can add to the width of his chest. The important thing is to make your chest deep from front to back; and the thing which controls the depth of your chest is the distance between your breast-bone and your spine. You can by doing gymnastics, such as horizontal-bar and "Roman-ring" work, so develop the upper muscles that your chest will appear very wide; but even if you develop the big muscles on your breast, the upper part of your chest will still be flat. If, however, you increase the depth of your chest, the upper chest will become high-arched, and spring out in a swelling curve right from the base of the neck, the way it does in some of the Greek athletes whose statues you have seen.

There is an author by the name of Talbot Mundy who is very fond of introducing "Strong Men" into his stories. In his tales of India and the Far East, his Herculean character, Jeff Ramsden, is continually getting into personal combat with gigantic Arabs or East Indians. Mr. Mundy does not tell of professional "Strong Men" or vaudeville performers, but of natural "Strong Men"; and whenever he introduces such a character, he almost always says that the man in question has broad shoulders and is "ribbed-up like a race-horse." The minute you think of a race-horse, you get a picture in your mind of a slender-waisted animal with an enormously deep chest. If you could see the skeleton of race-horse you'd notice that the rear-ribs are small and that each pair of ribs seems to get longer; until when you get to the front and longest pairs, the depth of the race-horse's chest is as great as that of a 2000-lb. truck horse. Now, if a man has a chest "like a race-horse," it means that the ribs which fasten to the breast-bone are unusually long, and that his chest is unusually deep from front to back. Mr. Mundy evidently knows the trade-marks of a natural "Strong Man," because he emphasizes the one great essential, and that is the rib-box which is deep from front to back.

Technically, this chest-exercise is known as the "two-arm pull-over," which is rarely used as a competitive lift. Any man who can raise a 100-lb. bar-bell from the floor to above his chest with straight arms, is very unusually strong. I have heard stories of men raising 150 lbs. in this way, but I have never seen anyone do more than 120 lbs. The correct thing for you to do is never to practice it as a lift, but as an exercise; (that is, until you have had many months' experience). If you spend your time in trying to see how much weight you can raise, you will spoil it as a developing exercise, because the developing effect comes mostly from the manner in which you lower the bell. If you fail to get results from practicing, the fault is not with the exercise but with you. In the first place, the arms must be stiff and straight, and that means that they must not be bent the least trifle at the elbows. I have seen men do the exercise with the arms slightly bent at the elbow; and because they didn't bend the arms any further while raising the bell, they would insist that their arms were straight.

The moment you bend the arms at the elbow, you throw more work on arm muscles and less on the muscles which control the ribs. The correct way is to lower the bell slowly; and as you lower it, you must take a deep breath and spread the ribs as far apart as possible. As you raise the bell, you breathe out. It is a vital mistake to use too much weight or to count the repetitions. The act of counting distracts your attention, which should be concentrated on the correct performance of the movement. You should lower and raise the bell as many times as you comfortably can. Another important detail is to keep the lower part of the spine as straight as possible. As you lower the bell you will feel a natural impulse to arch the lower part of the spine and to allow the small of the back to raise from the floor. The farther the lower back leaves the floor, the less the ribs will spread; so you must try to prevent your abdomen from rising in the air as you lower the bell.

If you weight less than 135 lbs. and have had no experience, use a 25-lb., or even a 20-lb., bar-bell. If you weight 150 lbs. and are in fair condition, use a 30-lb. bar-bell; and if you are a 200-lb. man, in good shape, you can use 40 or 45 lbs. I caution you against using a definite progressive schedule. It will be sufficient if you increase the weight of the bell 2 1/2 lbs. a month; and I believe that 50 lbs. is enough for any man to use in this exercise for the purpose of chest development.

When I said above that you must take a deep breath as you lower the bell, I did not mean that you were to pack the lungs with air to such an extent that your eyes pop out and your face becomes red. The bell must be lowered slowly, but not very slowly. This stunt will give you a wonderful chest development if you follow the above directions.

