Bob Fitzsimmons on "the muscle-bound man"

[YukisHeart]

Bob Fitzsimmons, Boxing's First Three Division Title-holder​

http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_68...nt/Physical_Culture_and_Self_Defense-lulu.pdf

A PROFESSIONAL strong man came into my gymnasium one day, and said, “I would like to be a boxer.”

“A boxer, eh?” I replied. “What makes you think you would make a good boxer?”

“Why, I am as strong as a lion. just come in here and I will show you.”

And then this strong man went into my gymnasium and took the heavy weights and the heavy punchingbag and tossed them around like feathers. In a moment he was puffing and blowing like a porpoise, but he stepped back and looked at me with a smile.

He certainly was a picture of strength. The muscles stood out all over his body in big knots. From head to foot he was one mass of knotty, protruding cords.

“How is that for a starter?” he said.

I did not say a word. His ignorance was pitiful to me. Walking over to one side of the room, I took a set of boxing gloves from the wall and handed him a pair. Following my lead he put them on.

It took me about two minutes to show that man how useless, unwieldy, and impracticable his muscles were. He handled himself like a carthorse.

He was as slow on his feet as a messenger boy. His brain acted as did his muscles, slowly and stiffly. Although a big man, weighing perhaps two hundred pounds, he did not make as good a showing with me as many amateur lightweights with whom I had put on the gloves.

I think I showed him clearly the uselessness of his heavy weightlifting muscles. They were good for one thing—the service for which they had been trained. Like every athlete in his profession he was musclebound. Those huge masses of muscle, gained at the expense of many hours of hard work, were for all practical purposes of no more use than a handorgan would be to a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

In fact, such muscles serve to help shorten one’s life. The musclebound man, with every fibre of his body drawn to a tension that pulls at the very heartstrings, most frequently dies with what is known as an “athlete’s heart.”

A musclebound man is worse than a skinbound horse. He is as awkward and ungainly as a crocodile would be in a ballroom. Take him away from his chosen profession and he is all at sea. He is a frightful object lesson against the use of heavy dumbbells, or heavy weights of any kind.

The man or boy who wants to become quick, strong, and clever must avoid the use of heavy weights as carefully as though they were poisonous snakes. They completely destroy all that suppleness and agility which mark every detail of the clever athlete’s work.

A man who is a runner, jumper, boxer—in fact, anything except a heavyweight lifter—can have no use for knotty, unwieldy masses of strength.

Even our best wrestlers nowadays recognize the fact that muscles of that kind are of no use to them. They know that there are right and wrong muscles just as well as they know there is a right and wrong way to wrestle. They know that such muscles bring them premature old age and early death.

Thus it is that every ambitious young athlete should strive to train his muscles in the proper way. Light dumbbells, Indianclubs, and other muscle building weights should never be forsaken.

Do not use heavy weights.

Do not exercise too much.

"Athlete's heart"?

 

[belph]

i don't get it is this saying don't be a bodybuilder or is it saying weights fuck em!

 

[YukisHeart]

i don't get it is this saying don't be a bodybuilder or is it saying weights fuck em!

Bit of both. When these old-timers talk about dumbells they're talking about really light things weighing not more than maybe two pounds.

That said, Fitzsimmons was a blacksmith by trade, and supposedly he'd set up a little mock smithy at his training camp where he'd hammer out horseshoes, so he was doing something for strength and conditioning other than bagwork, breathing exercises, calisthenics and running.

In fact, his book on "physical culture" mentions he was a one-time blacksmithing world champion.

 

[Searcher]

Thats interesting that his idea of a muscular man was one weighing 200lbs. Although he doesn't mention how lean it was. I wonder what would have happened if he actually trained the beginner in boxing rather than beating him up.

 

[milano]

 

[YukisHeart]

Thats interesting that his idea of a muscular man was one weighing 200lbs.

It's all relative, I guess. Fitz was not quite 160 lbs but fought at heavyweight after taking the middleweight title.

 

[Tosa]

Sports science and training methods have come a long way since 1901.

 

[Cratos]

 

[maDKient]

Lol, that's an old school style flaming.

