Oldtime Strength Blog - www.oldtimestrongman.com

The Green Cross Man

Posted on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2019 by John Wood

Before he was Darth Vader but after he was a champion bodybuilder and strength athlete, David Prowse was Green Cross Man! The Green Cross Code is a brand created by The National Road Safety Committee (now the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, RoSPA) to raise awareness of pedestrian road safety in the United Kingdom. The multimedia Green Cross Code campaign began in 1970 and continues today.

Whenever children were in danger and needed some pedestrian safety tips, the Green Cross Man would teleport in and remind them to “Stop, Look, Listen, Think.” These series of ads ran from 1975 through 1990. And in 2014, at 80 years of age, David Prowse returned as the Green Cross Man! The purpose of the latter campaign was to alert young adults of the dangers of not paying attention to their surroundings while walking and viewing and/or texting on smart phones or wearing headphones.

Secrets of Strong Man Feats by Ottley R. Coulter

Posted on Wednesday, July 3rd, 2019 by John Wood

Ottley R. Coulter wrote this interesting course in 1942. In it, he covers many classical feats of strength: how to rip a newspaper in half, card tearing, nail driving,how to break rocks with your fist(!), spike bending etc. All those are interesting, but to me, the real value is the excellent abdominal development course that appears in the last few pages.

P.S. This course in full is posted in The Iron League.

Ricardo Nelson at the Rialto

Posted on Sunday, June 30th, 2019 by John Wood

Here’s one from the deep archives, an advertisement from “The Swedish Lion” Ricardo Nelson’s engagement at the Rialto Theatre in Ironwood, Michigan on November 24 and 25, 1925.

“The Swedish Lion, the Samson of Modern Times, the strongest man living. Ricardo Nelson has been accepted and conceded to the the World’s Strongest Man by the largest moving picture corporation at Hollywood California, and was photographed in life motion photography in feats of strength. With his jaws alone, he twisted up large steel horseshoes, with his bare hands, he tears to pieces a 1-1/4 inch thick rope tested at 4000 pounds and many other unbelievable feats of strength.”

You can read more about Nelson HERE and HERE.

Manuel Egreja

Posted on Sunday, June 30th, 2019 by John Wood

Manuel Egreja was a strength enthusiast from Portugal who was featured with his excellent selection of gear in an issue of Professor Desbonnet’s “La Culture Physique” in 1904. Interestingly, well over a century later, you still don’t need much more than what is pictured here to build world class muscular size and strength.

Professor Attila’s Athletic Studio

Posted on Sunday, June 30th, 2019 by John Wood

A look at what is probably the first location of Professor’s Attila’s gym (In 1898, he moved to midtown Manhattan). Years later, Sign Klein married Attila’s daughter and inherited much of this equipment with which he opened his own gym. You can read the story of how that came about HERE.

Milo Steinborn

Posted on Sunday, June 30th, 2019 by John Wood

A look at a young Milo Steinborn as he looked when he was featured in Bernarr Macfadden’s “Musclebuilder” magazine in 1928. It had been a long while since the strength world had seen anything like Milo, who was world class in both wrestling as well as weightlifting. With a neck like that, you can bet he was tough to pin.

Don Leo Jonathan

Posted on Sunday, June 30th, 2019 by John Wood

Don Leo Jonathan, the famed “Mormon Giant,” was a great pro-wrestler who also understood the value of weightlifting. Here he is doing some pressing with a fantastic globe barbell at Brown’s gymnasium in Coffeeville, Kansas, circa the early 1950’s.

Galen Gough’s Beer Barrel Barbell

Posted on Friday, June 21st, 2019 by John Wood

Another look at Galen Gough’s excellent Beer Barrel Barbell. Back in the 1930’s Gough went on a beer fast — for 30 days, he ate and drank nothing else but Oertel’s beer. He ended up losing 25 pounds in the process. Also, just to show that he suffered no ill will while on his beer diet Gough also performed feats of strength daily, among them:

1. Dangling a cast iron anvil in his mouth while an assistant whacks it with a sledge hammer.
2. “Biting” an iron bar into a horse shoe.
3. Lifting a bar bell attached to a couple of beer kegs (above)
4. Holding an iron bar in his teeth while three men dangle on each end
5. Let an eight ton Oertel beer truck run over his stomach

1967 IFBB Mr. Universe

Posted on Thursday, June 20th, 2019 by John Wood

A look at Joe Weider shaking Sergio Oliva’s hand on the winner’s platform of the 1967 IFBB Mr. Universe contest. This event was held at Montreal’s Paul Sauvè Arena and the Jr. and Sr. Mr. Canada contests were also held in conjunction. Vic Downs, winner of the “Most Musclular” award, is on the left. Christopher Forde, 4th in his class, is at the right. Frank Zane, fresh off a win in the Mr. Eastern United States, finished third in the tall class.

Here’s the complete results:

1967 IFBB MR. UNIVERSE

Overall Winner: Sergio Oliva (Chicago, Ill.)

Most Muscular: Vic Downs (Toronto, Canada)

Best Physique / Short Class:
1. Rick Wayne (London, England)
2. Rock Stonewall (Chicago, Ill.)
3. Dennis Gauthier (Montreal, Canada)
4. T. Kanazawa (Hiroshima, Japan)

Best Physique / Tall Class:
1. Sergio Oliva (Chicago, Ill.)
2. Vic Downs (Toronto, Canada)
3. Frank Zane (Tampa, Fla)
4. Christopher Forde (Trinidad, W.I.)

Most Muscular / Short Class:
1. Elliot Gilchrist (Grenada, W.I.)
2. Pierre van den Steen (Brussels, Belgium)
3. Mitsuo Endo (Tokyo, Japan)
4. Eino Akkila (Sweden)

Most Muscular / Tall Class:
1. Vic Downs (Toronto, Canada)
2. Glen Wells (Nassau, Bahamas)
3. Conrad Laframboise (Toronto, Canada)
4. David Sheppard (New York, N.Y.)

Vince Gironda Tossing The Caber

Posted on Wednesday, June 19th, 2019 by John Wood

Here’s something you don’t see every day: “The Iron Guru” Vince Gironda tossing the caber. Vince was, of course, well-known in bodybuilding circles but he had other talents as well. In the early 1970’s he used to get a gang together every Saturday morning to practice tossing the caber and other heavy events in order to represent Vince’s Gym at the annual Los Angeles Highland Games held at Corsair Field at Santa Monica City College.