Plague of Strength

History, and our limited understanding thereof, is a tricky motherfucker. In the same breath you’ll find anyone, no matter their level of education or political affiliation, looking to the past for examples of people living better lives and out-performing or out-thinking modern humans all while mocking everyone of the past for being an idiot for one reason or another. And that’s easy to do, because it’s hard to understand why Europeans lived knee-deep in their own sewage for the better part of two centuries because they were too busy burning books and killing people in the name of the baby Jesus to be bothered with reinventing the flush toilet, central heating, unpowered climate control systems, or just getting jacked for the sake of getting jacked, as the Greeks, Romans, Indians, Iranians, and Chinese all did for millennia before the modern era- and the same can be said for the travails being undergone in developing areas like South Asia and Africa, of which even I am guilty for blaming for the current state of their sanitation systems (it’s just part of modernization, however).

Lifting seems to coincide with a certain level of infrastructural development that humanity has only recently regained, as it requires necessary advancements in medicine and food production to enable humans to have the necessary free time and calories to engage in these activities. That said, it seemed like we represented the highest peak of human civilization until recently (unless you enjoyed speculative archaeology enough to ignore the alien conspiracies), but as it turns out there was at least one culture in ancient history who lived similarly to ourselves (save for our endless wars and the fact we have electricity and the internal combustion engine), in clean, well built and well organized structures with central plumbing and in-built systems for the redistribution of air and sunlight, to ensure that all occupants of every building had reasonably equal access to everything, and it is there that our story starts… which is likely at least 2000 years older than you thought.

And if you’re too busy to read this at the moment, check out this episode I did on the history of kettlebells on Breakthrough Secrets Podcast.

Just as most people think the sandwich is a British nobleman’s invention (in spite of the fact that it was invented in 11th Century China), most people seem to think that the formerly exotic but now commonplace kettlebell originated in Russia.  As all of you will discover in your lives, most people are wrong about most things most of the time, and the history of lifting implements might even be less well known and understood because prior to the invention of the internet very few people thought their daily workout would in fact spur social change or matter to anyone else in any way (and it almost certainly won’t but you keep posting those vids).  Thus, much of what you think you know about the world and/or the history of lifting is probably mostly wrong- it’s not just you, so be prepared to relearn a lot of shit you thought you knew backwards and forwards.

The modern kettlebell is known in Turkey and Russia as the girya, where it’s been used in markets to check the weight of a purchase of bulk goods and in the home to check the strength of its owner’s arms.  Its name is a loan word taken from the Persian adjective “gerani” (“difficult”), which only makes sense when you discover that the oldest example of a kettlebell comes from an early bronze age culture that barely even has a name because we know so little about it, but it was in southeastern Iran and western Afghanistan. For now they’re being called the Jiroft culture and although we have some of their script we have not been to determine what language they spoke- we just know that I was left to draw their civilization in a single picture it would be of a jacked and extraordinarily pregnant ambiguous brown woman giving spectacularly gory (but artistic, because you’ve gotta keep it classy) birth to an unending stream of kettlebell-swinging badasses who would use their kettlebell-induced might to topple the world’s first civilization.

Though they’re not known as such now, the Jiroft culture will likely be seen by future historians as similarly important to the Greco-Buddhist kingdoms of Afghanistan that came later, as the Persian language actually arose in this region, known as Bactria, and the early Persian kings all hailed from this region. And perhaps that should be unsurprising, given the fact that in spite of the fact we have identified them as having spoken proto-Elamite, we don’t have any idea how to translate it, or what it sounds like, so we can’t read the shit they carved on their rad, stylized stone kettlebells when they were swinging them around in the bronze age. We might not know their original name, but we do know the language that arose in that region also gave it the name it bears throughout the Near East, which would tend to indicate that Bactria is a pretty good spot to call the birthplace of the kettlebells, and it goes back as least to 2500BC.

