The iron game and capitalist culture: a century of American weightlifting in the Olympics, 1896–1996

Fair, John D.

doi:10.1080/09523369808714040

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Berry began to experiment with the new flat-footed squat and, in doing so gained a substantial amount of bodyweight. Understood by John Fair (1998) as a highly respected health writer and as one of the leading organizers of early American weightlifting, Berry's conversion was promoted through fitness periodicals like Strength or The Strong Man. Critically Berry began writing about his new strength and bulk gaining protocol soon after the economic downturn of 1929.…”

Section: Building Husky Menmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Readers of Strength and Health were told that the exercises used by Olympic weightlifters were the best bodyweight gaining exercises a young man could do. The promotion of Olympic weightlifting marked Hoffman's overarching goal of transforming the United States into a preeminent weightlifting country (Fair, 1998). Unlike Berry, whose writings focused on the individual, Hoffman continually spoke of national health, individual responsibility and pride in one's body.…”

Section: Rejecting the Husky Body? Dissent And Different Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Building husky men: Strenuous masculinity in post-depression America

Heffernan

2021

European Journal of American Culture

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Examining American fitness entrepreneurs from the 1930s, this article examines efforts to reform young, and white, masculine identities through new bodybuilding systems. Centred on Mark Berry, Bob Hoffman and Charles Atlas, three of the decade’s most successful entrepreneurs, the article examines the communities, methods and discourses used to attract customers and create a highly specified form of self-fashioning. In doing so, the article highlights the masculine communities and multiplicities of masculinities operating during this decade for American weight trainers. Importantly all three entrepreneurs focused on a very specific kind of American body, and stemming from this, American masculinity. For Berry, ‘husky’ men came to represent men of physical, moral and mental standing. The ability to withstand pain in exercise, to engage in strenuous activity and gain bodyweight was presented as a metric of one’s success in the world. Likewise, Bob Hoffman focused on the ‘weight lifter’, said to be an ambitious young man capable of succeeding in multiple terrains. Finally, there was Charles Atlas, who made ‘he men’ using his system of dynamic tension. In highlighting the lengths young, white, often affluent, American men went to in order to achieve these identities, the article contributes to the growing interest in American masculinities and the fitness systems they used during times of considerable upheaval.

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Section: Building Husky Menmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Rejecting the Husky Body? Dissent And Different Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Building husky men: Strenuous masculinity in post-depression America

Heffernan

2021

European Journal of American Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Based on their economic situation, amateurism was not as high an ideal as that of other groups. 16 This origin in a working-class setting, did however not prevent bourgeois men from practicing strength training as a way of building the body and thus shaping the character, in more 'adequate' contexts and places. Between the worker-dominated and bourgeoisie-dominated strength training there were clear differences.…”

Section: Strength Sports Body and Manual Labour Trough The Examples Of Andersson And Svenssonmentioning

confidence: 99%