Alan Calvert

1875 – 24 June 1944 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Alan Calvert patented the Milo Adjustable Barbell in 1902, founded the Milo Barbell Company in Philadelphia the same year, and from 1914 published Strength, one of the first American magazines devoted to strength training. He was not a great lifter himself. He was the man who put a usable barbell on a customer's doorstep.

Origins

Calvert was born in 1875 and grew up in a family business: his father owned a tin-plating concern, which gave him a familiarity with metalworking. He became interested in training after reading Edwin Checkley's A Natural Method of Physical Training and William Blaikie's How to Get Strong and How to Stay So. Light, high-repetition work disappointed him; after meeting Eugen Sandow in Chicago he became convinced of the value of heavy weights, only to find that no barbells were sold commercially in the United States.

The work

Calvert received a patent for the Milo Adjustable Barbell in January 1902 and founded the Milo Barbell Company in April of that year, naming both after Milo of Croton. The first bars had hollow ends that could be loaded with shot; a later design combined shot with weighted plates inside the end spheres, and a 1919 patent covered plates of different widths that fitted within the sphere. Sold by mail order, these were the first barbells widely available to American amateurs. Calvert also gave demonstrations of his own, billing himself as "Milo the Great".

Finding that the general physical-culture press had little interest in heavy training, he founded Strength in 1914 to teach lifting technique and promote his products. He argued for standard weights, standard rules for the lifts and weight classes, promoted an American board of control for competition — efforts that fed into the American Continental Weight-Lifters' Association — and exposed the tricks behind stage feats such as chain and coin breaking.

In 1919 Calvert sold both the Milo Barbell Company and Strength to Richard L. Hunter and Daniel G. Redmond. The magazine continued until 1935; the company was acquired in the early-to-mid 1930s (sources give 1932 or 1935) by Bob Hoffman and absorbed into what became York Barbell.

Notable feats

Calvert's significance lies in his commercial and editorial work rather than his own lifting:

• Patent for the Milo Adjustable Barbell, January 1902; founder of the Milo Barbell Company, April 1902.
• Founder and publisher of Strength, 1914–1919.
• Author of The Truth about Weight Lifting (1911) and Super Strength (1924).

Method

Calvert's books and magazine argued for progressive training with heavy weights rather than light dumbbell drill, a principle his adjustable barbell was designed to make practical. Super Strength (1924) is the best known of his books and is still read for its advocacy of heavy, progressive work. He also argued that a fine physique was an asset in business and social life — part of his effort to make weight training respectable.

Legacy

The Milo barbell put serious training equipment within reach of the American amateur, and Strength helped turn weightlifting into an organised sport in the United States. Through Hoffman's purchase, the Milo company became part of the lineage of York Barbell. Calvert died at St. Davids, Pennsylvania, on 24 June 1944, and is buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd.

Disputed and unresolved

The claim that Calvert "invented" the adjustable barbell should be read narrowly: shot-loaded globe barbells were already used by stage strongmen, and his achievement was a patented, standardised product sold by mail at amateur prices. His exact date and place of birth are not given in the sources consulted, and older accounts disagree on whether he sold the business in 1919 or 1920; the 1919 date follows Iron Game History.