Bactria was a crossroads for trade between the West, South, and East in Eurasia, and as such was in contact with the other advanced civilizations within reach, namely the Indus Valley Culture (IVC) of Northern India and the Sumerians/Akkadians of Iraq. The earliest city in the region dates to at least 4000BC and shows independent creation or adoption of various mathematical and science advances from the earliest known civilization of the era, Sumer, but they did their own thing. Once of those developments appears to have been the kettlebell, though the art on the kettlebell shares similarities to artistic styles from the furthest reaches of southern Iraq, so one would think the kettlebell itself was at least known throughout that region at the time. Amusingly, we have no idea what these people called themselves and thus refer to them as Elamites, as that is their identifier in the Bible/Talmud/Koran, but they might as well have been called “the Kettlebell Kings” based on how many of those things they created.

And it’s due to the location of its invention that the kettlebell was able to spread around the world. After conquering the world’s first known civilizations, the Elamites spread the love of the kettlebell spread north into the Hittite Empire (Turkey), where it’s been a workout mainstay for centuries, and then north into the lands of the Slavs and west into the lands of the Greek Myceneans, who likely began seeing them as early as trade and war between the Phoenicians occurred. Rather than lifting them, the Greeks used them as a performance aid for the long jump- the inertia from swinging the halteres from back to front propelled the long jumpers further than they could jump without them.

Though I’ve not seen one, it would make sense the Romans knew of them if they didn’t use them themselves. Moving east, the Tang Dynasty of China shared a border with the Sassanid Empire (which by the 600s was the power in the region of Bactria and last Persian dynasty before Muslim conquest). It’s unsurprising, then, that it was during the Tang dynasty in China that the Chinese switched from lifting giant iron and stone cauldrons to stone locks and weighted knives (and at 80 pounds apiece, “dancing” with one as they did for competitions had to have been interesting).

And what are stone locks but our old friend the girya?

Different versions of the kettlebell can be found all over Eurasia from every time period, be it the Ottoman Sultan Murad the 4th (1612-1640, reigned 1623-1640) who simply carry a 102kg (224.4 lbs) kettlebell everywhere he went during the course of the day.  Murad grew up in Constantinople and reflected 3000 years of regional love for the kettlebell in his obsession with developing enough strength and health to avoid slaughter by his enemies. He enacted a shitload of health-conscious reforms like prohibitions on alcohol and tobacco, and would demonstrate his strength by killing any person he found breaking his decrees with his bare if blood-drenched hands. And he built that strength by making a 224lb kettlebell his best friend- if he was taking a piss, he carried his kettlebell, same as if he was off to bang his harem or eat a meal.  When on campaign, he’d change up his training and restrict it to just an hour of kettlebell swings daily- after which he would lead the army from the front, like the utterly psychotic weightlifting badass that he was. [Odd postscript- he died of liver cirrhosis at 28 after establishing the modern borders of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, though I discovered that can come from lead poisoning. I found it curious that the OG hateedge psycho was a Turkish weightlifter from the 17th century… and that said psycho died of a disease on generally associates with a vicious drinking habit]. 

The first mention of the kettlebell in Russian literature occurred in 1704, though it’s virtually certain they used them prior, given their ubiquitousness in Eurasia for at that point 3000 years.  By the 19th Century, kettlebell training and competitions became immensely popular. While I can find no evidence to support this, it would seem likely to me that Tsar Alexander had his army utilize them to ensure they were physically fit and strong, and may have played a part in Napoleon’s defeat (as fitness played a large role in Napoleon’s victories).  Thereafter, they continued to grow in popularity as the soldiers took the implements back to their hometown for local strength training and competitions.  Whether or not that’s accurate, I have no idea- given the vast volumes available on vodka and the sparse information on giri, one can assume that Russians felt drinking was a far better use of their time that writing about something as simple and ultimately unimportant as a strength training implement.

