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. Formed in 1910 as the British Weight Lifters' Association and refounded under the BAWLA name in 1911; the governing body of British amateur lifting through the twentieth century, now trading as British Weight Lifting.

Bent press

A one-arm overhead lift in which the lifter takes the bell to the shoulder, then bends sideways and down under it until the arm is locked straight, and stands up. Saxon's 168 kg (about 370 lb) is the accepted record. Never an Olympic lift; it survived in British and all-round amateur lifting but faded after the 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

An older name for what is now called the squat. Heavy squatting was popularised in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, notably by Henry Steinborn and in the York publications; the name "squat" became standard later in the century.

Dumbbell

A one-hand weight implement. Nineteenth-century dumbbells were usually fixed-weight cast-iron globes joined by a handle, or hollow globes that could be filled with shot or sand. Calvert's Milo barbells and dumbbells of 1902 were shot-loaded; plates inside or on the ends came in with later Milo models.

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, either solid or hollow and shot-loaded. The usual stage dumbbell of the nineteenth century. Surviving examples include Cyr's dumbbells and the Inch dumbbell.

Grip

In Iron Game vocabulary, both the act of holding an implement and, by extension, the size of its handle. A "thick handle" or "fat bar" is one much thicker than an ordinary bar of about 1 in (25–28 mm); the Inch dumbbell's 2⅜ in handle is the canonical example.

Hantel

The German word for a dumbbell or barbell (Kurzhantel, Langhantel). German and Austrian clubs were lifting with globe and plate barbells well before the first commercial barbells were sold in the United States.

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 and physical-culture magazine of the early twentieth century, founded in 1898. Inch, Aston and most of the British professionals wrote for it or were reported in it.

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 handle on top (Russian girya), traditionally made in multiples of the pood (about 16 kg). Popular in the Russian lifting circles of the late nineteenth century — Pyotr Krylov was billed as the "King of Kettlebells" — and on the European stage. It fell out of Western use in the mid-twentieth century and was reintroduced to the English-speaking world around 2000, largely through Pavel Tsatsouline.

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

Any lift performed with one arm: bent press, one-hand snatch, one-hand clean and jerk, side press. One-hand lifts were contested at the Olympics in 1896, 1920 and 1924, and dropped from 1928, when the programme became the two-hands press, snatch, and clean and jerk.

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 changed by adding or removing iron plates secured by collars, as opposed to fixed-weight implements and to shot-loaded ones whose hollow globes are filled with shot. Calvert's Milo company moved from shot-loading to plates in the 1900s and 1910s.

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 movement from floor to lockout. The one-hand snatch was an Olympic event in 1920 and 1924; the two-hands snatch has been on the Olympic programme since 1928. See the one-hand snatch.

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. Early competitions recognised many separate two-hands lifts — clean and jerk, snatch, continental, press, anyhow — each with its own records, before the Olympic programme was fixed at three lifts in 1928 and two in 1973.

Institutions and publications

IWF

The International Weightlifting Federation, the governing body of Olympic-style weightlifting. It traces its origins to 1905; the Fédération Internationale Haltérophile was established in its modern form in 1920.

AAU

The Amateur Athletic Union of the United States, founded in 1888. It governed American amateur weightlifting for most of the twentieth century and held its 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, founded by Terry and Jan Todd. Holds the principal academic archive of the field, built around the Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection, and publishes Iron Game History. See the Library.

Strength

The American magazine founded by Calvert in 1914 to promote weight training and the Milo barbell; Calvert sold it, with the company, in 1919. One of the first American magazines devoted to lifting.

Strength & Health

Hoffman's magazine, published by York Barbell from 1932. The dominant American lifting magazine for several decades.