Incidentally, the act of raising the bell will develop the muscles on the inside of the upper-arms and those across the broad of the back; but that development is incidental. It is a "by-product," because the aim of the exercise is to add size and flexibility to the rib-box. You can get all the development you can possible want on the outside of your chest by practicing the exercises for the arms, shoulders and upper back, which will be described in subsequent chapters.

Read More »

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 7 - The Abdominal Muscles - By Alan Calvert

At the present time the development of the abdominal muscles has become almost a fad with some physical culturists. If you pick up a magazine devoted to exercises you are almost sure to find some pictures showing young men with their bodies bent forward so as to make the muscles in the front of the abdomen stand out in ridges.
Since the muscles along the front of the abdomen are fastened at top to the breast-bone, and at the bottom to the bones of the pelvis, it follows that contraction of these muscles bends the body forward and brings the chest closer to the knees.

I can see the importance of these abdominal muscles, but I think that no man would cultivate them and leave his back-muscles neglected. Eugene Sandow, who "started" so many other things, is responsible for the craze for abdominal development. The muscles on the front of his abdomen were phenomenal; but not a bit more phenomenal than the muscles on his back. Up to the time that he made his debut as a vaudeville performer, it was customary for a professional "Strong Man" to work in a high-necked jersey; and as these men never stripped or did muscle-poses in a lighted cabinet, the people who saw their acts never got a chance to see the remarkable development of the abdominal muscles which many of them possessed.

In a real "Strong Man" the muscles on the front of the abdomen should be plainly visible when the body is held erect. It should not be necessary to bend the body over, as in Fig. 34, in order to make these muscles noticeable. If you look at the picture of Sandow in Fig. 35, you can trace the outline of the abdominal muscles; even though in this pose, he is actually leaning slightly backwards. In his case, these muscles were so noticeable that out of a hundred people who saw him pose, ninety-nine would remember the development of his abdominal muscles, where only one would notice the wonderful cables of muscle along either side of his spine.

As a rule, I can say that most men and boys who take up body-building exercise end up by having a better development on the front of their bodies than on the back of their bodies. This is due to their constant habit of standing in front of a mirror and studying their own development. It is easy for them to see the outline of the muscles on the chest, those on the front of the abdomen and the muscles on the front of the thighs. They see the width of the calves of the legs, and if it seems insufficient, they will do exercises to make the calves wider, forgetting that the important thing is to make the calves deep from front to back. Similarly, they will work hard to make the thighs look wider and never once think of the vitally important muscles on the back of the thigh, which they never see in the mirror. Worst of all, they do far more exercises for the muscles on the breast and on the front of the abdomen, than for the muscles on the back of the body.

I am not trying to discourage the developing of the abdominal muscles, but to make you realize their place and proportion in your whole muscular get-up.

Anyone who has practiced even the simplest kinds of exercise is familiar with the two usual exercises which develop the abdominal muscles. In both exercises you lie flat on the back. In one of them you raise the legs to a perpendicular position; and in the other you keep the legs on the floor by placing a weight across the ankles, and then you bring the body to a perpendicular position. The first exercise, where you raise the legs, seems to develop the lower part of the abdominal muscles; that is, the part in the neighborhood of the groin. In the other exercise, where you raise the body, most of the work is done by the upper fibres, where they attach to the breast-bone. (If a fat man carries most of the surplus flesh around the hips, he should practice raising the legs; but if most of the surplus is on the upper part of the abdomen, he should practice the other variation.) But these two exercises are merely "kindergarten stuff," and they have no place in the training-schedule of the super-strong. They are so easy that men have been known to bring the body to the perpendicular position 2000 times in succession; and almost anyone can, in a few weeks' practice, learn to repeat either movement from 25 to 50 times. Anyone who can do that much, can safely start doing the body-raising movement while holding a weight at the back of the beck, as in Fig. 36. The beginner can start with 10 or 15 lbs., and he will find that he can increase quite rapidly, and that it soon becomes no more trouble to do the exercise with 50 lbs. than it formerly was with 15 lbs. When he gets this far along, he should adopt a more strenuous method. (In some of our cities no candidate is accepted for the police-force unless he can do this exercise with 40 lbs.)

