Glossary

A short reference for recurring terms

The Iron Game has its own vocabulary, parts of which have drifted in meaning between the music-hall era and modern usage. The entries below define each term as it was used in the period this archive covers, with notes on later drift where it matters.

Anyhow

Short for the two-hands anyhow: a compound European amateur lift in which the lifter raised one weight overhead by the bent press, then — without lowering it — picked up and pressed a second weight beside it. Saxon's 448 lb is the standing figure.

BAWLA

The British Amateur Weight Lifters' Association, founded in 1911. The first formal British amateur lifting body and the principal organiser of British contests through the twentieth century.

Bent press

A one-arm overhead lift in which the lifter raises the bell to the shoulder, then leans laterally — bending sideways under the bell — until the holding arm is locked vertically over the head. Saxon's 371 lb (1905) is the benchmark. The lift was retired from international competition in the early 1930s. See the Lifts entry.

Continental also: Continental rules

Pre-1928 European weightlifting rules permitting the bar to reach the chest by any method — including a stage at the belt or a rolling lift — rather than the single explosive pull required by modern Olympic rules. Used by extension to describe the lifting style of the European school before the IWF tightened the rules. See the Continental Clean.

Deep knee bend

The historical name for what is now called the squat. The exercise was contested in some quarters in the early twentieth century as damaging to the knees; Hackenschmidt defended it in The Way to Live (1908) and Calvert championed it in Super Strength (1924). The naming convention shifted to "squat" in American usage by the 1930s.

Dumbbell

A single-handed weight implement. Until the late nineteenth century, dumbbells were typically fixed-weight cast-iron globes joined by a handle. The shot-loaded dumbbell — a hollow globe filled with shot or sand — appeared in the 1880s; the plate-loaded dumbbell, with adjustable plates on a bar, became standard with Calvert's Milo line from 1902.

Dynamic Tension

The trade name of Charles Atlas's mail-order training system, sold from 1929 onwards. A programme of self-resistance and isometric exercises requiring no equipment, marketed through the famous \"97-pound weakling\" comic-book advertising.

Globe dumbbell also: ball dumbbell

A dumbbell with cast-iron spheres (\"globes\") at each end of the handle, in fixed weight. The standard form of dumbbell from the 1860s through the 1900s. Surviving examples include the Cyr dumbbell at the Stark Center and the Inch challenge dumbbells.

Grip

In Iron Game vocabulary, used to describe both the act of holding an implement and, by extension, the size of an implement's handle. A "thick handle" or "fat bar" is one whose diameter exceeds the standard 1 in (25 mm) Olympic bar; the Inch dumbbell's 2.38 in handle is the canonical thick handle.

Hantel

The German term for a barbell or dumbbell. The Berg-style hantel — an early German plate-loaded barbell, manufactured by Wilhelm Berg in the 1890s — was the design ancestor of Calvert's Milo Triplex.

Harness lift

A supported lift in which weights are suspended from a leather shoulder harness by chains, and raised off the floor by the lifter straightening from a stooped position. The largest-weight category of the music-hall era. See the Lifts entry.

Health and Strength

The principal British strength magazine of the early twentieth century, founded in 1898. Published continuously through both world wars; the longest-running British periodical in the field. Held in substantial runs at the British Library and the Stark Center.

Iron Game, the

A nineteenth- and twentieth-century term for competitive and exhibition strength sport — strongman performance, weightlifting, the strongwoman tradition, and the surrounding physical-culture movement. Often used interchangeably with "the lifting world." The journal Iron Game History takes its name from the term.

Jerk

An overhead lift performed by driving a bar from the chest to arm's length using the legs as the principal force-generating component. Distinguished from the press (a strict arm motion). The two-hands jerk and the one-arm jerk were both contested events in the music-hall and early Olympic period.

Kettlebell Russian: girya

A cast-iron weight with a flat base and a single curved handle on top. Originally a Russian merchant's measure (the standard pood, 16 kg, was the basic unit). Adopted as an exercise implement by the Saint Petersburg circle around Krajewski in the 1880s and popularised on the music-hall stage by Krylov. Largely fell out of Western use after 1950 and was reintroduced to the English-speaking world from the 1990s by Pavel Tsatsouline and others.

