Thursday, October 11, 2007

  • Bicep Training With William Bankier, The Scottish Hercules

    • William Bankier was a performing strongman and wrestler at the turn of the century who went by the name of Apollo, The Scottish Hercules.

    For his act he would harness lift an elephant and perform a backward somersault over a chair, carrying a 56 lb weight in each hand.

    According to David Willoughby, The Scottish Hercules had a rather unusual method for building his biceps:

    "Rope climbing, using a rope one a half or two inches in diameter would be difficult to improve upon as an exercise for developing the arms and grip. If climbing rope in the vertical direction should prove beyond one's strength, the bottom of the rope could be fastened so as to fix the rope at any desired angle.

    This climbing of the rope on an angle is an exercise which "Apollo" ( aka William Bankier) aka "The Scottish Hercules" used to develop his bicep strength.

    From a single climbing and descending of a 30 foot rope each day (which took about two minutes) he obtained infinitely better results than did an acquaintance who devoted a half hour each day to light exercises especially for the biceps."    		William BankierWilliam Bankier

    (Looks like it worked!)

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    Posted by John Wood @ Thursday, October 11, 2007

    www.oldtimestrongman.com

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