The next step in abdominal development is to sit on a bench or a chair and then lean back and pick up a light bar-bell, rest it on the upper-chest, and bring the body back to a sitting position. Naturally, the feet have to fastened to the floor, and the customary thing is to either put the toes under a strap or else to put the insteps under a heavy bar-bell. This variation should not be attempted until it is easy to use 50 lbs. in the preceding method, and then you should start on the chair with 10 or 15 lbs. When you can make several repetitions with 50 lbs., it is time for you to graduate into Roman-chair or Roman-column work.

Now we are coming to really advanced abdominal exercises. In all the previous variations, where you rest the body, your weight has been supported at the hips and all the bending has been done from the hip-joint. In the Roman-chair and Roman-column work, the support is at the knees, which makes it much more difficult; because, for one thing, the leverage is longer, and for another thing, the work is shared between the abdominal muscles and the muscles of the hips and thighs. Of the two kinds of apparatus, the column is much preferable. If you refer to Fig. 37, you will see that there are rests for the feet, and that most of the athlete's weight is carried by the chains fastened at one end of the post, and at the other end to straps buckled around the upper part of the calves. In a properly arranged Roman-column, when the athlete leans back and throws his weight against the chains, the knee-joint should be but little higher than the ankle-joint. The first exercise in the Roman-column is to learn to get in the sitting position shown in Fig. 38, which, but the way, is much harder than you would think. Then you learn to bend backwards and lower the body until the finger-tips touch the floor, as in Fig. 39. The real work comes in raising the body again to the sitting position, and no one should even attempt the stunt unless the muscles of the abdomen and the groin have been developed and strengthened by the preceding exercises. Since, on your first attempt to use a column, you might find it impossible to bring your body up, you should always have a friend present to rescue you, if necessary, from the head-downward position. During the first week's practise you will gain in strength at a surprising rate; and while the first day you may not be able to bring your body up even once, on the seventh day you will do it many times with the utmost ease. Then is time to start with a light bar-bell; ten or fifteen pounds is enough to begin with. You have to lift it from the floor, hold it against the bend of the hips, and then bring it with you to the sitting position. You can make the work harder either by increasing the weight of the bell or by holding it close to the chin instead of in front of the hips. The further the weight is away from the knees, the more strength it takes to raise the bell and the body. After a month's practise you will suddenly awake to the fact that you have a degree of bodily strength which is entirely new and most pleasing; and you will wonder why it was that you wasted so many weary months trying to get real strength by performing the kindergarten exercises which started this chapter.

Since few Roman-columns are available, many athletes have to resort to the use of the Roman-chair, which is illustrated in Fig. 40. Such chairs have to be of very strong construction. The straps on the seat of the chair hold the athlete's feet firmly in place, and the top of the chair is padded. The back and seat should be inclined as in Fig. 40, and not upright and horizontal as in the ordinary chair. My objection to the chair is that you have to bend the body back farther in order to reach the ground. In the pictures of the Roman-column, you will see that when the body is down it is at right angles to the calves of the legs; and in the pictures of the Roman-chair, the body has to be bent beyond the right angle.

Undoubtedly the idea of the Roman-column occurred to some gymnast or athlete who was familiar with the parallel-bars. It is possible to do Roman-column work on a pair of parallels, providing the bars are not too far apart. All you have to do is to sit sideways, with the insteps under one bar and the bend of your knees over the other bar. Since most parallel-bars are adjustable, both in height and in width, you can fix them so that your legs will stretch across the open space between the bars, and so that when you are hanging head-downwards, your finger-tips just sweep the floor. It is easier to do the work on a Roman-column, because the leg-straps and the foot-rests are padded; but if you can't find a Roman-column or a chair, there is nothing to prevent you trying the column exercises on a pair of parallels.

