Strongman Profile series on Breaking Muscles continues with another prominent oldtime strongman – Alexander Zass.
Strongman Profile: Alexander Zass Teaches Us About Isometrics
Alexander Zass carrying a horse through water.
Alexander Zass was a strongman in the circus, traveling around Russia for many years back around the beginning of the twentieth century. He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania and lived from 1888 to 1962.
While serving in the Russian army during the First World War, he was captured by opposing forces and escaped from prisoner of war camps not once – but a total of four times. Some of these were easy escapes, but not the last one (his captors finally caught on that he wanted to be free). Here he used his strength to break his shackles and bend the iron bars of his window to climb out of jail. As you can see, his amazing strength proved to be quite useful.
Zass was not a weight lifter but performed feats such as bending bars, breaking chains, massive support and carrying lifts, and even several teeth lifts. In this video, the only known footage of the man, you can see him execute several of these feats…