Henry "Milo" Steinborn

24 January 1893 – 6 March 1989 · Mannheim → Philadelphia

Henry "Milo" Steinborn was the lifter who taught Americans how to squat heavy. Before the squat rack was a standard piece of gym furniture — through the 1920s and into the 1930s — Steinborn would tip a loaded barbell up on its end, walk it onto his shoulders, squat it, and walk it back down. The "Steinborn lift" is named for the manoeuvre.

Origins

Steinborn was born in Mannheim, Germany, in January 1893. He worked as a railway clerk, took up amateur weightlifting in his teens, and was strong enough by his early twenties to compete at national level. He served in the German army through the First World War and was interned for several years in an Australian prisoner-of-war camp from 1916, where he continued to train with improvised equipment. He emigrated to the United States after the war, settling first in Philadelphia and then for several years in York and Tampa, Florida.

The work

Steinborn competed in American lifting through the 1920s and 1930s and was, for a substantial period, the most respected heavyweight in the country. He held American records in the squat, the deadlift, and the two-hands continental clean. He also wrestled professionally — a substantial second career that took him through the 1930s and 1940s on the American wrestling circuit, often in the south-eastern United States. He ran a gym in Orlando, Florida, in his later career.

Notable feats

Steinborn's documented figures, recorded across Strength and ACWLA contest reports, include:

• Squat of 553 lb (251 kg) at a bodyweight of approximately 210 lb (95 kg), Philadelphia, 1920s. The lift was performed without a rack — Steinborn tipped the bar up from horizontal, rolled it onto his shoulders, performed the squat, and reversed the motion to lower it.
• Two-hands continental clean and jerk of 375 lb (170 kg), American record, 1923.
• Deadlift of approximately 600 lb (272 kg).
• Right-hand bent press of 280 lb (127 kg).

The squat figure is the central one. Until Steinborn, the squat was lifted only as far as a man could press a bar overhead and then "settle" it onto his shoulders, which limited the working weight to a fraction of his maximum squat. By tipping the bar from a vertical resting position — one end on the floor, the other in his hands — and rolling it onto his back, Steinborn loaded weights well in excess of his clean. The technique required strength and timing in roughly equal proportion; few of his contemporaries cared to try it. The squat rack, when it became standard equipment in the 1930s, was in part a response to this demonstration of how much could be lifted if one could only get the bar onto the back.

"He squatted as a man kneels — without thinking about getting up. He had decided already that he would."

Method

Steinborn's training, recorded by Calvert in Strength magazine and later by Hoffman in Strength & Health, was conventional for the German tradition: heavy compound work, low reps, frequent practice of the contest lifts. He emphasised the squat as a fundamental exercise at a time when American training writers (with the exception of Calvert) treated it with suspicion. He also worked the deadlift consistently, in an era when many American lifters considered it a "demonstration" lift rather than a training one.

Legacy

The Steinborn lift is the legacy. It is still performed, occasionally and as a demonstration of skill rather than absolute strength, in modern strongman events. More importantly, Steinborn's example was the proximate cause of the squat's adoption in American training: Calvert featured him in Strength, Hoffman trained with him in York, and the squat rack became standard equipment in part because the alternative — Steinborn's method — was technically demanding and not for everyone. He died in Orlando in March 1989, aged ninety-six.

Disputed and unresolved

Some figures attached to Steinborn (a 1,000-lb supported lift, an 800-lb hip lift) appear inconsistently in popular sources and are best treated with caution; the contest figures recorded in Strength are the firm ones. The exact weight of his best Steinborn-style squat varies between 553 lb (Calvert's figure) and 600 lb (later York-era reports); the 553 figure is contemporary and is the one usually cited.