I'm afraid that some of you will be discouraged when you read this chapter, and that you will decide to give up all idea of getting to be super-strong if it is necessary to do stunts like this. A man who has only average strength is hardly able to imagine what it feels like to be really strong. Let me assure you that a man who has gotten super-strength by practising with weights thinks no more of getting on a Roman-column and doing an exercise three or four times with a 50-lb. bar-bell than you would think of lying flat on the back and raising your legs in the air three or four times in succession. I realize that if you have never tried it, Roman-column work seems at first glance to be a most difficult and dangerous form of exercise; just as the performance of the Kreisler or a Heifetz seems highly difficult and complicated to the man who has never taken a lesson in violin playing. You probably have thought that it would take the strength of a Hercules to do Roman-column work. That is more or less true; but the point is that if you can learn to do it, you will get the strength of a Hercules; and once you have the strength and the corresponding muscular development, you will surprised at how easily you can retain it, and how little work is necessary to keep the body at the highest pitch of condition. Make up your mind to this: If you ever get to be super-strong, you will thereafter have no patience with the "light" exercises which formerly seemed to be all-sufficient. If you can get on a Roman-column and repeat the exercise a few times in the course of one minute, why should you spend a half-hour lying on the floor and raising first the legs and then the body to the perpendicular position? When you get so that you can handle 600 or 800 lbs. in a hand-and-thigh lift, and that five minutes' practice per week keeps your back and leg muscles in fine shape, you will have neither the time nor inclination to bend over and touch your toes 200 or 300 times in succession.

So far as I am aware, there are no records for Roman-column work, because it is not a competitive lift, but is used either as an exhibition stunt or as a developing exercise. When using it as an exercise, you should never push yourself to the limit of your strength, but should always keep a factor of reserve. It is not necessary to repeat the exercise every day, two or three times a week being sufficient to keep the muscles growing in size and strength. Fig. 40 is a sample of the bodily strength which can be created in this method. Few ordinary athletes can hold the body horizontally when the feet are strapped to a Roman-chair. This man can hold his own weight, plus the weight of a 100-lb. man at arms' length. If the other man were resting across the lifter's thighs, the stunt would be easy. In this instance it is hard, because the extra weight is right above the lifter's chest.

Read More »

Weight Training and Women - By Jim Bryan

You could also say, “Strength Training or Resistance Training.” I didn’t say “Weight Lifting” because that can be confused with Olympic Lifting and Power Lifting. I’m not talking about either. I’m talking about prudent and productive workouts with some type of progressive resistance. The equipment could be bar bells, dumb bells (free weights), machines, resistance bands, and even some body weight exercises. The fact is resistance training is good for Women. Just as good as it is for Men. The problem is the Myth’s that surround the subject of Women and weights.

1. Weight Training will not give you “Man Muscles.” Men and Women both have “Human Muscle.” Women will not end up looking like a Man……………..Unless they take Body Building Drugs! Ladies, think “Toned.” This may help you understand what working out with weights can do for you.

2. You won’t end up “bigger” with large muscles. If you follow a good diet and exercise with weights you’ll become leaner and smaller. Once again think “Toned.” Think Fat/Big Muscle/smaller.

3. You don’t have to train every day for two hours. A half hour workout done 2 to 4 days a week including cardio work is sufficient. Some of this can be done at home. If you have a nice gym at home, all of it can be done there. Being active can be split between the gym and outdoor choices.

4. You don’t have to eat like a “weirdo.” You can eat regular foods like everybody else. Just be carful of over eating and junk food. Yes, twinkies are junk food. Fruits, vegetables, lean meat, you know the drill.

You’ll need to be consistent. It does take time. In the end you will have more strength, more energy, more endurance, and you’ll feel better. Not to mention you’ll look better. You will also help prevent muscle wasting and osteoporosis. Both are something to be concerned about if you are a woman.

Join a gym and find someone who can help you learn. This could be a “Personal Trainer” or a friend with experience. Just be careful of “gimmicks.” You won’t need to spend a bunch of money on supplements, and you sure don’t need “Fat Burners.” The exercises you do in the gym will be your “Fat Burners.”

