The following article comes from famous strongman George F. Jowett. Herr Stauffer, we will call him, was a circus proprietor of portly proportions fed by the genius that knew how to serve attractive performances to a people whose prosaic lives and deductive minds found gladness in the masterly performance of …
When Apollon Became Angry by George F. Jowett
The following is an article by George Jowett, the author of The Key to Might and Muscle, that was originally published in Klein’s Bell. Pierre Bonnes, the great French strength athlete and professor of physical culture, the man whom every professional strongman met with a tremor in his heart! To …
Victor DeLamarre
French Canadian strongman and weightlifter Victor DeLamarre was born in 1888 in Quebec and he stood at just 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighted only 150 pounds. DeLamarre is best known for bent pressing 309.5 lb in a theater in Montreal, breaking Louis Cyr’s record and setting a new …
Paul Anderson, The Mighty Young Apollo
He nearly died several times while performing, broke 30 world records in feats of strength, held 50 weightlifting records, got injured dozens of time and you’ll barely find anything about him online. The Man You Cannot Hang, the God of Steel, the Mighty Young Apollo, The Greatest Strongman of the …
How to Combine Bodyweight and Oldtime Strongman Training
The other day I received a question about how to combine bodyweight and oldtime strongman training. Since I hadn’t specifically covered that topic before I thought it was worth doing an in-depth article on it. I guess that makes this the third article in a series. The first one was …
Pyotr Kryloff
Pyotr Kryloff was a strongman, wrestler and athlete who lived from 1871 to 1933. He was best known as The King of Kettlebells, performing incredible feats of strength using kettlebells on a circus stage. Pyotr (also known as Pierre) was born in Moscow and his father was an avid fan …
Gus Hill
Gus Hill was a strongman most famous for Indian clubs performances born in 1858 in New York. Gus was rather slim by today’s standards, as he stood 5’8″ weighing 148lbs. Apart from mastering Indian clubs, Gus was involved in wrestling and boxing and that’s how he made his first public …
David Blazer
David Jacob Blazer was a sailor and strongman born in 1886. He was most popular between 1914-1918 as a strongman performer, but David also for appeared in numerous ads for the Maxalding course as Seaman Blazer. Furthermore, David Balzer was featured in “History of the Iron Game” by a well-known …
Louis Uni
Louis Uni was a strongman born in France in 1862, most popular for his grip strength. Before he became Apollon the Mighty, Louis ran away from home when he was just 14 to perform for Caramagne circus, but a couple of policemen spotted him during a performance and brought him …
Signor Lawanda
Hugh David Evans, better known as Signor Lawanda, was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1849 to a family of slater miners. His mother died only two weeks after giving a birth and Evans was eventually force to work in the slate mines as a child laborer. Signor’s mother was quite …
John Massis
John Massis was a strongman born in 1940 in Belgium as Wilfried Morbée. He was most famous for feats of strength using his teeth to pull trains, lift cars, stop motorbikes from moving and helicopters from taking off, breaking several Guinness world records. Massis was pretty strong even as a …
The Great Gama
Ghulam Muhammad, better known as The Great Gama was a wrestler and strongman born in 1880 in British India. He was most famous for long and successful wrestling career as he remained undefeated for more than 50 years, but his training methods and feats of strength he used to perform …
Adrian Peter Schmidt
Adrian Peter Schmidt was a physical culturist and strongman born in 1872 in France. Unlike many oldtime strongmen who had great genetic predispositions and health, Schmidt wasn’t so lucky genetic-wise and he also contracted typhoid fever at the age of 15. This combination left him very slim, but he still …
Galen Gough
Galen Gough was a strongman born in 1899 in Kentucky, at his grandparents’ home. Even as a child, Galen was bigger and taller than his coevals and most people believed that genes are to blame, since Galen’s father was quite large man as well. Early days Not many of us …
Clevio Massimo
Antonio Clevio Massimo Sabatino was a strongman performer better known as Clevio Massimo on the stage. He was born in 1895 in Italy with good genes, since his father and two uncles were quite large men, known as “the three giants”. Antonio grew up in Buffalo, NY where his family …