Milo

(1) Milo of Croton, the legendary Greek strongman, after whom Calvert's Milo Bar-Bell Company was named. (2) The Milo Bar-Bell Company itself, Philadelphia, 1902 onwards. (3) Henry "Milo" Steinborn (1893–1989), the German-American lifter — see Steinborn.

Muscle control

The voluntary visible isolation and contraction of individual muscles, taught as a discipline in its own right by Maxick and Monte Saldo from 1911 onwards. The discipline survives in modified form in modern bodybuilding posing practice.

Odd object

An implement other than a barbell or dumbbell — a sandbag, an anvil, a piece of furniture, a stone, an axle. Lifting odd objects was a music-hall stage convention and survives in modern strongman as a distinct event category.

One-hand lift

An umbrella term for any lift performed with one arm: bent press, one-hand snatch, one-hand jerk, side press. One-hand lifts were a separate Olympic and IWF category until the late 1920s and dropped from the Olympic programme after 1924.

Physical culture

The late-nineteenth-century umbrella term for systematic exercise, hygiene, and bodily training as a mass-cultural pursuit. Sandow's magazine and Bernarr Macfadden's Physical Culture magazine made the phrase ubiquitous in English between approximately 1898 and 1930. The Stark Center's full name preserves the term.

Plate-loaded

A barbell or dumbbell whose weight is adjusted by adding or removing iron plates secured by collars. Distinguished from fixed-weight implements (which cannot be adjusted) and from shot-loaded implements (whose hollow globes are filled with shot or sand). The plate-loaded design was made widely available in the United States by Calvert's Milo Triplex from 1902.

Press

An overhead lift driven by the arm rather than the legs. The military press (strict; feet together, no body movement), the bent press (lateral lean under load), and the side press (controlled lateral lean, less than the bent press) are all variants. The strict overhead press was an Olympic event from 1928 to 1972.

Pullover

(1) The pullover at arms' length: a recognised European amateur lift in which the lifter, lying supine, pulls a weight from the floor over the head to lockout above the chest. See the Lifts entry. (2) A mid-twentieth-century bodybuilding assistance exercise of the same name but different form, performed for repetitions with a fixed-arm motion to develop the chest and back.

Ringbell

A heavy weight with a single iron ring as a handle, used in nineteenth-century European stage acts before the modern kettlebell form became standard. Saxon's stage kettlebells were ringbells.

Side press

A one-arm overhead lift involving a controlled lateral lean — less extreme than the bent press, more pressing strength required. See the Lifts entry.

Snatch

An overhead lift performed in a single explosive movement from floor to lockout, with no intermediate stage. The one-hand snatch and the two-hands snatch were both contested as Olympic events; the two-hands snatch survives in modern Olympic weightlifting, the one-hand having been retired after 1924. See the Lifts entry.

Strongman / strongwoman

(Historical) A professional or semi-professional stage performer whose act centred on demonstrations of strength — chain breaking, dumbbell lifting, partner lifting, harness lifts, odd-object work. (Modern) A competitor in the post-1977 Strongman athletic category, with codified events drawn substantially from the older tradition.

Two-hands lift

Any lift performed with both hands. The two-hands clean and jerk, two-hands snatch, two-hands continental, and two-hands press were all distinct categories in pre-1932 IWF competition, with separate records.

Institutions and publications

IWF

The International Weightlifting Federation, founded in Paris in 1920. The governing body of Olympic-style weightlifting.

AAU

The Amateur Athletic Union of the United States, founded in 1888. Recognised weightlifting from 1929 onwards and ran the first Mr. America contest in 1939.

IFBB

The International Federation of BodyBuilders, founded by the Weider brothers in 1946. The principal modern bodybuilding sanctioning body and, by the 1970s, the central rival to the AAU and to Hoffman's York establishment.

Stark Center

The H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at the University of Texas at Austin. Holds the principal academic archive of the field, including the Todd-McLean Collection, the Ottley Coulter Collection, the Sigmund Klein papers, and the David Webster collection. Publishes Iron Game History. See the Library.

Strength

The American magazine founded by Calvert in 1914 and published until 1935. The first American magazine devoted to lifting.

Strength & Health

Hoffman's magazine, published by York Barbell from 1932 onwards. The dominant American lifting magazine for forty years.