We have Athletic types in both Women and Men. We also have Non Athletic types. Both will benefit. We also have plenty of excuses for not exercising. If you are serious, you can find a half hour a few times a week. You will be better for it if you do. You can end up looking “toned and fit.” AND younger!

Read More »

In Defense of the Press Behind the Neck - By Bradley J. Steiner

PRESS BEHIND NECK

The idea that presses behind the neck are "dangerous" is a new one for me! I have been using this exercise and teaching it since the 1960's, and the only result for myself and others has been . . . GOOD RESULTS!

Of course it is possible to train improperly on the press behind neck, or on any other exercise. That could cause problems. But that does not make the movement per se "dangerous"; it only means that you should learn how to do it properly, and then train correctly on it.

My tips would be:

• Learn how to do the press behind neck correctly
• Use weights that are manageable and that you can exercise with correctly in good form
• DO NOT drop, "jerk", or bounce the weight (your head might suffer!)
• Progress gradually — never hurry and do not "cheat" in order to hoist weights that are too heavy for correct performance
• Stop immediately if pain is felt; pain is not the same thing as "effort", or as the fatigue you ought to experience after working a muscle group properly
• If — for whatever reason — the press behind neck feels awkward for you even after learning its correct performance and trying it with a light and reasonable poundage at first, use another exercise. Maybe regular pressing or dumbell pressing suits your personal physiology better.

I rate the press behind neck as one of the finest BASIC EXERCISES. And I have never known any reason to change this opinion.


Professor Steiner's American Combato Site

Read More »

2010 University of Florida Strength Clinic * February 26th and 27th

If you are interested, please contact:

Coach Frank Piraino or strength coach Micky Marotti

Phone: 352-375-4683 (ext. 4940)

E-Mail: frankp@gators.uaa.ufl.edu

Read More »

John Grimek Was "The Man” - By Bob Whelan

Reprinted with permission of Hardgainer, (March-April 1999)

For all of my training life I’ve had the quiet comfort of knowing John Grimek was around to inspire and motivate me. He was my all-time Iron Game hero, a legend of unparalleled achievements, but who was universally described as a “good guy” by everyone who had the honor of meeting him. He was a guy you could really admire, look up to and respect not only for his titles or measurements, but as a man.

His pictures have always been on the walls of my gym even if it happened to be my bedroom or garage. I have several of his pictures on the walls at Whelan Strength Training, from various decades of his life starting with the Mark Berry posters showing John in his early twenties, until several decades later showing his body even more muscular and better, with only his face showing signs of age. For my money, he was the best, a legend—the man! This greatest chapter in Iron Game history came to a close on November 20, 1998 when John C. Grimek passed on at age 88.

Vic Boff summed it up well when he stated, “For over five decades, John C. Grimek has been heralded as the Monarch of Muscledom throughout the world. He was the greatest combination Iron Game athlete—physique star, bodybuilder and strength performer—of all time and certainly the most popular, inspiring millions. He was a major influence in the lives of every top bodybuilder. He was the only bodybuilder in history who was never defeated in a contest. His charisma was so outstanding that everyone in the Iron Game wanted to meet him, shake his hand or get an autograph. His obliging patience was endless.”

Grimek was also the only man to win the Mr. America title twice, and was also a member of the 1936 US Olympic weightlifting team. He won the Mr. Universe in 1948 and the Mr. USA in 1949. He was also an expert swimmer, diver, acrobat and muscle control expert. He was also very strong, and capable of a 400-pound jerk.

John probably did more to advance strength training in academia, teaching and coaching than anyone—especially as a legitimate method for training and preparing athletes. The all-prevalent musclebound myths of the day were largely dispelled and reversed by his awesome demonstrations of flexibility, grace and speed while working with Bob Hoffman and other members of the York Barbell Club. Modern strength and conditioning coaches may not have had a profession if not for John C. Grimek.

I began to train, involuntarily at first, at age 10. I was a good baseball player and was batting around 600 in little league. I just came home from a game and as soon as I got in the door, my father asked me, “How many hits ya get, ya bastard?” He had his usual beer in hand and was in his typical semi-intoxicated state.

