I recently read the book Modern Weight Lifting And How To Gain Strength by Edward Aston. It was a short and interesting book written by an English strong man athlete published in 1912. Edward Aston held the title of “Britain’s Strongest Man” for over twenty years and created a training tool called the anti-barbell.

Early on in the book Edward gives a brief history of the sport of weight lifting. I thought this part of the book was really interesting. He told stories about athletes back then challenging each other to do different lifts. These athletes had funny nicknames like “Hercules” and “Sampson” and the judging criteria for these competitions was completely subjective. Learning about how far that sport has come over the years was one of my favorite parts of reading this book

In the “How To Gain Strength” chapter of this book there were a lot of basic training guidelines along with a section about diet and bathing. I thought it was interesting that even over one hundred years ago athletes knew that a healthy lifestyle was one of the most important aspects of their training. He also mentioned in this chapter that he believes everybody should lift weights and that the most valuable asset to an aspiring champion is a knowledge of how to train.

The thing that I found most interesting about this book was one of Edward’s opinions on competing. He talked about never thinking about the match leading up to game day to avoid getting nervous. I thought this was interesting because it is the exact opposite of what I do. I love thinking about my matches leading up to a competition, it makes me feel excited and makes me push myself a little harder. Reading what Edward had to say about it made me think about how different people can be and how there is more than one way to do most things. 

Coach Danny