This Week's Video The Bent Press
The Bent Press, once the barometer for measuring a man’s strength, is a long forgotten exercise in weight lifting. A staple in the days of the strongman, the lift, like the strongman himself has been relegated to nothing more than a footnote in modern body building text books, an amusing little “look how far we’ve come” editorial. It’s our opinion that at no time in history we as a people have never been more fit and conditioned than in the early part of the 20ths century when strongmen reigned. It is with this notion that we’re working on creating our Authentic Strength programs and workout routines; all in an effort to bring fit back to fitness (see what have we done wrong). Devoting much of our time to this effort we’ve researched and uncovered many of the original strongmen workouts and long lost lifts. Eugene Sandow, seen by many to be one of the strongest men to ever live, called the Bent Press, when done properly, “to be one of the best feats a man could do”. The bent press, as the video will show is a bit unorthodox by today’s standards. The body positioning during the lift looks nothing like what we’ve come accustomed to seeing. The amount of strength required to perform the lift is extraordinary. The strongmen of old wouldn’t be considered a strongman until he could lift at least his body weight in the Bent Press. The lift, done here in this video with 175 pounds is an extraordinary feat by today’s standards considering Anthony only weighs 200 pounds but it is not nearly enough to qualify him as a strongman and not anywhere near the world record set by Arthur Saxon in the early 1900s at 370 pounds – although some reports have him lifting nearly 385 later in life. Keep in mind the Bent Press is done with one hand, and at the time, Arthur Saxon weighed in at around 200 pounds. By today’s standards that’s absolutely unheard of, and until we change the way we train, moving from body building to weight lifting that record will remain. In today’s video you’ll see Anthony perform the bent press, hopefully many of you watching the video will realize the importance of our Authentic Strength movement. It’s about creating quality in fitness; bringing credibility back to our industry and making people understand that bigger isn’t stronger anymore. Take a look at the video and tell us what you think. Let us know just how important you think Authentic Strength really is. Keep in mind there is a progression to the Bent Press, many people won’t be able to do a Bent Press on the first attempt. In this video you’ll see Anthony do the lift and then later show you a squatting press, an exercise used to train weight lifters to develop the body mechanics necessary to perform the Bent Press and other such lifts of the day.