“Three!” I proudly replied.
“How many home runs?”

“None,” I replied.

My introduction to training was when my father responded, “You weak son of a bitch. Get on the floor and do pushups.”

I did only three, and he really tore into me for that. I usually managed to make a positive out of most of the negative childhood situations with my father. He made me do pushups every night before bed, and soon I began to love the exercise because I felt stronger, which in turn raised my confidence and self-esteem; and I began hitting some home runs. Soon I was doing 90 pushups in a row.

I put up a chinning bar in the basement and was up to 18 in no time. I made a wrist roller. I walked around constantly squeezing rubber balls to strengthen my wrists because that was what Ted Williams did. I was hooked on training at an early age.

It was during this time that I bought my first copies of Strength and Health and Muscular Development magazines. I was buying baseball cards near a magazine rack and a cover caught my eye. Muscular Development was a new magazine at that time (1964), and John Grimek was the editor. From my first glance of him, I was in awe, but greatly inspired. I always read every word in MD and liked it even more than S&H, because of Grimek’s influence. (I didn’t even know about Iron Man ‘til a few years later.)

I continued to lift cement blocks and copper tubing stored in the cellar, and did pushups, chins, dips between chairs, wrist roller work, situps and other calisthenics until I got my first York 110-pound barbell set for my birthday at age 13.

I was a fanatic and devoured everything related to training I could get my hands on. I was sad when I'd read all the articles in a new issue. I couldn’t wait ‘til the next month so I could ride my bike to the apothecary in Sherborn, Massachusetts, and buy the next issue.

I can remember the smell of the ink in the new issues. I had to hide the magazines because my father thought all the bodybuilders were “musclebound,” but I knew better. My biggest heroes were Bob Hoffman and, especially, John Grimek. I still have a deep affection for and loyalty to the tradition of the York Barbell Company, and tremendous respect for its pivotal role, since the thirties, in the development of the Iron Game. To this day I will only buy York weights.

This background information is important because it should help you to understand the magnitude of the thrill I had in April 1976 when I drove to York, Pennsylvania, and met John Grimek. For an Iron Game/Physical Culture enthusiast, this was the equivalent of a baseball fan meeting Babe Ruth. I’d hoped to meet Bob Hoffman too.

I remember looking at all of Hoffman’s medals and spending an hour or so in the museum section downstairs. I finally got the nerve up to ask if I could meet Bob Hoffman, but was told he was not in that day. I still regret not meeting him. But Grimek was upstairs in his office, and I was told that he would be happy to see me. My heart raced as I walked up a creaky staircase to his office. I sheepishly knocked on the office door and politely referred to him as Mr. Grimek.

Mr. Grimek invited me in and was extremely friendly. I was only 21 at the time and was completely in awe. At first I was surprised because he was well into his sixties at the time, but most of the photos I’d seen of him were not recent. He was in great shape, though, and I could tell that he still trained hard and regularly. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up, and I could see his huge biceps in full glory. He looked at least 20 years younger than most men of his age.

He asked me as many questions about my training, and my life in general, as I asked him. He seemed genuinely interested in me and I was impressed at how approachable and kind-hearted he was. He answered every question I had and was in no rush to have me leave. He signed an autograph for me that I guard with my life and proudly display on a wall of my gym. After asking every possible question I could think of, and spending about 30 minutes in his office, I felt I might start to be a pest. I thanked Mr. Grimek for his time, shook his hand, and let him get back to his work.

Dispelling myths

It wasn’t until fairly recently that the term “musclebound” has finally been put to rest. You may hear it once in a while now, but mainly by ignorant people. Most people today believe that strength training is beneficial. It wasn’t always that way, and as a kid growing up I would always hear about it and be discouraged from lifting. I never believed it was true, mainly because of the hard work and courage of John Grimek and Bob Hoffman, who told me the truth.

