He could hold his partner overhead in a hand-to-hand balance, kneel down, lie on his back, roll over and then work his way back to his feet, holding the hand-to-hand balance through the entire movement. In his specialty, Herculean handbalancing, Arco was unrivaled. In 1913, in Paris, he won the title of World's Most Perfectly Developed Man. His physique was so impressive that he posed for the world famous sculptor August Rodin. Not surprisingly, no one ever did.Р”Р„rco weighed between 135 and 138 pounds, but he could continental clean and jerk 278.5 - more than double his bodyweight - and jerk 305 when the weight was handed to him at his shoulders. He could lift overhead a 300 pound bag of flour, a feat he dared all challengers throughout his career as a circus and music hall strongman to beat. Saxon could snatch with one hand a rough wooden plank that was 10 inches wide, 3 inches thick and 15 feet long that weighed 90 pounds. On one occasion he bent pressed 297.6 pounds using only his little finger (the weight was suspended from a strong leather loop around his finger). At a relatively modest size compared to today's superheavyweights, Goerner could do a one-arm barbell clean with 297.62 pounds, a strict barbell curl with 220.46, a right hand snatch with 254.55, a right hand swing with two kettlebells (held in one hand) weighing a total of 220.46 pounds, a continental style clean of 440.92, a two hand clean and jrek of 390.22 and a two arm snatch with his arms crossed (one arm over the other) with 231 pounds.Р”Р„t a bodyweight of around 210 pounds he could juggle 119-pound kettlebells, bent press 370, lift 448 in the two hands anyhow, and bent press a 300 pound barbell, stand erect with the weight, then toss it from one hand to the other. On October 8, 1928, in Leipzig, Germany, at a bodyweight of 220 pounds Goerner did a one-arm deadlift with 727.5 pounds. Scan the following paragraphs and ask yourself if you know anyone who can match the feats described. Why would aspiring trainees in the late 1990s want to check out their training methods? After all, today's bodybuilders are so much bigger and so much more cut than their counterparts of yesteryear. Others, however, aren't convinced that the old-timers actually knew much about training. Sales have been extremely good, so, apparently, lots of other people are at least curious about how the old-timers training might benefit modern lifters. That's one reason I wrote a book called Dinosaur Training: Lost Secrets of Strength and Development.

Steiner has been saying in this magazine that the old-time methods of building muscle and strength have much to offer modern trainees.

Dinosaur dumbbell training book