Professor Jan Todd is the Director of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports and the current Chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin (UT). She was also the founder (with Terry Todd) of the Stark Center, a research center with exhibition galleries, a library, and archival collections dedicated to the history of strength training, health, and exercise. The Center covers 30,000 SF in the UT football stadium and it also holds the UT Sport Archives. Learn more at: www.starkcenter.org
Recognized as a pioneer in strength training both as an athlete and as an academic, Dr. Todd’s interest in the history of strength and physical culture began with her participation in the sport of powerlifting in the 1970s. During her career, Sports Illustrated, and other media often described her as “the strongest woman in the world,” and she was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for more than 12 years. As a powerlifter, Todd set more than 60 national and world records in five weight classes. She was the first woman to total 1000, 1100 and 1200 pounds, and the first woman to officially lift more than 400 pounds in the deadlift and 500 pounds in the squat. She was also the first woman to lift the Dinnie Stones in Scotland.
Todd is also believed to be the first woman in America to hold the title “strength coach,” as she was named strength coach for the women’s teams at Auburn University in 1980. In powerlifting, Todd was the first woman to coach a national men’s team at the International Powerlifting Federation World Championships, which she did in 1981 in Calcutta, India, and in 1984 in Dallas, Texas. Her teams won both world championships and she was also victorious as the US women’s team coach at the women’s world championships. Todd also served as both national and international chair for women’s powerlifting, playing a key role in the acceptance of women in the sport in the 1970s.
As a professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at The University of Texas at Austin, Todd founded the PhD Program in Physical Culture and Sport Studies and in recent years taught classes on the history of strength and strength training; the history of physical culture; and the history of exercise science and sports medicine. She has also directed and/or served on the committees for 72 doctoral and master’s students and she has made more than 150 academic presentations.
Todd serves as the executive editor of Iron Game History: The Journal of Physical Culture, a scholarly journal covering the history of physical culture, that she and her husband, Terry Todd, founded in 1990. She has published more than 90 peer-reviewed articles, nearly all of which have dealt with the history or practical application of strength training. She has also written three books: Strength Coaching in America: The Historical Evolution of the Most Important Sport Innovation of the Twentieth Century with Jason Shurley (2019); Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of American Women (1998); and, with Terry Todd, Lift Your Way to Youthful Fitness (1985). Lift was the first book to include workout routines for non-athletes based on periodization theory, and it also presciently argued that weight training will help us stay healthy as we age. Her newest book project, again with Jason Shurley as co-author, is titled: Before and After Inside Powerlifting: A History of the Sport. It is scheduled for 2027.
Todd was the first woman inducted into the International Powerlifting Hall of Fame, and she was in the first class of the USA-PL Women’s Powerlifting Hall of Fame. She received the 2008 Oscar Heidenstam Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to the field of physical fitness, and she has also been honored by the Oldetime Barbell and Strongmen Association and The National Fitness Hall of Fame for her myriad contributions to the strength sports. In 2018, she was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame and in March of 2019 she received the Arnold Sports Festival’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. She has also received numerous academic awards including being named the DB Dill Lecturer by the American College of Sports Medicine, the Seward Staley Honor Lecturer for the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) as well as winning NASSH’s Honor Award for her significant contributions to the field of sport history. In July of 2025 she will receive the Al Roy Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
Todd remains actively engaged in the promotion of the sport of Strongman and has served as co-director and now director of the Arnold Strongman Classic at the Arnold Sports Festival since 2002. She has also run similar contests in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Madrid, Spain; and Birmingham, England. In early August, she can often be found judging stone lifting at “The Gathering” and “Jan Todd Games” (named in her honor) in Potarch, Scotland, where the Dinnie Stones reside.
Filmography:
The Commissioner of Power: A documentary about the life of Terry Todd (and Jan) and the founding of the Stark Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgqdmIKH-1E (90 minutes-debuted at Austin Film Festival)
Levantadores, about stone lifting in the Basque region of Northern Spain (2015; https://youtu.be/vck32S27RmM)
Stoneland, which explores the strength culture of Scotland and Todd’s lifting of the Dinnie Stones (2017; https://youtu.be/MhQlNwxn5oo) (has been viewed more than 25M times)
Fullsterkur, about strength, stone lifting, and Viking culture in Iceland. Released in September, 2018, (https://www.facebook.com/roguefitness/videos/fullsterkur-an-original-film-by-rogue/278291102776516/)
Rogue Legends Series (Biographies of famous strength athletes):
Sandwina, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBXEVzj_Eg4
Sandow, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nPD2__e0E
Apollon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdZZm1f4RvY
Hackenschmidt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIvI6KYpFWA
Saxon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D93S8G8jlvc
Other:
The Alcalde: How Two Powerlifters Founded One of UT’s Most Unique Places
