C.H. Mccloy Any People Have Contributed Through the Years to the Demonstrate His Ability to Maintain a High Level of Muscular Strength Growth of Resistance Training
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VOLUME 1 NUMBER 6 August 1991 A Pioneer of Physical Training C.H. McCloy any people have contributed through the years to the demonstrate his ability to maintain a high level of muscular strength growth of resistance training. Some have concentrated and endurance by doing as mnany pull-ups as possible. Students in on competitive lifting of one sort or another, some have his classes were invited to witness the demonstration and to count concentrated on bodybuilding, some have concentrated on the the number of pull-ups that he could do. McCloy stated that his physical fitness aspects of weight training and some have record performance came on his fiftieth birthday when he was able concentrated on strength training for athletes. Charles Harold to do forty-three consecutive pull-ups.” McCloy fits primarily into the last category, and even though his Besides the influence of his personal commitment to physical name is not too well known in the iron game these days, since he strength and endurance, McCloy made significant contributions to was never a famous lifter or physique star, he played a pivotal role the fields of tests and measurements, the scientific analysis of sports in the debunking of the tenacious myth of the musclebound lifter. skills, fitness for the armed forces, professional physical education McCloy was a giant in the field of physical education, serving and strength training for athletes. McCloy was a staunch enemy of from 1930 to 1954 as a Professor of Physical the firmly entrenced idea, held by almost all of his Education at the University of Iowa, and influencing professional colleagues as well as by the leading in many ways the direction of his profession. In the coaches in the United States, that the lifting of days when most physical educators concentrated weights would cause an athlete to become slow, ill- their efforts on competitive sports, McCloy’s passion coordinated and inflexible, in short, musclebound. and preference was purposive exercise Himself an McCloy believed strongly in the sort of physical almost obsessive exerciser, McCloy taught his activity a person could do in the privacy of the home, students as much by personal example as by his arguing that “Perhaps we should introduce our lectures. A 1968 dissertation about McCloy’s career educational offspring to home rowing machines, rope by James R. Little features this aspect of his life. skipping, weight lifting with the barbells, and to other “McCloy set an example of personal physical available home exercise devices.” fitness that was widely acclaimed as being one of his McCloy’s fascination with all aspects of fitness most remarkable characteristics. Throughout his adult life, he drew him as the years passed to an examimation of the myth of maintained his body weight very close to 145 pounds. His height musclebinding. He had begun a personal program of weight training was five feet, eight inches. He was famous for his regular in 1942, at the age of 56, and his own experiences led him to participation in personal exercise programs of a strenuous nature. challenge, through scientific investigations, this pervasive myth. His faculty colleagues...recalled that he routinely stopped whatever Two of his students, Edward F. Chui and Edward Capen, were he was doing at about 3:30 P.M. and would have a cup of tea, among the many who joined McCloy in his weight workouts, and relaxing for about thirty minutes. Then he went for his daily out of their personal observations and desire to find the truth, they workout...He frequently exercised with the gymnastic team each conducted research for their Master’s theses (Chui in 1948 and members. On other occasions he would play handball, tennis or Capen in 1949) which helped dispel the belief that weight training badminton. He included calisthenics in his daily exercise routine in should be avoided by athletes. These first research studies by which he emphasized pull-ups. Annually on his birthday he would McCloy’s students were followed by others through the years, all of IRON GAME HISTORY VOLUME 1 NUMBER 6 which chipped away at the wrongheaded belief in the danger to ventures between the famous physical educator and Bob Hoffman, athletes of weight training. publisher of Strength & Health and a long-time advocate of weight According to Little, three former varsity coaches at the training as a way to improve a man in his “chosen sport.” University of Iowa told him that McCloy had urged them to use These days, when even such hard-core muscle magazines as strength training for their athletes long before it became acceptable Muscle & Fitness feature articles such as the recent one about the to do so. David Armbruster, the