On April 4, 1940 Bob Hoffman brought several members of the York Barbell Club, including John Grimek, to Springfield College. Dr. Karpovich, of Springfield College, had been influential in pushing “musclebound” theories throughout academia, and was making most athletic coaches shy away from training with weights. Strength training was being seriously threatened, and John Grimek was instrumental in turning this around. After Grimek was introduced to the panel, the pompous academics sneered at him and seemed to mock him at first, believing he was nothing but a big clumsy oaf with limited movement and “bound” muscles.

Grimek went right up to each of them and said, “Can you do this?” He then proceeded to contort his body into every stretch and bend possible, and reportedly could come close to touching his elbows to the floor while keeping his knees straight! Each of the academics gave a pitiful performance of flexibility when responding to the challenge, to which Grimek replied, something to the effect of, “You’re musclebound, not me!”

Hoffman then had Grimek and others perform all kinds of feats including one-arm chins, handstands, backbends, jumping splits and numerous stretches. After Karpovich had witnessed this, he was stunned. By the time Hoffman and Grimek got through with Karpovich, he changed his position to, “There’s no such thing as musclebound.”

Hoffman went further and challenged any athlete in any sport to compete against his York Barbell Club in any physical test outside of their own specific sport. The challenge was widely publicized. There were no takers, mostly because of the larger-than-life image of Grimek and the fear that he would humiliate any challenger.

Our responsibility

John Grimek was larger than life, much like John Wayne was. John was what the Iron Game and Physical Culture are really all about. He was the essence of how things were and how things should still be. When you think of John Grimek, you think of the glory days of the Iron Game before drugs ruined the honest competition, and the brotherhood.

The “good guys” in the Iron Game today have a sacred duty to carry on the tradition that John Grimek stood for and which Vic Boff and others still represent. Give no respect to steroid users—they are scum. Take down their pictures. Always keep your focus on good health as the primary motivation for your toil, and build muscle the old fashioned away—earn it by hard work and dedication, like John Grimek did.

Read More »

What about Isolation Exercises? - By Bob Whelan

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on April 13, 2001


John Hanlon on the Athletic Edge squat macine at WST.



Isolation exercises are not "bad" to do and using a few of them can be a good ADDITION to your program. Don't get carried away with them, but a set of thick bar curls added to the program or leg curls AFTER SQUATS ARE DONE is ok.

I believe that the CORE foundation of your program should be the big basic compound exercises. That, however, does not mean that you should NEVER do ANY of the isolation exercises. As long as you are not looking for the easy way out and substituting the isolation exercises for the much harder multi joint lifts, using a few of them in addition to your program can be beneficial.

Read More »

SUPER STRENGTH (Circa 1924) - Chapter 6 - The Sides - By Alan Calvert

Posted on NaturalStrength.com on 06 March 2002


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

Read More »

Whelan Strength Training - Now in our 20th Year!

Above: Bob Whelan doing a set of 9 reps with 360 pounds on the Hammer chest press at WST.


I can't believe how time flies. It seems like yesterday when I left the Federal Government to make my passion my profession in 1990. It was a scary but exciting time in my life. People thought I was crazy to leave a prestegious career with CIA and almost 14 years of Federal service. (Counting my Air Force time.) Don't get me wrong - I loved the Agency and worked with some of the highest quality people in the world, but me and God had other plans for me. I already had a graduate degree and thought I was "done" with school, but I did what I knew I had to do. In my mid thirties I took the "hard road" less travelled, I switched careers and I started graduate school (again), this time at GMU in exercise science. I wanted to be great not just survive in my new business and that meant a degree in the field, not just a phony certification like most personal trainers get.

I had no more money coming in anymore from the government but I had faith and just put an ad in the paper. It was either do this or become homeless. There was no turning back. It was sink or swim. I had no equipment at first and went to peoples homes for about 2 years while going to graduate school and working part time too. It was tough but I made it. It was worth it. I'm so glad I had the guts to follow my dreams and not be a numb robot just to get a pension. I bet on ME and won!

My advice: Don't follow the crowd and have the courage to take a chance on yourself. Follow your dreams and you will make your own "security". Time flies when you are having fun.

Bob Whelan


"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

"All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence

Read More »