 

[SlaveToTheDark]

jeez, strong bullshit in this one...

 

[raptorjesus29]

wonder what karelin would say about this

 

[redaxe]

In fighting, muscle is no substitute for technique. No shit, Sherlock.

 

[TeddyRoosevelt]

Sports science and training methods have come a long way since 1901.

Amen.

 

[paolo27th]

So he just beat the guy up? Was there any point at which he claimed he knew how to box?
I just couldn't train with that kind of coach. His reasononing skills are pretty poor. I met similar ones sometimes and needless to say we fell apart sooner rather than later.
Posted via Mobile Device

 

[Pseudo Sane]

This article is...so dumb.

I mean, obviously the strongman in question had poor cardio and was not fast, but his talk on the effects of muscle on health was poor bullshit. A lifetime of weightlifting will wear you down physically in terms of joint damage and back injury (potentially), but the idea of athlete's heart is bullshit. Additionally, it is not as though boxing does not have it's share of longterm health effects.

Also, lol at the 'strongman' being 200lbs. I am not lean, but that is how much I weighed the last time I was lifting seriously, and I am far from being musclebound, to my everlasting regret.

I mean, by those standards GSP would essentially count as a musclebound strongman, since he walks around at about 195.

I suppose the only thing he points out that is not retarded is that most fast strikers are reasonably slim.

 

[miaou]

The man or boy who wants to become quick, strong, and clever must avoid the use of heavy weights as carefully as though they were poisonous snakes. They completely destroy all that suppleness and agility which mark every detail of the clever athlete’s work.

Bob Fitzsimmons needs to read the FAQs.


Also, I lolled at Cratos' post. Good timing.

 

[YukisHeart]

I should like to point out I'm only posting Fitzsimmons's thoughts as a matter of interest, not because I necessarily think weight-lifting has no value.

Sports science and training methods have come a long way since 1901.

It's interesting you use Tyson as an example here, because I seem to recall a BBC programme which had Tyson giving an overview of the champions of the past where the presenter tries to sell him on Frank Bruno's weight-lifter's physique - Tyson says he does nothing with weights at all.


Skip to 4:35.

 

[cheez whiz]

The article was published in 1901. About that same time, Bayer company was switching over to making their popular product of today, Aspirin, from their previously successful product, Heroin. People still believed humans would never fly because all attempts at making airplanes had failed. There had been no medicine yet discovered to cure a specific illness - the first one was the drug for Syphilis, which would come in 1908.

The 100 dash was run a full two seconds slower than it is today. The mile was run more than 20 seconds slower. The high jump was more than a foot lower.

That era's athlete's performances were, in general, pitiful in light of today's athletes' accomplishments. Their understanding of how to get there was lacking to an even greater degree. Articles like this are great for a chuckle. If anyone thinks they've uncovered some forgotten, relevant "ancient wisdom" when they pull up old articles, I have some Bayer brand Heroin to sell them. It's good for headaches.

However, the "athlete's heart" thing rings a bell.

- Jon Pall Sigmarsson
- Jesse Marunde
- Johnny Perry

That one frightens me a bit.

 

[miaou]

It's interesting you use Tyson as an example here, because I seem to recall a BBC programme which had Tyson giving an overview of the champions of the past where the presenter tries to sell him on Frank Bruno's weight-lifter's physique - Tyson says he does nothing with weights at all.

Leaving aside the fact that this was a pic of both Tyson and Holyfield (to whom Tyson lost twice), I'm not sure I can understand your argument here.

Assuming Tyson never did any sort of resistance training (which might or might not be true), then he obviously had a one-in-a-million genetic predisposition to being strong and muscular. All other things being equal, for another fighter to keep up with him he would need to have comparable physical abilities. If another fighter doesn't have one-in-a-million genetics, then he has to do a lot of resistance training to get to that level.

 

[flak]

Assumption 1 -- Fitzsimmons did indeed meet up with dumbass lifters who assumed they'd automatically be great boxers.

Assumption 2 -- Fitzsimmons had the smarts to realize that just because a guy does poorly in his first boxing workout, he's not doomed to be a failure in boxing if he keeps training.