Strongman

Call him the Hebrew Hercules or the Jewish Tarzan, but whatever you do, don’t call him a pussy. This depression-era wrestler, who died on March 28 at the age of 101, once lifted the 211 kg Man Mountain Dean up in the air and smashed him right through the ring.

The bench press is a given in today’s lifting world, but this was not always the case. According to Josh Levin at Slate Magazine for much of the 20th century, serious competitors were judged primarily on how much they could lift over their heads. They sneered at the idea of supine weightlifting — “boobie-building,”