Chris Rider says he grew up in a small town outside York, Pennsylvania, about 45 minutes from the old York Barbell Company. He lifted. Then, by his own account, doctors found multiple severely herniated and degenerative discs in his spine and told him he’d never lift again. He didn’t take that well. He worked his […]
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In 1992, a magazine feature on the world’s top grip men profiled a guy named John Brookfield. He’d gotten into hand strength because his grip lagged behind everything else he built lifting weights, and he went after it relentlessly for years. By then he had bent forty 60-penny nails in less than a minute. Then […]
In the early 1950s, an Australian named John Landy ran the mile in 4:02. Then he did it again. And again. Six times between late 1952 and early 1954, he ran the mile in 4:02 and change, and every time the clock stopped on the wrong side of four minutes. On May 6, 1954, a […]
Steve Justa spent almost his whole life in Harvard, Nebraska, a farm town most people drive past without noticing. He trained with rocks, barrels and whatever junk was lying around. One day he strapped on a 100 pound chain vest and wore it to work. Every day for a month. Eight to ten hours a […]
Around 1900, a German circus strongman named Arthur Saxon was one of the strongest men alive. In one of his acts he sat his two brothers on a barbell and lifted the whole thing with one arm. His bent press of 370 pounds is still the official world record. More than a hundred years, and […]