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How many times have you been to a local school during recess and heard the following statements / questions?
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“He-Man’s way stronger than Hercules!
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“Oh, yeah? What about Goku then? He can lift a mountain!”
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“So what? It’s well known that my dad is the strongest in the world!”
And then raise a wry smile as you realise that it’s your son speaking!
Almost every child these days has been exposed to feats of superhuman strength and bodybuilding thanks to shows such as “Masters of the Universe”, “Dragonball Z” and of course their own parents (especially if they are competition weightlifters or bodybuilders), but it’s nothing new really. People have been fascinated by people who’ve been able to do more than most people since the dawn of time. So if a definitive list was to be drawn up of all the strongest / muscled men who have influenced history, it might look something like this:
Samson (approx 1,120BC – 1,080BC)
Samson was born in Canaan (modern day Israel) at the end of the twelfth century BC, but the question is raised as to whether he existed or not. What we do know is that his birth was preceded by an angel telling his mother that she would give birth to a Nazirite (from a different part of the Middle East) and that whatever was to happen, his hair couldn’t be cut. The reason for this strange request, well, this was demonstrated when Samson was about eighteen when a mountain lion pounced on him. About a minute later, Samson went on his way.
And whilst in the Canaanite army, he managed to bump off a thousand Philistines (from what is modern day Georgia) with just a jawbone. This brought him to the attention of the Philistine nation and to one woman in particular named Delilah and when she was told that she’s get a reward for finding out the secret of Samson’s strength leading to some scenes that wouldn’t go amiss in a torture chamber, she found out about his hair and cut it whilst he was asleep.
Well, now Samson was as weak as a baby and as a result was humiliated by the Philistines, until a national celebration when the Philistines decided to show off its biggest scalp. But as enough time had elapsed for his hair to grow back, Samson (after praying to God) brought the temple down around their ears and also committed suicide at the same time. When news arrived in Canaan of what happened, Samson’s brothers bought his body back home and he was buried between Zorah and Eshtaol in the same plot as his father.
Like Samson, whilst the debate rages about whether or not there really was a Hercules (the latest suggestion is that he was perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of Argos near the Gulf of Corinth in Greece) what can’t be denied is that in terms of superhuman feats, his twelve labours can’t be beaten, but what about his history? Well, using a combination of the legend and the history of Greece, we can determine that he was born about 550BC and was the result of what could be termed a “liaison dangereux” between Zeus, the king of the Greek gods and Alcmene.
Why was this liaison dangerous? Well, firstly both Zeus and Alcmene were married (to Hera and Amphitryon respectively) and secondly, any cross breeding between gods and mortals was always likely to create ructions. The first of which was felt on Mount Olympus, when Hera found out what had happened and well, putting it politely “sought a termination”.
Anyway, Hercules was born (despite Hera’s best efforts) and the name that the parents chose pushed Hera over the edge and she sent two snakes to deal with Hercules. Which would have worked, if the second ruction of a god / mortal breeding programme hadn’t occurred. Baby Hercules thought that the snakes were toys and started to use them as a rattle. The reason? He was possessed of superhuman strength. Hera was furious and spent the rest of Hercules’ life making it miserable as possible.
After several years, Hercules got married to Megara and they had two lovely children. Well, this was too much for Hera to bare and so made Hercules kill his wife and children in a fit of madness. When Hercules recovered and saw what had happened, he made an offering to Apollo (the gods’ version of People’s Court) and asked forgiveness. He was told in no uncertain terms that he would have to work off his debt by performing several tasks and after a consultation with the Oracle at Delphi, he went to see and told him what happened and that the gods had commanded him to be King Eurystheus’s personal slave. Now, this king was no dummy and so ordered Hercules to perform ten tasks
Task 1: Slay the Nemean lion (and when he did he wore the skin as proof)
Task 2: Slay the nine-headed Hydra of Lerna
Task 3: Capture of the elusive hind (stag) of Arcadia
Task 4: Capture the wild boar of Mount Erymanthus
Task 5: Clean (by sunset that day) the cattle stables of King Augeas of Elis
Task 6: Shoot the monstrous man-eating birds of the Stymphalian marshes
Task 7: Capture of the mad bull that terrorized the island of Crete
Task 8: Capture of the man-eating mares of King Diomedes of the Bistones
Task 9: Take the girdle of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons (from what is now Azerbaijan)
Task 10: Seize the cattle of the three-bodied giant Geryon, who ruled the island Erytheia
Now as you can imagine, that took Hercules several years, but when reports came back to King Eurystheus that Hercules was on the way back, he panicked and came up with two extra tasks.
Task 11: Bring back the golden apples kept at the world's end by the Hesperides
Task 12: Fetch up from the lower world (Hades) the triple-headed dog Cerberus, guardian of its gates
When that last task was completed, Hercules was not going to be bossed around by anyone and became a freelance agent, dealing with minor emergencies such as preventing the Princess of Troy from being eaten by a sea monster, and even helping his father prevent a “corporate takeover” of Mount Olympus. After all these adventures, Hercules fell in love again and married for the second time. His wife this time was called Deianira and when he came back from his trip to Olympus, she had a present waiting for him. A cloak that she had woven herself with a little added extra. A special balm given to her by a centaur that would make Hercules the most “active” man on earth by ensuring them a fruitful relationship.
