Basque Stone Lifting Archives - www.oldtimestrongman.com

Stone Lifting in India

Posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2016 by John Wood

While every culture has its own unique definition of STRENGTH, the interesting thing is that in every culture you will find some form of Stone Lifting.

Here’s a shot from a recent stone lifting contest in India, a country which is certainly no stranger to traditional physical training. Lifting stone spheres like this one is also very popular among the Basque people of Spain.

Arteondo The Stone Lifter

Posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2015 by John Wood

Even with all the impressive weight lifting numbers that we come across on a daily basis, Basque stone lifting feats are a continual source of amazement. Case in point, here we have Bittor Zabala, also known in stone lifting circles as Arteondo, lifting a stone into his lap of well over 400 pounds. This was taken in 1924. Arteondo’s stone lifting career lasted from 1910 through 1945 and he was instrumental in standardizing the weights and shapes of the stones and making stone lifting into more of a competitive sport.

Basque Stone Lifting

Posted on Saturday, July 13th, 2013 by John Wood

Basque Stone Lifting

Stone lifting is the official sport of the Basque People, an ethnic minority who live in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France.

In their stone lifting contests, they lift four different kinds of stones: spheres, cubes, cylinders and irregular shapes. Depending on the type of contest they may lift for a single heavy maximum or for reps in a given period of time.

Basque Stone Lifting records are mind-boggling. The lifter above is mid-way through what is called a “Basque Necktie” where a stone sphere is shouldered, then rolled around the neck as many times as possible ~ talk about core strength.