Implements

The objects, where they are now, and what has been done with them

A few of the lifters left books, and most of them left photographs. A handful left iron — implements still sitting in museum cases, in private hands, or beside a bridge on the Dee. The implements are the most direct evidence the field has, because the weights can still be put on a scale.

The Inch Dumbbell172 lb 9 oz (78.25 kg) · 2⅜ in handle

The thick-handled challenge dumbbell of Thomas Inch. Its 2⅜ in (6.03 cm) handle, not its weight, is what makes it hard: most hands cannot close round it. Inch claimed to have cleaned it one-handed and put it overhead many times; the overhead claim is disputed. Contemporaries including Arthur Saxon are recorded as failing to lift it. After Inch it passed to Reg Park, then David Prowse, then (in 2000) the American strength coach Kim Wood. Bill Kazmaier pressed it overhead after a two-hand clean in 1990, and Mark Henry made the first one-hand clean and press in 2002.

The Inch Dumbbell in full →

Apollon's Wheels166 kg (366 lb) · 49.3 mm axle · non-revolving

A pair of railway-carriage wheels on a fixed axle 1 11/12 in (49.3 mm) thick, made for Louis Uni, "Apollon". Despite the legend, there is no good evidence that Apollon himself cleaned it. The first conclusive clean and jerk was by Charles Rigoulot in Paris in 1930, followed by John Davis (Paris, 1949) and Norbert Schemansky (Lille, 1954). The original is in the Musée National du Sport in Nice; a replica has been used at the Arnold Strongman Classic since 2002, and its copies gave the strongman "axle" its name.

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The Cyr Dumbbell202 lb empty · shot-loaded · thick handle

Louis Cyr used hollow, thick-handled globe dumbbells that could be loaded with lead shot; the best known weighs 202 lb empty. At the Royal Aquarium in London on 19 February 1892 Cyr cleaned and pressed a dumbbell of 273¼ lb with one arm. Cyr bells survive at the York Barbell Hall of Fame (where John Grimek bent-pressed it loaded to 269½ lb), at the Stark Center in Austin (a gift of Ben Weider), and at the Louis Cyr museum in Saint-Jean-de-Matha. Rogue's copy of the Stark Center bell for the Arnold Strongman Classic started the modern Cyr dumbbell event.

The Cyr Dumbbell in full →

The Dinnie Stones414.5 lb + 318.5 lb = 733 lb (332.5 kg) · granite with iron rings · Potarch

Two granite stones with iron rings at Potarch on the River Dee, said to have been used as counterweights for bridge maintenance in the 1830s. Donald Dinnie is reported to have carried them across the width of the Potarch Bridge — 17 ft 1½ in (about 5.2 m) — in 1860. They were mislaid after the First World War and rediscovered by David P. Webster in 1953. David Prowse lifted both with straps in 1963; Jack Shanks made the first lift without straps in 1972 and repeated the bridge carry on 3 June 1973. Jan Todd was the first woman to lift them, in 1979.

The Dinnie Stones in full →

The Milo BarbellAdjustable barbell · patented 1902

Alan Calvert patented the Milo Adjustable Barbell in January 1902 and founded the Milo Barbell Company in Philadelphia in April of that year, naming both after Milo of Croton. The first bars had hollow ends loaded with shot; later models combined shot with plates inside the globes, and a 1919 patent covered plates of graded widths. It was the first barbell sold widely by mail in the United States, and Calvert promoted it through his magazine Strength (1914–1920). He sold the company in 1919; in the 1930s it was taken over by Bob Hoffman and absorbed into York Barbell.

The Húsafell StoneAbout 158 kg (348 lb) · basalt slab · Húsafell, Iceland

A slab of basalt at Húsafell in west Iceland, used as the gate stone of a sheep and goat pen built by the Reverend Snorri Björnsson around 1756. Its weight is usually given as about 158 kg (348 lb); a 1923 account gives 156 kg. Icelandic tradition grades strength by it — lifting it, lifting it and standing with it, and carrying it round the pen — although the 1923 account says the familiar titles attached to those grades have no historical connection with this stone.

The stone is outside this archive's 1850–1950 window, both earlier and later: its tradition is older than the Iron Game, and it became famous in strength sport only after Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Magnús Ver Magnússon and others carried it in the 1980s. It was first used in competition at Iceland's Strongest Man in 1985 and featured at the 1992 World's Strongest Man.

For the lifts made with these implements, see Feats and Lifts.