We do know, however, that by 1900, Dr. Vladislav Krajewski (1841-1901) had convinced Tsar Nicholas II of the utility of weight training and kettlebells for the Russian army. Krajewski was a relative latecomer to lifting, having started at the age of 41, but he immediately discovered he loved lifting and founded the St. Petersburg Amateur Weightlifting Society in 1885. In 1887, the gym held its first strength competition, which led George Hackenschmidt to train with Krajewski for 18 months. Thereafter, Krajewski allowed other famous strongmen to work out with him (though he despised training and coaching people and refused to do so) in the same way, spreading his methods of lifting to the men who would influence strength training for the next century.

Russian Kettlebell Heroes

Dr. Vladislav von Krajewski, the Father of Russian Weightlifting (1841-1901)

A Pole by birth, Krajewski emigrated to Imperial Russia and became one of the most prestigious doctors in the the country, rapidly ascending to Czar Nicholas II’s personal doctor.  Over time, Krajewski influenced the training of all of the top strongmen of the day, including Eugen Sandow, George Hackensmidt, George Lurich, and Ivan Poddubny, and it was his influence on the government that led to the institution of kettlebell work for the military, a tradition that carries through to the modern day and Pavel’s unrelenting obsession with the most archaic of weightlifting implements.

Though he didn’t start lifting until he was 41, Krajewski attacked the weights with a vengeance and rapidly became one of the strongest motherfuckers in the land of drunken bear wrestling.  In 1885 he founded Russia’s first weightlifting club in St Petersburg, and in 1887 his gym hosted Russia’s first strength contest, won by strength legend George Hackenschmidt.  Hack, who hailed from Estonia, lived with Krajewski for awhile thereafter and trained alongside him, later crediting Krajewski with the strength that built his career.

As Hack put it,

“He made a thorough study of the subject and systematized weightlifting. But though practicing what he preached, he seldom paid attention to see that his advice was followed. His mental outlook was mostly concerned with record lifts. Everything about the man was striking—movements, stride and manner of speech. Friend Guido Meyer, one of the strongest amateurs in Russia, used to imitate him to perfection saying:

‘All I want is record lifts, more record lifts, and still more record lifts, so hump yourselves and get busy’” (Hemme).

Though a practicing physician throughout his life, Krajewski was also an author, penning what became the Russian equivalent to Arnold’s Book of Bodybuilding in “The Development of Physical Strength with Kettlebells and without Kettlebells.”  And although people constantly wanted him to coach them, he had zero interest in that shit.  Instead, he’d basically lead by example and let the chips fall where they may
 
Krajewski on diet: No condiments, sauces, beer, wine, liquor, or smoking.

Krajewski on sleep: Eight hours out of the twenty-four ought to be enough for anyone.

And an additional fun fact- the dude was so obsessed with helping the poor he almost certainly cut years off his life with overwork (which is cool just because lifters have a tendency to be narcissists rather than altruists).  The dude’s schedule was crazy- arising at some hour he’d have breakfast and answer correspondence, then have a cold bath and would train wet, allowing himself to air dry as he went.  He took no rests and never sat down in the gym , then took off for work right after to see outpatients.  He’d pop back by for lunch around 2 and eat with Hack, then would chill for an hour before seeing patients at home from 4 to 6.  He’d then have dinner for an hour before seeing poor patients for free in his home from 8PM until 1AM.

And if you’re still unconvinced this dude was a GOAT, check out the following quote:

“‘I owe practically all that I have and am to him,’ recalled Hackenschmidt. ‘It was he who taught me how to live and how to train, and he it was who launched on my career. … Nor would I indeed claim to be his chief and only debtor… athletes the world over are … directly or indirectly in his debt. Well was he styled the “Father” of athletics; for it was through the system which he first organized, that every athlete of any prominence during the last twenty-five or thirty years, developed his powers” (Hemme).

