Weightlifting 1:
Early History
Weightlifting in some form probably dates to prehistoric times. It's easy to imagine some primitive man lifting a heavy rock and then challenging someone else to try it.
Of course, there's no evidence that anything like that ever happened. The first mention of something resembling weightlifting comes from China's Zhou (or Chou) Dynasty, which lasted from the late 10th century B. C. to 256 B.C. Under that dynasty, recruits were required to pass tests of strength before joining the military.
In ancient Egypt, heavy bags of sand were lifted with one hand as a form of training. There's no record of competition, but it's likely that it took place.
Although weightlifting wasn't included in the ancient Olympics, it seems to have been a popular sport in Athens and other Greek city-states. Many stories of weightlifting feats, most of them probably exaggerated, have survived from ancient Greece.
Milo of Crotona, the greatest of Olympic wrestlers, was also known for his strength. He reportedly carried a four-year-old heifer, probably weighing about 900 or more pounds, the length of the Olympic stadium.
Another Olympic champion, Theagenes, who won at boxing in 480 B.C. and the pankration (a mix of boxing and wrestling) four years later, supposedly lifted a life-sized bronze statue off a pedestal and carried it home when he was only nine years old. After being threatened with punishment, he then brought it back to its rightful location. Such a statue would have weighed at last 500 pounds, even if it was hollow.
A red sandstone block weighing 143 kilograms (315 pounds) and dating to the 6th century B. C. was found in Olympia. It bears an inscription claiming "Bybon, son of Pholos, threw this over his head with one hand." (That probably meant that he lifted it with a sudden movement, rather than throwing it.)
An even less likely feat is recorded on another stone, found on the island of Santorini (Thera). This stone, which weighs 480 kilograms (nearly 1060 pounds), also dates to the 6th century B. C. and has the inscription, "Eumastas, the son of Critobulus, lifted me from the ground."
Those stones at least indicate that physical strength and strong men were valued in Greece about 2,600 years ago. In ancient Rome, professionals often gave exhibitions of their strength. According to Pliny the Elder (A. D. 23-79), one Athanatus walked around in the arena while wearing armor that weighed about 1,000 pounds.
A centurion in the guard of Caesar Augustus (died A. D. 14), Julius Valens, could reportedly lift a wagon loaded with barrels of wine by stooping beneath it and using his back and hips. That kind of stunt foreshadowed the exploits of the great strong men of the 19th century.
Training with weights was a staple exercise among Roman athletes. The practice died out after the fall of the Roman empire but was revived in the 16th century. Sir Thomas Elyot, in The Boke Named the Governor (1531), advised exercise "with poises [weights] made of lead or other metal" along with "lifting and throwing the heavy stone or bar."
Many writers who followed Elyot also recommended weight training as an essential type of exercise. But training, of course, is not the same as weightlifting, since the emphasis tends to be on the number of repetitions, rather than on the amount of weight being used.