However, guess who had given the centaur the balm in the first place? That’s right Hera, and as you might have guessed this wasn’t the 6th century BC’s version of Viagra but was in fact a deadly poison and as soon as Hercules put the cloak on, he’d had it.
He asked his friends to sacrifice him to the gods to prevent the poison from killing him, and as his friends set fire to the funeral pyre, Hera relented. As the funeral pyre burned, Athena was sent down to take Hercules back to his ancestral home and even today can be seen in the stars.
After the Greeks (and to a certain degree the Romans), interest in feats of strength and muscle started to wane a little. Yes, there were still stories of great strength, an example being a king in what is now Romania, lifting and carrying a 425lb stone to assert his authority as king in the 1100’s AD, but it’s not until at least the 1620’s that strength and muscle makes a reappearance (and even then it’s due to someone writing about him in the 1800’s!)
(By the way, if you are wondering why I've put a clip of Arnie as Hercules and not Steve Reevesm it's because both are both going to be mentioned later on)
Last edited by Muscled Welsh Webmaster; 11-18-2006 at 07:02 AM.
Now the more eagle eyed of you might be wondering what a 17th century dandy is doing in a review of strongmen / bodybuilders. Well, despite his foppish appearance, Porthos was anything but. Alexandre Dumas of course wrote him about in the 1850’s, but the story of the Three Musketeers was set in the middle of the 17th century, with Porthos leading the way.
Born in 1597, Porthos is pretty much unassuming as a child, but when he reaches his 18th birthday, his father despatches him to Paris to become a member of the Musketeers. We hear very little from him until 1625 when a certain D’Artagnan arrives in Paris and manages to team up with Porthos as well as Aramis and Athos and it’s here we start to see just how strong Porthos is.
When D’Artagnan is first introduced to Captain Treville (the captain of the King’s Musketeers) we get an inkling of how strong he must be when Dumas writes
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He (Captain Treville) was of middle height; but his person was so admirably shaped and so well proportioned that more than once in his struggles with Porthos he had overcome the giant whose physical strength was proverbial among the Musketeers
but it’s not until 1845 when Dumas wrote a five act play about the Musketeers set after the original that we see just how strong Porthos really is.
Porthos has arrived in Paris to meet his old colleagues and is at D’Artagnan’s house (who is now a lieutenant) and is discussing his inheritance that enables him to call himself Baron du Vallon. In the library of the estate, there is a book about the twelve labours of Hercules and it tells about a similar person called Milon of Crete who was also remarkably strong. Porthos read about this and decided to do the same. So, he slaughtered a bull on his estate with a single blow, carried it on his shoulders for 600 paces and then ate it just for good measure, but there was one thing he’d not been able to do that Milon could, and that was smother his face in rope and then to break free using the strength in his face. But as D’Artagnan points out, Porthos’ strength is in his arms, not his face.
His strength also helps in the next book “Twenty Years Later”, but it’s his final appearance in “The Viscount of Bragelonne” that seals his reputation for superhuman strength. Porthos and D’Artagnan are hiding in a cave from some Cardinal’s guardsmen when D’Artagnan sneezes thus bringing the guardsmen down on them. During the fight a piece of wood is dislodged and threatens to collapse the cave. Porthos holds the roof of the cave from collapsing long enough for D’Artagnan to escape and then with a final “One for all” brings the cave down, killing himself and the guardsmen.
Like Samson and Hercules, it’s a bit tricky to determine if there was ever a real life Porthos, but what is interesting is that in 1617 in the village of Pau in the south of France, an Issac du Portau was born who in 1640 served in a private military force and in 1642 joined the Musketeers under the guidance of a certain Monsieur Treville and according to local tradition was still alive in 1670. So was this du Portau, the real life influence for Porthos, one of the strongest men in European literature? We simply shall never know.
The reason for Porthos being given superhuman strength was due in part to the time the books were being written. The “Enlightenment” was sweeping across the Europe and towards the end of the 19th century the Olympic games were reborn marking the pinnacle of this revolution of ideas. One of the ideas that was reborn during this time was the recognition of the perfection of the human body (as in the classical Greek statues) and if there was one man who embraced this idea completely, it was Eugene Sandow
Eugene Sandow (1867 – 1925)
Eugene Sandow was born in Konigsberg, in Prussia (what is now part of the Baltic nation of Latvia) in 1867 and like a lot of the people profiled so far had a normal childhood. During his teenage years he ran off to join the circus where he developed an interest in acrobatics, but in 1887 in Brussels in Belgium, he met Louis Durlacher (otherwise known as “Attila”). He recognised the young man’s obvious talents and decided to turn this unassuming young man into the world’s first real life muscleman.