Ivan Poddubny, Ukrainian Bogatyr (1871-1949)

Standing 6’1″ and 265lbs at his biggest, Ivan Poddubny would have been ideally sized as a reboot for Nikolai Volkoff in the modern WWE, and in turn-of-the-century Russia he basically looked like an even match for the devil if he tore his way up out of the ground in downtown Moscow. The average Russian military recruit born in 1874 stood just under 5’4″ (162cm) and weighed about as much as a weighted comforter, so to those people this gargantuan Cossack badass was likely awe inducing to form a puddle under some people. And beyond that, Poddubny wouldn’t go unremarked-upon in your current gym, as his strength was absolutely preposterous on shitty weights made with brittle steel- on modern equipment he’d be like the fucking Hulk, but with a dope-ass mustache that must come with a hilariously high pitched giggle and a lot of nefarious planning.

Poddubny began life as a Zaporozhian Cossack peasant (so he’s Ukranian rather than Russian, if you’re keeping track), which to you means nothing, but it should- the Cossacks were a mix of Slavs, Tatars, and other Central Asian peoples who’d given up the city life to live like psychotic Boy Scouts in the swamps, doing their best (and usually better than the original) Mongol imitation whenever it came time for war. They weren’t much for farming, and the Tsar had his foot on their necks for awhile. After building his strength wrestling a plow through rock-filled Ukrainian field for 17 years, Poddubny realized he was about a hundred pounds heavier and a foot taller than everyone his age and fucked off to the circus to become a strongman.

While in the circus he became a wrestler, defeating Russian strength and wrestling legend George Lurich in his first outing. A couple of years later, Lurich’s strength guru, none other than the aforementioned Dr. von Krajewski, asked Poddubny to move to St. Petersburg to train with his lifting society. Von Krajewski imported a French wrestling coach specifically to prepare Poddubny for the gimmickry you’d associate with modern pro wrestling (the French tended to cheat incessantly to win, using foreign objects of all sorts), which worked a little too well- and after that worked to secure the world title for Poddubny the former French champ hired goons to kill the Ukrainian. As it happened, Poddubny had already skipped town, so when the goons demanded payment for their attempted murder, they ended up killing the man who hired them for nonpayment.

Poddubny’s Measurements

Height-6’1″ / 180 cm

Weight– 260 lb / 118kg

Biceps -17″ / 44cm

Neck– 24″ /60cm

Poddubny was no slouch at the weights (and possibly a GOAT in that realm as well), but wrestling was really the source of his fame. He was the Greco-Roman wrestling champion of the world from 1905-1909, fought in rough-n-tumble matches in the United States and earned $500k he was never able to withdraw from American banks in doing so, and allegedly even won a bodybuilding competition in the US at the age of 56 before ending his wrestling tour as the “Champion of America.” After returning to the newly minted Soviet Union, however, shit went sideways and Poddubny died in poverty like almost all of the famous lifters and coaches of yore. His death isn’t the point, however- it was his life as what amounted to early 20th century Russia and the Ukraine’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Poddubny’s undefeated lifetime record (minus French cheating) combined with his image as a hypermuscular dude who was obsessed with lifting heavy kettlebells, and just as Arnold would in the United States three quarters of a century later, Poddubny convinced the Russian populace it was time to start moving weight so Russia could literally and figuratively flex on the world in perpetuity.

And you might note that I didn’t list Poddubny’s best lifts, because he refused to do limit lifts in front of other people. Not because he was weaker than they thought, but I think it is more likely he didn’t want people to know how fucking strong he was.

According to one source, when Poddubny won the physique contest he entered in the US, he also did a 130kg/286lbs fast curl from the floor (Roads).

No one does this lift anymore, but it’s somewhere between a cheat curl that begins on the floor and a reverse grip power clean, and this natty motherfucker pulled that shit off without killing himself or rupturing both bicep tendons, which in and of itself is astonishing. Respect.

