Strength, first published in 1914, was the channel needed by Alan Calvert to get the public to start using weights. Calvert had opened his business, Milo Bar-Bell, in 1902, on the premise that lifting heavy weights was the key to strength and physical conditioning. His adjustable barbells paved the way for the development of progressive...
One of the many reasons that we are pleased to have the on-going support of the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation is the close connection between Lutcher Stark and UT Athletics. As a member of the UT Board of Regents for 24 years, Stark was a strong supporter of the athletics program, in...
As a devoted weightlifter and physical culturalist, Coulter sought out and collected training guides produced by many of the world’s best-known strongmen, bodybuilders, and trainers. In 1922, K.V. Iyer opened the first Western style gym in India, in Bangalore. He was renowned for his beautifully balanced and developed body, achieved through a mixture of bodybuilding...
Ottley Coulter and George Jowett shared a life-long passion for weightlifting, believing it was not only a means to improve your physique but also an excellent channel for competitive energy. They wanted to see the sport of weightlifting receive national and international accolades; one step in that direction was the codification of competition rules. Their...
As a center for the history of sport and physical culture, the Stark Center benefits greatly from the rich athletics tradition of the University of Texas at Austin. Today’s short post looks at one of the sports in which the University of Texas has excelled for most of a century, tennis. The Stark Center has...
Abbye ‘Pudgy’ Stockton played a central role in popularizing physical culture and exercise for women in the central decades of the twentieth century. Famed for her hand balancing routine at Muscle Beach with her husband Les, Pudgy Stockton has been rightly credited by many as one of the leading proponents of female weightlifting and physical...
The Mark Henry Collection at The Stark Center includes a number of artifacts from Mark’s dynamic career as powerlifter, strongman, Olympian, and wrestler in the WWE. Because 2020 was set to be an Olympic year with the Summer Games hosted in Tokyo, I was curious to get Mark’s perspective on the Olympic experience as a...
Ryan’s essay, “Untangling the Differences between Live and Filmed Sport, or Why are Sports Movies Bad?” was selected for the R. Scott Kretchmar Student Essay Award by the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport (IAPS). A three-member IAPS panel grants the award to an essay of outstanding quality addressing any philosophical issue arising in...
Established by American physical culturist Bernarr MacFadden in late 1899, Physical Culture Magazine was one of the most iconic American health, weight lifting and physical culture magazines of the early twentieth century. Covering everything from health and diet to fictional short stories, Physical Culture is a deeply rich resource for scholars of health, physical culture, gender, sport and American...
