Siegmund Breitbart

Siegmund Breitbart was born in 1883 in a Jewish family and he is best known for his strongman acts as a circus performer. He had a strong background as a blacksmith which was a perfect fit for many feats of strength, including breaking horseshoes in half, bending iron bars & scrolling and tearing iron chains apart with his teeth.

Siegmund Breitbart getting ready for teeth and jaw feat of strength

While he toured with the Circus Busch around the world, Breitbart was involved in many amazing feats and in the most popular one he literally supported an entire motordrome on his chest with two riders inside, riding their motorcycles and chasing each other.

Siegmund Breitbart in the middle of scrolling feat

Siegmund Breitbart breaking heavy chain with bare hands

During this time Zishe Breitbart saw an opportunity in extremely popular mail-order courses and decided to develop a course of his own. He created a book titled “Muscular Power” as well as his own mail-order course, which was focused on bodyweight training and a special kind of equipment – “Breitbart Apparatus” – which imitated steel bending movements through progressive resistance.

His life came to an unfortunate end after he hurt himself during one of his acts in Germany. While driving a spike through thick oak board with his own hands, the spike penetrated the board and ended up in his knee. Infection set in and in a couple of days he died from blood poisoning.