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Fred Winters

Posted on Thursday, November 3rd, 2011 by John Wood

Fred Winters

Fred Winters, of the New Westside Athletic Club of New York, won the Silver Medal in the Dumbell Lifting portion of the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. The competition consisted of nine individual dumbbell lifting events with the tenth event being an original feat of strength of the competitor’s choice.

Above is the result of Section #6 of the contest “Pushing up slowly one dumbbell with one hand from the shoulder to arm’s length above the shoulder” which Mr. Winters won with a lift of 126-1/2 pounds.

Fred was in the lead after the all dumbbell events and for his choice feat he performed six one-arm pushups with 105 extra pounds of weight strapped to his back… An impressive feat, but only good enough for second place.

The Bowmill Exercise

Posted on Monday, September 5th, 2011 by John Wood

If you were looking for dumbbell exercises from back around the time of the Civil War, here’s one you might have run across: “The Bow Mill Exercise,” as discussed by Dio Lewis in 1864:

“The Bow Mill Exercise: The apart position is taken from which the dumb bells are made to describe a circle, the circumference of which shall be as near as possible to the floor, and as high up on the right as possible, and thus is followed by another circle of the same description to the left.”

Sig Klein’s Dumbbell Challenge

Posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 by John Wood

Sig Klein liked to call the two-dumbbell clean and press “THE ONE BEST EXERCISE” because it was so simple but also incredibly effective for building upper-body strength and power. Klein suggested to begin this exercise with 20 pounds less than your two-arm press and build from there.

Back in the 40’s, ol’ Sig questioned whether there were a dozen athletes in the country who could do 10 clean and presses with a pair of 75 pound dumbbells. This was body weight for Sig. This was a worthy challenge back then and still is today.

Any takers?