Now as we have seen bodybuilding wasn’t exactly new in the late 19th century, but it was rather haphazard. Through a process of trial and error, Durlacher and other German trainers managed to hit on a system that worked and after only a couple of months of training, both Louis and Eugene travelled across Europe and by 1889 was the toast of London after defeating a well known stage strongman called “Sampson”.
Despite the Victorian’s fascination for feats of strength and muscle, they were rather unkeen on the idea of doing it themselves. The blame for this could be laid at the door of Dr. Peter Steinchron who wrote a book in the mid 1870’s stating
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Bending over to tie or untie your shoes, bringing the fork to your mouth; the rubdown after a shower; laughing; talking and reading, all these furnish your daily exercise requirements
add to this allegations of “muscle binding” a condition caused by lifting too much weight and causing the muscles to grow so big that it would be possible to literally seize up. The fact that no evidence had even been recorded of this condition was beside the point.
The best place to see these strongmen was the theatre, which was the central point of life in the Victorian era. It would be quite common for them to appear in variety shows juggling cannonballs or even just lifting weights and over the next few years Eugene was a regular occurrence at theatres across the world and just like at contests today, audience members would often come up to him and ask to admire his physique and if there was a chance they could become as strong as him. This got him thinking and in 1897 he launched the first mail order fitness business and by the turn of the 20th century had opened the world’s first bodybuilding gym called a “Physical Culture Studio” in London.
Just like Bill Gates today, you couldn’t move in the early 20th century without coming across Mr. Sandow’s name. You could leave your home in London and go past his physical culture studio, pop into the food stores and buy his Health and Strength Cocoa and even purchase in the clothing shop his Patented Health Corset. And he didn’t stop with the UK, oh no, he went on tours of South Africa, India, Japan, New Zealand and Australia and even managed to bag a position in Buckingham Palace as the king’s personal trainer!
Eugene died in 1925 from the effects of syphilis, but his wife never allowed a gravestone, therefore even to this day, there is a part of Putney Vale graveyard in London that houses the remains of the world’s first bodybuilder, but no one will ever know.
But it wasn’t just Eugene that was spearheading the muscle revolution. By the time the world left the Victorian era in 1901, a new muscleman was on the scene, his name was Gustav Fristensky.
Gustav Fristensky (1879 – 1957)
Gustav was born May 7, 1879 in Kamhajek, Bohemia (part of the modern day Czech Republic) and was apparently very sick at the age of one, as was typical of many infants in those days. He was taken care of by village healers and had a hard life in childhood. His father took over the grandparent's farm, so being the oldest son (he had 6 younger siblings, he had to help with the farm work whenever his father had to be away, travelling to town or during the harvest. Sometimes he even had to skip school entirely, but the schoolmaster understood. The stronger the young Gustav (called Gusta) became, the more frequently he missed school.
When he was 14, the family started thinking of his future as the farm work could now also be done by his younger brother Karel, the second son of the family. It was decided that Gustav should learn some trade. Nobody asked young Gustav. His parents decided he would become a blacksmith. This seemed natural, since one of the familiar faces at family get-togethers was Mr. Semerad, a blacksmith from Krechor. But eventually he went to apprentice in Kolin to a Mr. Jech on Sokolska Street. Early in his apprenticeship, he had an accident and severely burned his hand. He went home for three months. During that time, he assisted a local butcher bringing him cattle purchased from Gustav's father. As his hand healed, he became hesitant to return to the harsh conditions at the blacksmith's shop, and he decided to become a butcher's apprentice instead, which to him was a more promising trade.
Eventually, he completed his apprenticeship and it was decided that he would then move away from home to gain some experience. He moved to Brno, and became interested in various sports clubs in Sokol, eventually taking up the sport of weightlifting in his free time. Gustav visited the town of Vyskov, where there was an exhibition and on that occasion found several wrestling matches scheduled. He entered and won the first prize in his competition. Further trips to sporting events followed shortly. He defeated wrestlers from various Prague and German clubs in Brno. He then won the championship of Austria defeating all Viennese wrestlers. His ambition was fulfilled when he had been paired in matches with foreign wrestlers in the European Championship at Rotterdam in Holland. Gustav was very powerful and could do the continental press with 308 lb with his strength, he grew an impressive physique. He was to win a World Physique Championship in 1903 at 6 foot tall and weighing 220 lbs. with extremely low body fat. Gustav was one of the best built of the Victorian bodybuilders and his physique would be remarkable even today. He possessed near perfect genetics for bodybuilding.
He eventually married Miroslava Ellederova, who was the daughter of a prosperous brewer and a famous as a singer in her own right. They had no children. Gustav had served in the artillery during the Great War, and was so famous as an athlete at that time; the new president gave him property in Litovel, in what is now the Czech Republic. He was prosperous throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, like so many others, Gustav was sent to a German concentration camp during much of WW II. He had suffered in health, but due to his being in such good health beforehand, was later able to regain his strength after the war and died on April 4th 1957 at the age of 78. There is a statue of this great champion in a Prague museum with the title written beneath as "Mr. Czechoslovakia" and many of his medals are also displayed there.
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