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| Pierre
Bonnes |
|  This
is Pierre Bonnes. When I first found this picture I had no
idea who he was, but it was obvious that he had weight
trained,
and I also suspected might have had great grip strength,
considering his considerable forearm size. In
1903 Bonnes won the World Championships when the lifts
contested included the right-hand press and the one-hand swing.
At one time Bonnes held the world record in the two-hand
snatch at 253.5 pounds (Willoughby, The Super Athletes).
Interestingly, Willoughby also lists Bonnes among athletes
with superior grips. Bonnes is listed as gripping
298-pounds on a Regnier dynamometer, which was the second
highest recorded on the device. Although Apollon and
Gorner were listed as having higher numbers, these numbers
were actually estimates by Willoughby, Apollon's actual reading on this
device when he was 40 years old was 337.3 and Gorner's
was 286.6-pounds when he was 59 years old on a Collin's
dynamometer (a similar device). Willoughby
attributed higher numbers to these men, but I'll leave it to
the reader to decide how much more these men could have
crushed when they were in their prime. I will add that
my grip strength at 40 continues to get stronger. I
should also mention that I am very proud of my retouching
efforts on this photograph, the original had many dust specs
and scratches.
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Monsieur Jaeger King
 I
bought this exceedingly rare photograph on an E-bay
auction. Unfortunately, the name of the
performer is all I know about this picture. I
even have my doubts about whether the feat depicted is
real, looking at Jaeger's arm it does not look to be
very strong, but looks can be deceiving. It may
be much more significant that the back of his neck
looks very strong. So you may ask, why is the
picture here if I'm not sure of its
authenticity? Well, it's rather cool, and it is
also rare to find an antique picture of a feat of
strength.
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Emil Bregulla
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This
is Emil Bregulla. Pictures of Emil are exceedingly
rare. Emil was a wrestler known as
"The Terrible Pole." Like many
old time wrestlers, he appeared in sideshows
where he wrestled anyone who dared.
These challengers were typically the biggest,
strongest, and sometimes the meanest folks in
town. They included lumberjacks,
farmers, long shore men, and other assorted
men confident in their strength. They
did not stand a chance against the likes of
Emil, as he was known as "Ursus the
Strong" because he also wrestled bulls by the
horns. Even at a late age he continued
training, using thick handled dumbbells and
barbells well into his 70's.
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| Joe Nordquest
Here is a rarely seen picture of Joe Nordquest
lifting 388-pounds in the
"shoulder-bridge." (From Alan Calvert's Super
Strength, 1924). This particular lift was
stated to have broken Arthur Saxon's record of
386-pounds in the same lift. This lift was the precursor
to the bench press. Joe also was known for his
hand stand push-ups, doing 28 at 168-pounds.
Even after he increased his weight to 190-pounds he
could jump off a 30-inch table onto the floor while
maintaining a hand stand! (Willoughby, The Super
Athletes p262). Willoughby also notes that
Nordquest could do a one-hand handstand with a
100-pound dumbbell in the other hand. Nordquest
was also the only man besides Paul
Von Boeckmann to have shouldered Von Boeckmann's 80-pound iron
"Indian club" by lifting it strictly
parallel from the floor and onto his shoulder. It was said that
Eugene Sandow and Charles Atlas tried the
club, but failed to make the lift. This is a lift that I
believe I can duplicate, having already lifted
70-pounds overhead and 75-pounds strict off the floor
in the hardest part of the lift. See the bottom of the 2001 Photo Page for a picture of a 65-pound
lift.
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Text Copyright, Tom Black February 2002.
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