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| Here's a classic photo of World and Olympic Champion Charles Rigoulet with an old-school, globe barbell. The photo is from John Wood and you can see it - and many more - at https://www.oldtimestrongman.com/blog - be sure to check it out! |
Hail to the Dinosaurs!
Three quick notes and then we'll talk iron -
as in, what we can learn from old time
barbells.
Notice that I didn't say "old time strong-
men."
I said "old time barbells."
Yes, they can tell us things - sometimes,
very important things.
1. The Legacy of Iron Books
Trudi and I are planning to move to the
Pacific Northwest in the fairly near future -
and I can't take tons of books and magazines
with me, so we're reducing our inventory.
That includes my
Legacy of Iron books,
which cover weightlifting, weight training
and bodybuilding in the late 1930's and
1940's - giving you an up close and
personal look at the champions of the
era and how they trained.
There are five books in the series - and
you can grab
all five for just 50 clams
plus shipping and handling. Shoot me
an email if you're interested. You can
reach me at: info@brookskubik.com -
or just PM me on FaceBook.
We don't have many left, so if you want
a set, grab them now.
2. Jowett's Progressive Barbell
Training
I still have a few copies of my modern
reprint edition of George F. Jowett's
very rare old-school training course,
Progressive Barbell Training. You
can grab one for 20 clams plus shipping
and handling. Shoot me an email if
you're interested.
3. Strength and Health
I have many issues of
Strength and
Health from the 1940's for sale - if
you're interested, shoot me an email
for prices.
4. What Can We Learn from Old
Time Barbells?
Back in the old days - as in, 120 to 150
years ago, there were no mass-market
barbells.
If you wanted a barbell back then, you
had to have it made at a local foundry.
And the barbells they made were very
basic.
Instead of plates, they had globes at the
end.
Hence the term "globe barbells."
Sometimes the barbell and the globes were
one solid piece of iron.
Other times, the globes could be screwed
onto the bars. That gave you the ability to
adjust the weight on the bar by changing
from one globe to another.
Of course, you never had very many globes,
so you could only make a couple of weight
adjustments - with big jumps from one
weight to another.
The globes came in different sizes. Most of
them were round spheres - but some were
egg-shapped.
Some were made of iron. Others were made
of other metals. Brass globes, for example.
And some globes were empty - so you could
add weight by filling them with sand or lead
shot.
But that was a time-consuming and cumber-
some process.
If you've ever tried to fill a beer keg or barrel
with sand or gravel, you know what it's like.
And getting the two globes to be the exact same
weight would have been very difficult, as well -
unless you fiddled around with them for a couple
of hours every time you loaded them up.
So the bottom line was this - your barbells
were pretty much fixed weight barbells.
If you had a couple of them, you might have,
for instance, a 60 pound barbell, a 100 pound
barbell, and a 150 pound barbell.
Or you might have a 100, 150 and 200 pound
barbell.
Or a 42 pound barbell, a 96 1/4 pound barbell,
and a 116 1/2 pound barbell.
Remember, these were essentially one of a
kind items - so there's no reason to believe
they weighed an exact amount.
And here's something else to consider.
There were no uniform specifications for the
size, thickness and length of a barbell.
So you might have barbells that were of
different lengths - and different thicknesses.
Your 80 pound barbell might be one inch
thick and four feet long.
But your 117 pound barbell might be 1 1/2
inches thick and six feet long.
In other words, every barbell was different
from every other barbell - sometimes
MUCH
different.
The same was true of dumbbells.
And your dumbbells might or might not come
in pairs.
Ditto for kettlebells and ring-weights.
And if you
DID have pairs, they might not
be an exact match.
In short, all your weights were more or less
unique.
And adding more weight was difficult or even
impossible.
If that were the case, what would you do with
them?
How would you train?
Think about it - and send me a short email if
you have any ideas about it.
I'll share your feedback tomorrow - and
also share what I think the answer is.
In fact, I'll share what the answer
MUST
have been - and explain why it was a
GOOD
thing to train with such challenging equipment.
As always, thanks for reading and have a
great day. If you train today, make it a good
one!
Yours in strength,
Brooks Kubik
My new course on
heavy partials is
selling like hotcakes - and readers are loving
it - and getting get results.
One Dino added 25 pounds to his bench
press after just two weeks on the
program.
Two weeks - 25 pounds - that's pretty
good.
Go here to grab a copy:
Dinosaur Strength and Power Course
No. 2 - Heavy Partials
http://www.brookskubik.com/dinosaurstrengthandpower-02.html
P.S. 2. My
other books and courses are
right here at Dino Headquarters:
Hard-copy and PDF
http://www.brookskubik.com/products.html
Kindle
http://www.brookskubik.com/kindle.html
P.S. 3. Thought for the Day
"Study old time barbells and dumbbells
closely and carefully. They can teach you
a lot."
- Brooks Kubik
Brooks Kubik's Kindle Books
For even more Kindle books by Brooks Kubik, visit:
