Holy Keto Condiments! This Just In- Keto Dieting Doesn't Have To Suck!!! Part #1.

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Monday Quickie: Picking a Protein That's Actually A Protein And Not Rich Gaspari's Poor Facsimile Thereof

I get a ton of requests for protein recommendations, and as such decided to throw out a quick post to let you know what I'm using and hit you up with a badass spreadsheet I made with a broad who'd like to see me on fire and down a well for no reason I could possibly ascertain (well, that's not true- I'd imagine most broad would like to see me on fire and down a well).  In any event, I mention her involvement just so she doesn't send me anthrax for not giving her anonymous credit.

Not this brand of Anthrax, unfortunately.  Wouldn't mind being caught in a mosh right about now.

Onto the business at hand- protein.  Everyone has their own preferences on protein, but to me it breaks down to price, protein source, and flavor.  Given that I'm basically living in a van down by the river, I am currently living on Vitamin Shoppe's Whey Tech Pro 24, as it's low carb, tastes decent, and is cheap as fuck.  Were I to choose a protein purely based on taste, with no regard whatsoever for my wallet, I'd likely choose Species or 1stPhorm's proteins, both of which are whey.  I know I've bagged on whey in the past, but blended proteins usually taste like shit and I'm tired of gagging protein back up when I'm hammered and trying to get in a bedtime meal.  Additionally, I've been adding two tablespoons of heavy cream to my shakes on keto days to slow the absorption of the whey, and I eat every 2-3 hours anyway, so it's really not necessary for me to use a blended protein.

As you'll see when you check out the spreadsheet, my old suggestions of Elite XT (which I cannot stomach because I despise soy) and Matrix top the list for affordability and lack of bullshit, which is less life-affirming for me than you'd think but nevertheless nice to know.  One thing for which you guys really need to look, and I cannot stress this enough, is protein spiking.  I've got a column in the spreadsheet indicating where there's been foul play, but I thought I'd give you a quick intro into protein spiking so you'd know what was going on.

Fruit Loop flavored protein?  Might be worth the $55.

Download my spreadsheet on MEGA.

If you’ve been living under the impression that all proteins contain what the labels say they do, you’re sorely mistaken.  Protein manufacturers are, by and large, less trustworthy than toothless Russians selling handguns in Moscovite back alleys.  The problem for them is that there is less margin in protein than there is in gasoline, so they either have to cut corners and sell a shitty product or they have to sell an incredible amount of volume.  Only large companies with deep pockets can afford to go the volume route, which is why companies like Optimum Nutrition can make (generally) affordable proteins that meet their labels claims.  Too often, however, smaller, less-known companies try to compete on price point and have to lie on their labels to make a profit.  This became even more of an issue when Pepsi bought the rights to sell a shitty knockoff of Muscle Milk in vending machines (check dem labels, bro), and then the Chinese decided a couple of years later to buy up the majority of the world's extant protein supply in some bizarre scheme that is ostensibly intended simply to deny Americans the protein that is rightfully ours as masters of the planet.

It's certainly not going into Wen Jiabao's personal reserve.

Frankly, I could give a fuck what killed the margins on protein.  I have a very deep and personal vendetta against a couple of companies for fucking me by spiking their proteins, and I will happily stuff my fist down Rich Gaspari’s throat for robbing me blind for years if I ever get the opportunity to meet him face to face.  If you’re unaware of the practice of adding nitrogenated amino acids to raise the listed protein content of your favorite protein powder, here’s the deal- there are a couple of amino acids, namely glycine and taurine, that are used to “spike” protein.  According to Scott Welch of Muscle Insider,

“Protein spiking is where a protein manufacturer adds amino acids that are cheaper than the base protein powder it’s actually selling in order to increase the product’s nitrogen content. When this is done, the company is able to lower the cost of goods. A basic test for total nitrogen is often used to quantify the amount of protein per serving, and this test can be cheated by using cheap amino acids to spike the nitrogen content. The problem is that the inclusion of odd amino acids usually has nothing to do with increasing the performance of the whole protein itself, and it usually makes key ratios such as BCAA content go down, which is a total rip-off. If a protein powder (usually whey isolate) is so cheap as to seem too good to be true, check to see if certain aminos such as taurine and glycine are sky-high. If they are, you could be using a protein that’s been spiked. Also look for white specks in the protein powder (easy to see in chocolate). These specks are usually the amino acids that were added to the protein to offset the cost and raise the perceived protein content"(Welch).

Cheap, thieving shitbag or simply catastrophically stupid dickbag?  You make the call.

After news of this sheisty practice broke on the web, one Redditor took it upon himself to use his access to a lab to independently assay proteins to determine how much of their label claims were being met.  The results were rather unpleasant, and are available here.  Thereafter, a company called Labdoor conducted similar analyses and showed pretty conclusively that there is no direct correlation between quality and price.  Shitty, right?  One would think that guys who supported lifting would actually provide products that would do so, but I guess I'm just weird in that I would rather fellate a hot motocycle exhaust  pipe with syphilitic blood while letting the rider do a burnout on my cock than have my name associated with a shitty product.  Apparently, Rich Gaspari doesn't share my opinion, because he's comfortable with being a thieving piece of shit.  In any event, here's Labdoor's assay of popular proteins:

Now, you have a but more knowledge in your supplement spank bank with which to make your purchases.  A good rule of thumb is that if your shaker doesn't smell like a rotting corpse stuffed with dogshit and rotten eggs if you leave it unwashed at room temperature for a day, the "protein" you're using isn't protein at all.

And should you wonder, Chaos and Pain is never going to fuck their customers with that kind of bullshit- Cannibal Kraken is as badass as the name would indicate, and there's no nonsense in there, or any of our other stuff.  We're built on your backs, and we will never forget that.

Go forth and fill thyselves with the protonz.

Milk.  It does a body good.

Source:
Welch, Scott.  Protein Spiking.  Muscle Insider.  Web.  9 Jul 2013.  http://muscle-insider.com/content/protein-spiking

Chaos and Pain News, Or Why You Don't Have A New Article This Very Minute

As some of you probably know, the CnP supplements dropped on Friday, which is slowing my output here a bit.  In spite of certain idiot Brits' completely unfounded (and given the amount of free entertainment I provide, insolent) assertions to the contrary, I really don't use the blog to pimp my wares.  Nevertheless, I know not all of you are Facebook fans, so I thought I'd give those of you a heads up.  To the butthurt- since none of you bitches have offered to step up and keep your rep up, might as well close your mealy, ignoble proverbial mouths and wait a couple of days for the next exercise fads article.  For the rest of you, here's what's up:

Cannibal Ferox

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I pine for the halcyon days of training and supplementation- that late 1990's/early 2000s period where gyms were filled with lunatics, and those lunatics were filled with Ultimate Orange.  There were no rules against chalk in real gyms, or cursing, or yelling, or slamming weights, or lifting shirtless.  Fuck, in those days, anything went.  Every real gym owner was a total psychopath, and was unseen until some hapless fuck broke some byzantine rule about which they could not have known if they were a regular (in the case of Worlds in Tucson it was leaning plates against machines or racks), and that broke rule was often met with a foaming-at-the-mouth insanity-fueled tirade, a beating, and the aforementioned hapless fuck broken and bleeding in the parking lot.  Water fountains were ripped out of walls and thrown at members.  Fistfights would break out as a matter of course.  Bodybuilders would attend powerlifting meets and vice-versa, and everyone would get good an hammered afterwards, eat a shitload of pizza, and fuck with each other good-naturedly about their respective sports.  We're talking about places where 125 lb girls would get under 185 to squat it, then cross one foot over the opposite like a man sitting with his legs crossed and squat it to depth.  Competitions to see who could throw 315 into the air the highest.  The good old days.

Those days are deader than disco and most men's libidos.  Gyms are sterile, quiet places filled with uninteresting people performing banal workouts before they return to their trite, bland home lives.  This sickens me, and I decided to do something about it.  That's why I designed Cannibal Ferox- it might not be Ultimate Orange, but it might also be a damn sight fucking better.  Ephedra's gone the way of the dodo, but so fucking what?  Instead of ephedra or DMAA, I found the next best things, jammed them together at the highest dosages the FDA would allow, added in nootropics to focus your jitters, and put it in the best-looking fucking container you've ever seen.  This is how Cannibal Ferox came to be- it's a stackable, focus-oriented,  transparently-labelled  preworkout  that  addresses my beloved and oft-ignored “stimulant junkie” demographic.  Though Wayne (my partner in the business) prevented me from beating our old manufacturer to death with a claw hammer over their myriad fuckups, we learned from the experience and busted this one out using one of the original manufacturers for C4, so it's fucking tasty, and brought you Watermelon Warmachine and Luminous Lemon Ice.

Some highlights:

• No “proprietary blends.”  With Cannibal Ferox, you know every wonderfully insane ingredient and their dosage within the bottle.  No more  guessing, and no more hoping- what you see is exactly what you get.
• Contains stimulant newcomers higenamine and hordenine to replace the hard edge of our fallen comrades ephedra and DMAA (1,2). 
• Jammed full of mood enhancers and  nootropics to ensure that workouts fueled by Cannibal Ferox will make you smash weights, rip water coolers out of walls, slap your lifting partner, and fuck your significant other into a coma when you get home... did I mention the blend causes steel hardons and euphoria?  No?  Well, it does.   

Cannibal Genius

Ever thought to yourself "I'm smart enough- I don't need to be any smarter"?  If so, fuck off and die, as your idiocy might be contagious.  For the rest of us, I decided that the fuckers popping Adderall like Tic Tacs shouldn't be getting one up on us just because they claim to have a disease invented by pharma companies to sell amphetamines to children.  Additionally, there are plenty of compounds out there that have actually been definitively proven to raise IQ, cognition, and memory.  thus, fuck those frat boys- it's time we show them what happens when you load up on stimulants and racetams and tear through entire libraries in a weekend.  That's why I made Cannibal Genius- there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and I intend to straddle it like a porn star on a Sybian.

I will have a Sybian fund contribution with every sale of Genius.

Some highlights:

• As with all of our products, there are no bullshit proprietary blends.  
• Contains the racetam Noopept, a Russian pharmaceutical-grade supplement clinically proven to reverse the signs of aging and alcoholism on the brain, improve short term memory, and improve cognition (3).
• Includes acacia rigidula, a naturally occurring shrub that contains over 40 different amines, providing anyone who consumes it with an exceptionally broad spectrum of stimulants, including small amounts of a couple of different kinds of amphetamines, nicotine, and lots of other fun shit (4).

Cannibal Swole

I've made no secret in the past of the fact that I am not a fan of pump products.  They generally cripple me, as my lower back gets too pumped to move, and that generally puts me in a stabbing kind of mood.  I know, however, that I do not have the sole opinion of supplements on the planet, so i set out to make a pump product that actually serves a real purpose, rather tan simply serving to make 155 lb assholes in small Under Armour shirts look like 155 lb assholes.  As such, I jammed together a few of the pump ingredients that have been definitively shown to increase strength and endurance to make Cannibal Swole, a product that can also be stacked with Ferox to get the best of both worlds (and happily, agmatine also serves as a nootropic).

• Ideal for competitive athletes in tested competitions- 100% free of banned substances.
• No proprietary blends.
• Contains L-Citrulline and Agmatine, both of which are essential for the cell volumization that change increased strength and endurance and improved recovery from strength and endurance training from a dream into reality (5,6).
• Increases glucose uptake and regulation, so you get leaner as you get stronger (7).

 

Cannibal Inferno

This was, of course, the fist thing that hit the market, and was the outgrowth of about 7 years of tinkering in my kitchen to make myself the best fat burner I could.  I bought ingredients in bulk, weighed and measured and capped everything myself, then gave it to myself and my friends for experimentation.  What resulted from that experimentation was Cannibal Inferno, a transparently-labelled thermogenic targeted toward people looking for a viable replacement for the gap left in the fat burner market after the withdrawal of DMAA.  You guys know I love research, and I've researched the balls off Inferno-everything in it has been clinically proven to improve fat metabolism, increase the absorption of nutrients, or serve as an appetite suppressant, mood enhancer, or cognitive/memory enhancer.  Though I have no idea why other supplement companies have never read Dan Duchaine's shit, they haven't, so I'm the only one to include naringinen (grapefruit fruit extract) to increase and enhance the stimulatory effects of caffeine, hordenine, synephrine, and yohimbe.  It'll have you sweating balls and climbing the walls while the fat melts off.

So, that's what we've got rocking over at www.chaosandpain.com, in case you're screaming for another article and wondering what I could be possibly doing with my time other than entertaining you.  After the next Fads article, I've got a fourth lined up, an article mocking the fact that 99% of paleo dieters are doing it wrong, the hormone blog, and a couple of other partially begun articles.  They'll be coming fast and furious, so if there's something you want in particular, let me know.

SOURCES:
1.  Kimura  I, et al. Positive chronotropic and inotropic effects of higenamine and its enhancing action on the aconitine- induced tachyarrhythmia  in isolated murine atria. Jpn J Pharmacol. (1994)
2.  Frank M, et al. Hordenine: pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and behavioural effects in the horse. Equine Vet J. (1990)
3.  Ostrovskaia RU, Gudasheva TA, Voronina TA, Seredenin SB.  The original novel nootropic and neuroprotective agent noopept.  Eksp Klin Farmakol.  (2002)
4.  Pawar RS, Grundel E, Fardin-Kia AR, Rader JI.  Determination of selected biogenic amines in Acacia rigidula plant materials and dietary supplements using LC-MS/MS methods.  J Pharm Biomed Anal. (2014)
5.  Pérez-Guisado J, Jakeman PM.  Citrulline malate enhances athletic anaerobic performance and relieves muscle soreness.  J Strength Cond Res. (2010)
6.  Elam RP, Hardin DH, Sutton RA, Hagen L.  Effects of arginine and ornithine on strength, lean body mass and urinary hydroxyproline in adult males.  J Sports Med Phys Fitness. (1989)
7.  McConell GK, Huynh NN, Lee-Young RS, Canny BJ, Wadley GD.  L-Arginine infusion increases glucose clearance during prolonged exercise in humans.  Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. (2006)

8.  Frank M, et al. Hordenine: pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and behavioural effects in the horse. Equine Vet J. (1990)
9.  Pase MP, et al. Cocoa polyphenols enhance positive mood states but not cognitive performance: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial. J Psychopharmacol. (2013)
10.  Desideri G, et al. Benefits in cognitive function, blood pressure, and insulin resistance through cocoa flavanol consumption in elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment: the Cocoa, Cognition, and Aging (CoCoA) study. Hypertension. (2012)

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun- Faddism In Exercises And Implements, Part 2

Before I get cracking on the next installment of what I should hope is proving to be a thoroughly elucidative series on the cyclical nature of training fads, there is an issue with the previous installment's accuracy.  While I am well-known for possessing Shakyamuni Buddha-esqe omniscience, I do occasionally fall prey to the myriad myths and mistruths about certain subjects.  One such folly was my belief in the myths regarding the Middle Ages as a shitfest rivaling modern Sudan in its suicide-inspiring suckitude, which as it turns out is pretty much entirely untrue.  Medieval peasants got more time off than the average American wage slave, people fucked plenty (and possibly more than most of us), knights were not the hyper-noble bronies we generally think of them as having been, but were rather homicidal fucktards who would be much more drawn to reddit/r/horseclop than My Little Pony, Europeans were more obsessed with bathing than gay men in San Frascisco, and the diets of most people in Europe were not as bereft of meat as one might be led to believe (Kolenberg).

For allegedly half-starved backwoods tribesmen, these Scots are pretty fucking swole.

Given these facts, it should come as no surprise that the medieval era boasted some thoroughly jacked dudes.  The Vikings, who apparently all filed their teeth to look more fearsome (Lovgren), ate a diet incredibly heavy in meats.  Even their slaves ate an incredibly protein-rich diet, though their consisted mostly of fish (Kildahl).  Between those facts and the fact that the Vikings were, according to archaeologists, "unusually large... [and] an examination of the muscle-attachment areas of their bones revealed extremely robust physiques", the idea that the people of the Medieval era were sickly, weak, and scrawny can probably be laid to rest.  As the picture above shows, the Scots regularly competed in the hammer throw and were renown for their brute strength as well, so it's unlikely that the depictions in Mercurialis's book were mere fantasy- dudes in the Middle Ages may well have been in better shape than your average gym rat, and they almost certainly fucked more and had more time off work (try eight weeks of vacation a year on for size).

Sand Bag Training- A Hell of a Lot Older than You'd Think
Prior to perhaps 2002, I was unaware that sandbag training was even a thing that people outside of war-torn nations or military bases did.  It was, to me, the way poor people would lift if they happened to see a yellowed newspaper article with Arnold in it- the way Oliver Twist would have lifted if Dickens decided to actually write a Death Wish-style revenge novel rather than the wordy dogshit he churned out as a matter of course.  Having learned of it from the book Dinosaur Training, however, I proceeded to purchase a duffel bag and fill it with sand.  I messed around with it for a couple of months and lost interest when it seemed that cleaning up the mess of playing with the sandbag outweighed its benefits.  I've periodically returned to sandbag training over the years for a change of pace, but never realize the incredible pedigree of the implement.  Had I, I might have kept it as a regular accessory lift rather than relegating it to the "fuck it, I'm bored as shit, don't feel like training, and might want to wear a one piece jumpsuit with a stereotypical Mexican first name on it for half of the day while I clean up the disaster that sandbag training seems to create" pantheon of implements and exercises.

As it happens, sandbag training might in fact be the oldest implement utilized in codified training programs, as the ancient Egyptians performed most weight lifting training with sand bags (Booth 147).  The utility of this training could not be understated for martial combatants, as it requires the use of an incredible amount of stabilizing muscles, allows for rotational training, and does not allow one to develop a "groove" for a given lift (Henkin "Sandbags").  Basically, it's a must have implement for anyone who plans on filming hardcore porn on a small boat in a storm tossed sea.  According to avowed sandbag expert Josh Henkin, the "use of heavy sandbags and their large circumference forces the lifter to do his lifting with a round back instead of the traditional straight back lifting with a barbell. It is this type of lifting that truly develops a strong back. It develops the back and side muscles in movements that are identical to the lifting and pulling movements of wrestling”(Henkin "Rise").

It seems, according to the literature, that sandbag training fell out of favor for some time, replaced by the use of either dumbbells or metal or stone tablets, but it pops back into the public eye again in the late 18th century.  Interestingly, this seems to be the case with most of the implements and exercises- they enjoy a brief moment in the sun, and then are discarded for the exercise du jour... not unlike what we've seen in current training with the back squat and the bench press.

Sandbags sprang back into public view in the late 18th century when schoolmaster Johann Jacob Du Toit had his young students at the German secondary school the Philanthropinium hold sandbags out to the sides of their bodies while he walked among them and counted the time as their arms fell (presumably while they cursed his existence and prayed for death).  While it didn't remain in vogue, that is seen as one of the seminal movements in strength training due to the fact that it brought back an implement that had faded in and out of favor back into the mainstream and kept it there for the 5 or so years Du Toit was in charge of the school's phys ed.

Later, turn of the century strongman Arthur Saxon and his strongman troupe would crush all comers lifting a flour sack of varying weights (and often loaded with a couple of blocks of iron to make the sack even harder to lift).  This was one of their main show feats, and a lift they practiced religiously in the gym.  According to Saxon's rivals, his success in the lift relied on the Andre the Giant size hands he boasted, in addition to the fact that Saxon's grip strength was apparently unparalleled.  According to Kurt Saxon, here is how the lift went down:

"We had a standing challenge and offered four hundred dollars reward to anyone who could lift our sack of flour the way we did, as illustrated by my brother’s drawings. The first step is to grab hold of the sack as shown and bring it to the knees. The second stage finds the sack at shoulder height, and from there it was turned and supported on one shoulder. The heaviest sack with which we performed this feat was loaded to 424 lbs. and was packed as tight as stone, with nothing to grip, no slack sacking or corner ears, really more like an unwieldy ponderous ball. No one ever succeeded in hoisting it the way we did. One of us lifted it to the shoulder in just 4 seconds! When performing this feat as part of the act we always finished by carrying it off stage. All three of us succeeded in mastering this lift. It was often comical to see the expressions on the faces of large powerful men who failed with our huge sack after seeing Hermann and myself perform the lift, because both of us were small by comparison in size, and we often looked like boys alongside these enormous men.

Hermann, Kurt, and Arthur Saxon.  OG Harder Than You Crew.

Never as part of our show, but merely as exercise, we used to jerk the sack overhead after moving it from one shoulder to a position across the back of the neck. However, none of us ever succeeded in doing this with the full 424 lbs. in the sack. Jerking such a sack was one of our favorite exercises. At times we would do as many as 30 repetitions with a heavy sack just to keep in form and to improve our lifting ability with it" (Saxon).

Sandbag lifting again fell out of favor until the modern era, where it's been revived mostly by Dragon Door's writers and coach Zach Evan Esh.  While it will never enjoy the ultimate status sandbag lifting had under the watchful eye of the Egyptian gods, it's unlikely that sandbag lifting will ever be dropped entirely from the mind of the lifting public again.

Weaver Stick
One of the oddest implements that enjoyed a lengthy period of popularity but is likely currently never used outside of a Diesel Crew training facility or a USAWA meet is the Weaver Stick.  Various mentions of it are salted throughout treatises on 19th Century weight lifting, which I find fairly curious because the only time I'd seen anything like it was in the movie The 36 Chambers of Shaolin, wherein one of the tests Gordon Liu had to pass was to ring a bell all day long with a weight attached to a long pole.  It looked hard as shit in the movie and briefly inspired me to train grip, but grip training is boring as all hell and I quickly abandoned it for anything else at all.

The Weaver Stick, however, seems to be a slightly different animal, and while I doubt it will ever enjoy a true resurgence in popularity, it probably should.  Though it predated the person for whom it was named by at the very least 100 years, the Weaver stick, as it came to be called, is nothing more than a long stick with a bit of twine hung from its end with a weight attached.  According to the USAWA, it's specifically a wooden broomstick with a handle 5 ½ inches in length, a 1/2 inch marking designating the end of the handle, and another 36 inches of nice hard shaft to make a tumescent pole 42" glorious inches in length.  At the end, a cord of any length may be attached, to which weights are then attached.  To do the actual lift, the lifter must, with a completely straight arm held tightly to the side, lift the pole off the platform and hold it parallel to the ground, motionless.  This lift can be done from the front of the back, and the records in the lift are as follows:

Forward Lift, right hand – Paul Von Boeckmann, 10¾ lbs.
Forward Lift, left hand – John Grimek, 10 pounds.
Backward Lift, right hand – John Protasel, 12½ lbs.
Backward Lift, left hand – John Grimek, 11 ½lbs. (Weaver)

If you think this lift is completely preposterous, consider the following- using a similar pole, Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, grew to match the size and weight of his heavenly staff (dat hypertrophy), then used to to beat the brakes off everything the other gods in heaven could throw at him, eventually kicking the fuck out of the entire pantheon of Chinese gods single handedly.  If a Chinese stone monkey born from an egg can pack on fucking mass lifting a stick, it stands to reason you could too.

This lift, though it lacked a real name, actually became popular in the same school system that repopularized sandbag training, the Philanthropic schools.  One of them had its physical training program run for over 50 years by Johann Friedrich GutsMuths (1759-1839), who came to his position in 1786.  By 1794, Gutsmuths had kids doing the sort of awesome recreational activities that will be allowed in modern school right about the time they allow kids to carry loaded pistols in school and drink liquor in class- "rope climbing, throwing the discus or quoits, climbing poles, jumping over a rope, and 'lifting a weight hung on a rod and moved toward or from the hands according to the strength of the individual'”(Todd).

“We are weak because it does not occur to us that we could be strong if we would.”

- Johann Friedrich GutsMuths

From institutionalized implementation of the lift, strongmen in Europe began experimenting with similar movements, noting that it was damn near impossible for the strongest of them to move a comparatively tiny weight.  When John Grimek's only hitting 11 lbs on a lift, you know the majority of us are looking at 3-5 lbs at best.  Strangely, Weaver himself noted that neither wrist strength nor overall strength appeared to be a good indicator of who would be good at the lift.  According to Weaver,

"Steve Gob, who can lift extraordinary weights in the flat-footed squat, was unable to lift 5 lbs. on the Weaver Stick. More remarkable yet, Warren Lincoln Travis, who was not only exceptional in Back Lifting with a platform but who also possessed great ability in feats of grip strength, was unable to lift more than 4½ lbs. on the Weaver Stick. Lou Leonard, wrestling instructor at Bothner’s Gymnasium, could not budge 3 lbs. One fascinating thing about this lift is that you never can tell in advance whether any particular person is going to be wonderful at it or very poor. Testing people is full of surprises. Tony Sansone, for instance, lifted more with his right hand than did the mighty Henry Steinborn, famous weight-lifting champion of the Alan Calvert era"(Weaver).

Looking for all the world like the least masculine physique competitor in history, Tony Sansone would make you his punk bitch at the Weaver Stick.

Nevertheless, this became the sort of "The Aristocrats" of strongman, whereby turn of the century strongmen would test their strength against one another informally by lifting a broom by the handle horizontally from the floor with a light weight placed on the straw of the broom. Later, the dude who still holds the record above, Paul Von Boeckman, decided a better test of comparative strength would be to standardize the lift to the format the USAWA is still using today.  Will it become an overnight sensation again?  Highly doubtful, unless a lot of us get very, very bored.  Nevertheless, it's one more example of old shit becoming new again.

Up next- Indian Club Bells, Kettlebells, and the mighty progenitor of the deadlift, which was hilariously referred to as the "health lift" (my left bicep calls bullshit).

Sources:
Booth, Charlotte.  The Ancient Egyptians for Dummies.  West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2007.

Henkin, Josh.  The rise of sandbag training.  Mahler's Aggressive Strength.  Web.  10 Jan 2013.  http://www.mikemahler.com/online-library/articles/sandbag-training/rise-of-sandbag-training.html

Henkin, Josh. Sandbags: an expert's opinion.  Altrincham Martial Arts Club.  3 Jan 2012.  Web.  10 Jan 2014.  http://altrinchamclub.blogspot.com/2012/01/sandbags-experts-opinion-by-josh-henkin.html

Keys, David.  A viking mystery.  Smithsonian.  Oct 2010.  Web.  13 Jan 2014.  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-viking-mystery-59648019/#ixzz2qMhAKPAX

Kildahl, Mari.  Isotope analysis reveals diet of beheaded Viking slaves.  Archaeology News Network.  5 Dec 2013.  Web.  13 Jan 2014.  http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2013/12/isotope-analysis-reveals-diet-of.html#.UtUFlvRDuSo

Kolenberg, Steve.  6 Ridiculous Myths About the Middle Ages Everyone Believes.  Cracked.  13 Jan 2013.  Web.  13 Jan 2014.  http://www.cracked.com/article_20186_6-ridiculous-myths-about-middle-ages-everyone-believes_p2.html#ixzz2qMXcHDo8

Lovgren, Stefan.  Vikings Filed Their Teeth, Skeleton Study Shows.  National Geographic News.  3 Feb 2006.  Web.  14 Jan 2014.  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0203_060203_viking_teeth.html

Saxon, Kurt.  Saxon remembers. The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban. 18 Nov 2008.  Web.  13 Jan 2013.  http://ditillo2.blogspot.com/2008/11/saxon-remembers-kurt-saxon.html

Todd, Jan.  The classical ideal and its mpact on the search for suitable exercise: 1774-1830.  Iron Game History.  Nov 1992.  Web.  14 Jan 2014.  https://www.academia.edu/3009398/The_Classical_Ideal_and_Its_Impact_on_the_Search_for_Suitable_Exercise_1774-1830

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