Pyotr Krylov, the King of the Kettlebells (1871-1933)

Krylov is best known as a circus strongman, but don’t let that turn your attention to other things, for he wasn’t merely a bender of iron bars and horseshoes and a carrier of horses- this dude moved weights you can’t, natty, without even electric lighting in his gym. He built more muscle than you carry in a time before steroids, the paved road, and refrigeration, and for those reasons you should perk the fuck up.  This is a man from whom we can all learn.

Pyotr Krylov Vital Statistics

• Home Base– Moscow, Russia.
• Lived– 1871-1933
• Height – 170 cm (5’5″)
• Weight – 88 kg (193lbs)
• Chest– 123 cm (48″)
• Biceps – 46 cm(18″) 
• Neck – 47 cm (18’5″) 
• Forearm – 35 cm (13″) 

Pyotr Krylov Best Lifts

• Iron Cross– 100lbs/45kg kettlebells 
• Right Hand Strict Press– 280lbs/127kg
• Pullover and Press– 300lbs/136kg
• Clean and Jerk– 320lbs/145kg
• Ultra-Strict Left-Handed 32kg Kettlebell Press– 86 reps. Time is not stated, but anyway that’s a hell of a reps.
• Wrestler’s Bridge Bench Press– 282lbs/128kg
• Overhead Press to One Hand– 256lbs/116kg

And though we don’t have a solid workout from in his prime, he did relate his dsily workout at age 43, when he was retired:

Press/Push Press– 5 x 10 x 80 kg

Bench Press– 5 x 10 x 80kg

Double KG Press– 5x10x32 kg

Squat– 100 reps x80kg

Walk Stairs With Partner on Shoulders

Laterals and Other Bodybuilding Shit for Delts and Tris -with 20lb dbs

Random Biceps Bodybuilder Movements– holding two 20lb dbs in each hand

Note: as a circus/vaudeville athlete he had to do various tricks and feats of strength up to four to five times a day for up to a half hour at a time, six days a week. And that was in addition to training to build strength on the side- all of that shit about your “natty” capacity is nothing but lies told by weak pussies to make other weak pussies feel better about sucking.

The rise of the Soviet nightmare brought an emphasis on physical strength in the populace and public displays of strength on an international scale, ostensibly to show the West that only the people in the Ukraine were starving to death, and that was because Uncle Stalin liked the smell of dead people.  Collective farms held strength competitions and then sent their best lifters to holiday festivals in Moscow, where papa Stalin presided over the events and likely had the shitty lifters liquidated.  According to one source, having Stalin’s soulless gaze upon you scared you into winning- “one girya-lifter is believed to have said: ‘I was in no mood to continue the competition, but when I saw Comrade Stalin looking at me I immediately snatched the record’” (Dmitriev).

Under the Soviets, competitions in girya lifting seemed not to focus so much on pure strength as they did strength endurance, which was an interesting throwback to the style of lifting done in the first modern Olympics of 1896:

• The First Nationwide Festival of Strongmen, held in 1948, boasted 20,000 competitors, though there is no record of how many were compelled to participate through threats of liquidation or internment.  The winner of the event was a sailor named Alexei Protopopov, who snatched a 32-kilo girya 1,002 times with short breaks, ostensibly in the hopes he would be fed and allowed to sleep indoors.  
• A contemporary of Protopopov, Aleksandr Bolshakov, clean and jerked a two 32-kilo for 19 repetitions, which seems light until you consider the fact he likely did so without having eaten for a couple of days.
• A decade later, some lunatic named Ivan Nemtsev crushed the competition for eleven straight years, capping his utter domination of an entire country by snatching a 32 kg girya 370 times in a row.  

