The Two-Hands Anyhow

c. 1890 – 1930s · Two-implement overhead lift

In the two-hands anyhow the lifter puts two separate weights overhead, one in each hand, by any method. The usual way was to bent-press a barbell with the stronger arm, then — keeping it locked overhead — bend down, pick up a kettlebell, ring-weight or dumbbell with the other hand and bring it up beside the first. The combined weight counted. Arthur Saxon's 448 lb is the accepted best.

Description

The method was free, which is where the name comes from, but most heavy anyhows followed the same pattern. The lifter shouldered a barbell and took it overhead with one arm, usually by the bent press. Holding it at arm's length, he lowered his body to take hold of the second weight on the floor, raised it to the shoulder and then overhead by pressing, jerking or swinging, and finally stood erect with both arms locked.

The lift therefore combined a maximal one-arm overhead lift with the balance needed to keep that weight aloft while bending, and a second lift made under it.

Rules in competition

Professional strongmen performed the anyhow on stage with their own implements. In Britain it became an amateur event under the British Amateur Weight Lifters' Association (founded 1910, renamed BAWLA in 1911) as the "two hands anyhow with barbell and ring-weight", in which a ring-weight or dumbbell took the place of the kettlebell. BAWLA's rules were stricter than stage practice, which partly explains why amateur records stand well below the professional figures.

Notable figures

• Arthur Saxon — 448 lb (203 kg): a 336 lb barbell bent-pressed, then a 112 lb kettlebell. The accepted best for the lift, recorded in Saxon's own The Development of Physical Power.
• Hermann Goerner — about 430 lb (195.5 kg) with four kettlebells, Dresden, 25 July 1920: two swung up together in the right hand, a third swung up with the left and transferred to the right, then a fourth with the left.
• Thomas Inch — 356½ lb (about 162 kg).
• Ron Walker — 310½ lb (about 141 kg), British heavyweight record under BAWLA rules, 1937.

For many years the anyhow was the lift in which the most weight was put overhead, until Olympic lifters' clean and jerks passed 500 lb.

Disputed and unresolved

Saxon's 448 lb comes from his own account rather than from a refereed contest, and is best described as the accepted, not the officially ratified, record. Larger figures sometimes attached to him in later magazines are not supported.