You Are Here

David Byrne and the Talking Heads asked "How did we get here?" This is a good question for lifters to ask.  Where did the weights and training techniques we use come from?  With all activities we engage in and the beliefs we hold dear it is important to have a basic knowledge of history.  One day while performing an arm curl I thought who dreamed up this apparatus and why the hell am I doing an arm curl?  I had a vague understanding of weight training as a Victorian era hobby but I really didn't know more than that.

In the late 1800's strong men entertained audiences by lifting, pressing and squatting barbells, dumbbells, people and animals.  Although there is evidence to suggest that people have been training with heavy objects for five thousand years, the standardization of weight lifting as we know it developed over the course of a hundred years from the mid to late 19th century to the 1970s.  Different cultural preferences influenced the various lifts.  North Americans liked dumbbells (which derive their name from the ancient Greeks who removed the clappers from bells so they could be hoisted without ringing), while Europeans preferred barbells and the Russians used kettlebells (or "kettle balls" as my wife likes to call them.)

Generally dumbbells are used to isolate specific muscle groups while bar bells use multiple muscle groups and kettle bells lend themselves to dynamic routines that move through several planes.  Competitive lifting became standardized when agreements were reached between countries concerning specific lifts and the tools used to perform them.  Whether you are discussing barbells or nuclear weapons, politics are pretty much the same.  Organizations formed and folded, people switched allegiances, they talked trash and eventually through attrition and compromise barbells won out as Olympic lifts gained popularity in the early 20th century and continued to dominate as the preferred device in power lifting in the 1960s.  The dumbbell and kettlebell continue to be used as an effective training device but you won't see them used in the Olympics.         

Today all manner of tools are used in Crossfit and strong man competitions.  We have come full circle, as history does, and we have arrived back to public displays of strength and prowess much like those found in the Victorian age.

It is interesting to know the past to understand why you are doing what you are doing.  If you walked into a gym and a trainer told you to step into a machine (I know this is not too far from the truth) that you have never seen before would you do it without asking questions?  Clients have looked at me like I solved the riddle of the Gordian knot when I suggested they bench press with dumb bells rather than the barbell because of a shoulder injury.  We become so entrenched in the way we do things that we forget that there are options.

We are destined to repeat history but with an understanding of the past we can shape the future.  There is fitness equipment waiting to be created that will improve your performance.  And what happened to the Thigh-master, leg warmers and Richard Simmons?

They'll be back!