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Blue Cover with Youth Physical Fitness written

President’s Council on Youth Physical Fitness

In December 1953, the Journal of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation published an article, “Muscular Fitness and Health,” coauthored by Dr. Hans Kraus and Bonnie Prudden that sounded an alarm about the poor state of youth fitness in America. Within two years, another article by Dr. Kraus and Bonnie Prudden (under the name...

The cover of York Abdominal Course in green and tan ink

York Strength Courses by Bob Hoffman

Bob Hoffman was an American entrepreneur who rose to prominence after buying the Milo Barbell Company in 1935 and selling his oil burner business and founding the York Barbell Company in 1938. He founded magazines such as Muscular Development and Strength & Health, and was the manufacturer of a line of bodybuilding supplements. Hoffman promoted bodybuilders like John Grimek and...

Cover of George Jowett's The Body Builder with Jowett dressed in Roman garb

George Jowett’s Strength Pamphlets

George F. Jowett was one of the first to offer strength correspondence courses to people at a time when there really were relatively few gymnasiums. He was born December 23, 1891 in England and lived there until 1911 when he immigrated to Canada. In 1923 he moved to Pittsburgh and then Scranton, Pennsylvania where he...

The cover of All About Lifting by W.L. Carquest with a photo of him with a champion weight-lifter belt around his waist.

All About Lifting by W.L. Carquest

W.L. Carquest was a British World Champion Weight-Lifter at the turn of the 20th Century. He first gained the 8 stone 7 pounds championship at the German Gymnasium on the 20th of April, 1907 (this was the same day that the match between Inch and Caswell for the World’s Middle-weight Championship took place). He set...

The cover of Alan Calvert's training manual "The Broad of the Back"

The Broad of the Back by Alan Calvert

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,...

The cover of Professor Anthony Barker's A Strong Shapely Neck pamphlet.

Professor Anthony Barker’s Training Pamphlets

Professor Anthony Barker was a great Oldtime Strongman in the New York Area in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Barker practiced early all around strength and was famous not only for having strong muscles, but being strong all over.  In addition to regular strongman training of the period, he trained his jaws with teeth...

Red cover with Chuck Sipes bending a steel bar in his mouth.

How to Perform Feats of Strength

Chuck Sipes was born in 1932 and started weightlifting to make a high school football team and ended up being an incredibly successful bodybuilder. Chuck won numerous titles, such as Mr. America in 1959, Mr. Universe in 1960, NABBA World Championship in 1967 and Mr. World in 1968. Aside from his impressive bodybuilding career, Chuck...

Cover page of Art Folio of Muscular Marvels by Earle Liederman

Art Folios of Muscular Marvels

A booklet of boxers, wrestlers, strongmen, weight-lifters, bodybuilders…hundreds of photos, each with name of bodybuilder underneath, but no other text. Roughly 100 pages (not numbered), authored by Earle Lieberman.

Muscle Control instruction pamphlet by Walt Baptiste with a photo of Walt posing with a staff on the front cover

Walt Baptiste’s Muscle Control Instruction Pamphlet

Walt Baptiste was a renowned and much loved San Francisco leader and legend, a patriotic American, a leader and a pioneer who inspired hundreds of thousands to embrace the world of Body Mind & Spirit. Walt was one of the foremost authorities and teachers of Yoga in the world, who taught countless students over the...

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