Tuesday, November 17, 2009
David P. WilloughbyA look at David P. Willoughby on the cover of the January, 1936 issue of Superman Magazine. While he was greatly interested in the world of strength, Willoughby was no armchair expert, being a champion lifter and gym owner himself. He was also an accomplished artist, drawing many of the pen and ink illustrations found in his books and training articles.
Labels: Cover, David Willoughby, Physical Culture, Sledgehammer, Superman Magazine
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All Contents, Including Images and Text, Copyright © 2010 by John Wood and Thunderdome Media Inc., Not to be reproduced without permission, All Rights Reserved
Sunday, July 27, 2008
| Here's an ad for a training course you won't be seeing anytime soon: The Kings of Arm Strength by George R. Weaver and David P. Willoughby This course has all the great ones and covers a variety of feats for building bigger and stronger arms: hand balancing,card tearing, horse shoe breaking and many more... I'm fortunate enough to own a copy (and no, it isn't for sale.) This was actually Weaver and Willoughby's second course on arm building with the first titled: Powerful Arms for You. |  The King's of Arm Strength by George Weaver |
Labels: Arm Strength, Card Tearing, David Willoughby, George R. Weaver, Hand Balancing, Horseshoe Bending, The Kings of Arm Strength, Training Course
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All Contents, Including Images and Text, Copyright © 2010 by John Wood and Thunderdome Media Inc., Not to be reproduced without permission, All Rights Reserved
Friday, April 18, 2008
Ottley Coulter A rare shot of the well-known oldtime strongman Ottley Coulter as a young man.
In the early 1900s, Coulter performed for a number of years with several Circuses, Carnivals, and Vaudeville houses.
Among being a master of many traditional Strongman feats (Spike Bending, Human Bridge, Harness Lifting, Backlifting etc) he was also rather adept at Muscle Control and Hand Balancing.
Interestingly, Coulter was not large like many other well known strongmen of the day, his bodyweight during his peak was 150 pounds.
Later, Coulter, along with George Jowett and David Willoughby formed the first weightlifting governing body in the country: The American Continental Weightlifting Association.
Coulter's vast collection of physical culture books, courses, memoribilia and letters also became the corner stone of the Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection Holdings currently housed at the University of Texas.
Labels: Carnival Strongman, Circus Strongman, David Willoughby, George Jowett, Hand Balancing, Hand Balancing Feat, Muscle Control, Oldtime Strongman Exercises, Ottley Coulter, Vaudeville
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All Contents, Including Images and Text, Copyright © 2010 by John Wood and Thunderdome Media Inc., Not to be reproduced without permission, All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
 David Willoughby | Strength author and historian David Willoughby gracing the cover of the January, 1936 edition of the British physical culture magazine "Superman." Willoughby was the AAU Southern California AAU weightlifting champion from 1923-1926 and eventually went on to author countless books, articles and training courses. He also owned a successful gym in the Los Angeles area, the same gym where Bert Goodrich got his start. |
Labels: AAU, Cover, David Willoughby, Strength Author, Superman Magazine, weightlifting
www.oldtimestrongman.com
All Contents, Including Images and Text, Copyright © 2010 by John Wood and Thunderdome Media Inc., Not to be reproduced without permission, All Rights Reserved
Thursday, October 11, 2007
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:
(Looks like it worked!)
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 Bankier |
(Looks like it worked!)
Labels: Bicep Training, David Willoughby, Harness Lift, Oldtime Strongman, Rope Climbing, Scottish Hercules, Strongman Feat, William Bankier
www.oldtimestrongman.com
All Contents, Including Images and Text, Copyright © 2010 by John Wood and Thunderdome Media Inc., Not to be reproduced without permission, All Rights Reserved
Sunday, August 26, 2007
| Rope climbing has always been one of the "unsung" exercises of strength development. In terms of building incredible grip and upper-back strength, few exercises can compare to rope climbing. As documented by David Willoughby, William "The Scottish Herculese" Bankier, for example, used a 10 minute rope-climbing workout to develop his incredible bicep strength. |  Rope Climbing |
Here's a look at the only book that I know of written specifically on rope climbing techniques. The Rope Ladder, Knotted Rope, Inclined Rope, Vertical Rope, Double Ropes, Traveling Ropes and Rope Swinging are discussed.
Just as today, a quality 3-strand manila climbing rope was preffered. In competitive rope climbing, the goal was to make it up a 20 foot rope as quickly as possible. The "finish line" was a round, black, wooden disc known as a tambourine. The record for climbing a 20 foot rope is an incredible 2.8 seconds!
Labels: David Willoughby, Rope Climbing, Strongman Equipment, Strongman Feat, William Bankier
www.oldtimestrongman.com
All Contents, Including Images and Text, Copyright © 2010 by John Wood and Thunderdome Media Inc., Not to be reproduced without permission, All Rights Reserved
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