former coach of swimming, said, “I training program of Nolan Ryan, when every broadcast of a remember bow McCloy tried to sell me on weight training for my professional football game has at least one reference to how much a swimmers. I absolutely refused, thinking it would make them certain player can bench press, and when the television coverage of muscle bound. Now look at the training programs!” And Otto Grand Slam events such as Wimbleton or the Masters in Augusta Vogel, Iowa’s former baseball coach, said of McCloy, “He was a can be counted on to discuss the weight training programs of such pioneer in the scientific aspects of weight training and athletics. He athletes as Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Tom Kite or Ray Floyd, it’s was ten years ahead of others.” easy to forget that not too long ago anyone who maintained that a Near the end of his teaching career, McCloy helped one of his systematic program of progressive resistance would improve athletic graduate students, Richard L. Garth, establish a weight training performance would be looked at as either a fool or a charlatan. C.H. regimen for the University of Iowa’s basketball team, whose McCloy was neither a fool nor a charlatan and the cause of weight members increased their vertical jump by an average of two and a training for athletes was given a truly significant push when the half inches and became nationally ranked, thus helping to spread the power of his worldwide reputation and the research he supervised gospel of resistance training for athletes. McCloy lectured widely began to force the profession of physical education, which had been about the Iowa program and wrote about it in an article published in wrong for many decades, to put the myth of musclebinding to the the November, 1957 issue of Strength & Health, one of many joint test of objective scientific investigation —Terry Todd 2 IRON GAME HISTORY VOLUME 1 NUMBER 6 IRON GAME HISTORY VOL. 1 NO. 6 PATRON SUBSCRIBERS TABLE OF CONTENTS August 1991 Dr. Charles Moss Page Dr. Peter George 1. C. H. McCloy . Terry Todd Dr. Walter Marcyan 3. Talking With the World’s Strongest Woman Dean Camenares 4. George Lurich . George Hackenschmidt Frank Stranahnn 8. Where Are They Now? . Al Thomas Frederick Schutz ll. The President’s Report . Vic Boff Harold Zinkin 12. The Rolandow Dumbell . .. Joe Roark Jack Elder 14. Oscar Heidenstam . Dave Webster John Balik 16. Iron Grapevine. Vic Boff John Coffee Co-Editors . Terry and Jan Todd Samuel Galagaza Creative Consultant . Steve Bittick Francis X. Tirelli Executive Editor . Dorothy J. Lovett Michael Dennis Editorial Board . John Balik (Santa Monica, CA), Jack Berryman (U. of Washington-Seattle), Vic Boff (New FELLOWSHIP SUBSCRIBERS York, NY), William H. Goetzmann (U. of Texas-Austin), John Anonymous Grimek (York, PA), John Hoberman (U. of Texas-Austin), Joe Ernest Hackett Roark (St. Joseph, IL), Thomas Ryan (Texas A&M Univ.), Mike Graham Al Thomas (Kutztown Univ.), Dave Webster (Irvine, Scotland). James Lorimer Bob Peoples Iron Game History is published six times per year by the McLean Sport Bernard Brand History Fellowship a the University of Texas at Austin. Address: Terry and Jan Todd, The Todd-McLean Collection, Room 217, Gregory Gymnasium, Dr. John Long The University of Texas at Austin, 78712. Telephone: 512-471-4890. Marvin Eder Subscription rate: $1.5.00* per one year, $25.00 per two years, $50.00 Kevin O’Rourke per two year McLean Fellowship membership, $100.00 per two year McLean Fellowship Patron’s subscription. (Additional information can be Keith Rapisardi found on page 20.) Address all subscription request to IGH Subscriptions. Norman Komich Room 217, Gregory Gym, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, 78712. Iron Game History is a non-profit enterprise. Postmaster: Please Bill Reynolds send address corrections to: Iron Game History, Room 217, Gregory Joseph Puleo Gymnasium, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712. *Foreign John T. Ryan subscriptions, please add $5.00 (U.S.) per year. USA Weight Training Center 2 August 1991 IRON GAME HISTORY TALKING WITH THE: WORLD’S STRONGEST WOMAN From time to time, we will reprint articles of one sort or the other. The following article-interview with Katie Sandwina appeared in a German newpaper, the Woven Man Spricht, on December 8, 1910. The orchestera starts to play. The curtain is going up and a “Me? Heavan forbid! There’s nothing to beat a good glass of woman with a golden coat of mail appears. She is of colossal build, a beer or a fine bottle of wine. I think it’s nonsense when athletes avoid Germania, a Brunhilde. She is the Iron-Queen Katie Sandwina. the these things. Beer and wine are part of a good digestion. world’s most powerful woman, currently amazing the audience in the “A very discreet question, my dear madam! Are you married?” Schuhmann-Theater in Frankfurt. “No, I’m not married.