Although kettlebells typically come in 4 kg, 8 kg, 16 kg, 32kg, 36 kg , 40 kg, 48 kg and 56 kg sizes and are used for a variety of exercises ranging from the utterly useless Turkish Get up to the marginally useful high rep Olympic clean and jerk and snatch, kettlebell competitions only utilize the 16, 24 and 32 kg giri and simply consist of the snatch and the clean and jerk.  After the formation of the International Federation of Girya Sports in 1993, international competitions began being held in those two events, though they really only featured Eastern Europeans and a smattering of German, Greek, and American oddballs who had likely only just recently stopped dressing in traditional Chinese garb and yammering on about the what everyone else knew to be the extremely questionable utility of traditional martial arts in streetfighting.

Likely due to their popularity in Soviet Russia (which made them evil in America and totally antithetical to what a tr00Murican would use to build strength), it wasn’t until they were popularized by Russian strength coach Pavel Tsatsouline that anyone in the West gave two shits about kettlebells.  Tsatsouline, a marketing genius, managed to build an entire industry out of nothing, convincing people that lifting a relatively light but ungainly implement hundreds of times was the secret to true strength, in spite of the fact that he himself, while fit, was not terrifically strong.  In spite of his best efforts and masterful propaganda, kettlebell training has basically remained on the fringes of actual strength training, but is generally considered great for insanely hot chicks with too much money, the infirm, children, and people who have difficulty lifting real weights.

Except, of course, for this maniac, who is keeping the old traditions alive- let it not be said that kettlebells are useless. It’s just that they’re mostly useless lifted the way most people use them. In the case of kettlebells, you need to look back further than the Soviets in order to move forward with training with this ancient implement, because 4500+ years of contiguous use would have to indicate that kettlebells are at the very least somewhat effective for building strength and muscle- you just have to go harder than you thought you could go. And then go harder than that.

Remember this the next time you go to pick up anything under a 32kg kettlebell, by the way- Peter Krylov first lifted a 32kg overhead (bottom up, both hands) at the age of ten, and could put two overhead by the time he was fourteen. Strive to be at least as strong as a 19th century Ukrainian peasant, then- if you can’t strict press two 70lb kettlebells, you should be ashamed. And then fix it.

Sources:

Bardakci, Emre.  Turkish get ups: the secret of the Ottoman army.  BJEE.  20 Nov 2020.  Web.  27 Jul 2021.  https://www.bjjee.com/articles/turkish-get-ups-the-secret-of-the-ottoman-army/

Brauer, Fae.  Making “The Russian Lion”: Vladislav von Krajewski’s Bodybuilding of George Hachenschmidt.  https://repository.uel.ac.uk/download/012582390828c2c2ef3f05c70fe88580097f73fd49524d5602e15c6fce23ac1b/197030/Brauer.Making%20the%20Russian%20Lion.Paper.2019.pdf

Dmitriev, Oleg.  Of Russian origin: Girya.  Russiapedia.  Web.  10 Jan 2014.  http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/girya/

Dmitriev, Oleg.  Prominent Russians: Ivan Poddubny.  Russiapedia.  Web.  31 Aug 2021.  https://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/sport/ivan-poddubny/

Hemme, Florian and Jann Todd.  Beyond the hack squat: George Hackenschmidt’ s forgotten legacy as a strength training pioneer.  Iron Game History.  Aug 2017;12(3):3-19.

Is there a best strength or weight training program? Reprinted from The Roads We Choose, Chapter 6, Vozmi v Sputniki Silu, Moscow, 1990. Translated by Dr. Michael M Yessis. Fitness & Sports Review Intern Oct 1992.  Big Boy’s.  9 Dec 2007.  Web.  2 Sep 2021.  http://bigboys280.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-there-best-strength-or-weight.html

Mironov, Boris N. New Approaches to old problems: The well-being of the population of Russia from 1821 to 1910 as measured by physical stature.  Slav Rev.  Spr 1999;58(1):1-26.

Thurston J. The Impact of Russian Popular Theatre, 1886-1915. J Mod Hist.  Jun 1983; 55(2):237-267. 

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