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| Pierre
Gasnier |
|  This
is Pierre Gasnier, circus strongman, who performed
for Barnum and Bailey Circus. Like the Mighty
Atom who followed him, he broke chains as shown
here with the expansion of his chest. I believe that the
Mighty Atom broke #8 Jack chain, the chains here look to be of
a similar grade.
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The
Vitruvian Man
 |
This
is Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. I'd thought
I'd throw it in to illustrate
"classical" proportions. For those who
have not stumbled upon my Limitless Hand Power page, Da
Vinci was widely known as being able to bend
horseshoes. I first learned about Da Vinci's
strongman abilities from the book How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci
available from Amazon. |
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Earle Liederman
I am embarrassed that I did not place Earle
Liederman in the Gallery of Ironmen sooner. I
had been searching for a picture that was not so
common, this was taken from the front of his classic
1925 classic, "Secrets of Strength."
Earle Liederman is probably my favorite author among
the old timers. See this special tribute to his
courses here.
The three photographs above are from his books.
I own "Muscle Building" as well and
it is also excellent, printed in very high quality for
the day (1926). For wrestling fans, I have also
seen a copy of Liederman's "The Science of Wrestling and The Art of Jiu-Jitsu"
and it has the same high standards as the others.
See
current used books by Earle Liederman at Abebooks
or visit Bigsteel's Rare
Books page.
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Continue to the
Gallery of
Ironmen VII
Text Copyright, Tom Black February 2001.
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This German Strongman trained exclusively in strandpulling. David Webster reported in Sons of Samson that the strands were 300-pounds and could resist the pull of horses. This picture is form Earle Liederman's 1925 "Muscle Building." This is natural muscle at its finest. I’ve often wondered about the relationship between strandpulling and steel bending, I believe the effect of exercising muscles with strands may be similar to bending steel. If this picture motivates you to train with cables/strands, this one of the few modern manuals available: "