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The 1920 French Olympic Weightlifting Team

Posted on Sunday, May 22nd, 2022 by John Wood

A look at the 1920 French Olympic Weightlifting team. Ten weightlifters, two in each weight class, represented France at the 1920 Antwerp Olympic Games.

From left to right: Joseph Duchateau (Heavyweight), Maurice Devene (Light-Heavyweight), Henri Gance (Middleweight), Paul Ledran (Middleweight), Jean Vacquette (Lightweight), Fernand Arnout (Lightweight), Ernest Cadine (Light-Heavyweight), Andre Delloue (Featherweight), Jean Ducher (Featherweight). Not pictured: Louis Bernot (Heavyweight).

Cadine and Gance both won Gold Medals and Bernot won Bronze. France was the only country that year to win two championships.

Camille Pedeboscq

Posted on Friday, May 20th, 2022 by John Wood

Unfortunately, most of the details of Camille Pedeboscq’s career are lost in time, the old postcard that we have only indicates that he was the strand pulling champion of Europe and a likely guess for the time frame would be the early 1900’s. Just so it’s clear what is going on here, Camille has a razor sharp dagger strapped to each arm, so if he isn’t able to maintain a certain amount of force in pushing out that monster expander, he’ll end up filleted like a fish! Can’t say I’ve ever seen this one anywhere else before. Also notice the nifty CP initial logo on Camille’s lifting suit – he’s got style!

Abraham Charité

Posted on Friday, May 20th, 2022 by John Wood

Abraham “Bram” Charité was a Dutch weightlifter who won a Bronze medal at the 1948 Summer Olympic Games in London, England with a 412.5 kg total. (127.5 kg press, 125 kg snatch, 160 kg c&j) As of the time of this writing, Charité’s Bronze remains the last Olympic medal in weightlifting won for the Netherlands. The photograph above appears to be Charité’s first clean and press attempt at the 1948 games. Note the “Viking” brand barbell and plates.

Lusitia Leers

Posted on Friday, May 20th, 2022 by John Wood

Lusitia Leers was a German aerialist and acrobat who performed with the Ringling Bros’ and several other circuses throughout the 1920’s and 30’s. As you can see here, her regular gymnastic work developed a strong and supremely impressive physique. Lusitia began her training at five years of age under the instruction of her step-father, Guido Krökel, himself a German gymnastic champion and circus performer. Lusitia’s signature feat was to support herself on a flying trapeze with her neck power alone; she could also perform “The muscle grind” (a gymnastic move on a parallel bar) 190 times in a row.

The Exergenie!

Posted on Sunday, May 15th, 2022 by John Wood

The Exergenie was an isokinetic device, roughly the size of a television remote control, consisting of a friction brake, a 10 foot length of rope, and a loop on the back end to secure it to something immobile. Since resistance came from friction, and not dependent on gravity, as the story goes, The Exergenie was developed for the astronauts to utilize in space during the Apollo and Skylab missions of the 1960”s and 70’s (The Exergenie was also marketed under the name “The Apollo Exerciser” to capitalize on this phenomenon.)

Gym teachers and sport coaches loved the Exergenie because it was small and cheap, hence large groups of athletes could train with a bunch of them at once and go through a full workout quickly. As you can see in the advertisement above, a major selling point to sport coaches was to mimic athletic movements with resistance added by The Exergenie with the goal of improving sporting ability in running, jumping, swinging a bat or racket, etc and other specific skills. The Green Bay Packers were one of the first professional sports steams to utilize the Exergenie and within a few years, many other pro sports teams followed suit. Evidently, The Exergenie is still going strong today!