Alan Calvert was an American weightlifter, businessman, magazine publisher, and the author of several books. He was the founder of one of the first barbell companies in the world, the Milo Bar-bell Company, in Philadelphia in 1902. Calvert was also the founding publisher of Strength, one of the first strength-training magazines in the United States, from 1914 to 1920. In 1919, he sold both the Milo Bar-bell Company and Strength magazine to Richard L. Hunter and Daniel G. Redmond who sold the company in 1932 to Bob Hoffman, who renamed the company to York Barbell. This is an example of one of the training pamphlets that Calvert published.

The Broad of the Back, 1925