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Stronger
Kairos is the Greek word the author of this book hopes you will remember when you turn the last page of this scholarly - yet fascinating and entertaining book - about MUSCLE. An entire 360 page book about muscle! No training routines, no physique photo layouts. What a delightfully preposterous and wonderful idea - whose time has come. And that's it, the meaning of the word kairos: "the window of time or opportunity to act." (I am taking liberties with the author's application of the word.) It's the perfect time for this book. Not since I read the book Biomarkers in 1991 by authors Evans and Rosenberg naming muscle as the No. 1 marker of vitality as we age have I seen it so succinctly put. Here, from the Introduction to Stronger: "Lifting a calf, turning a page, and every other voluntary movement happens by means of muscle." This book is a " groundbreaking, richly informative exploration of the central role of muscle in human life and health." The author is a wonderful writer and storyteller. The story he tells, says the publisher, runs "from the battlefields of the Trojan War in Homer’s Iliad, where muscles enter the scene of world literature; to the all-but-forgotten Victorian-era gyms on both sides of the Atlantic, where women build strength and muscle by lifting heavy weights; to a retirement home in Boston, where a young doctor makes the astonishing discovery that frail ninety-year-olds can experience the same relative gains of strength and muscle as thirty-year-olds if they lift weights." Gross explores the history I lived through (and many other histories) including one era when coaches were still saying that lifting weights would produce athletes that were "muscle bound." My high school coach discouraged the weight lifting I had been doing, "athletes don't lift weights." Yet I won the State Pentathlon competition because of my weight training, and the wrestling coach had me grappling against the heaviest weight class for their improvement. And lifting produced lessons. One has guided my life: you can set a goal, work hard, and achieve it. A similar, but more life-altering lesson, was learned by Jan Todd, one of the major athletes profiled in this book. Jan is a good friend and we were delighted that this book again put the spotlight on her sports achievements, all as a drug-free athlete, and also on her substantial life contributions as an award winning author, academic, and co-founder with her husband, Terry, of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports in Austin, Texas (a one-of-a-kind museum with a research facility of one of the world's largest collections of physical culture and sports history). The following, taken from the Stark Center website summarizes some of her accomplishments as an athlete: Recognized as a pioneer in the history of women and weight training, Dr. Todd’s interest in the study of sport and physical culture began with her own participation and success in the sport of powerlifting. During her career, Sports Illustrated and other magazines often described her as “the strongest woman in the world.” As a powerlifter, Todd set more than 60 national and world records (in five weight classes) and was included in the Guinness Book of Records for over a decade. She was the first woman to total 1000, 1100 and 1200 pounds, and the first woman to officially lift 400 pounds in the deadlift and 500 pounds in the squat. She was also the first woman to lift the Dinnie Stones in Scotland, and with Larry Pacifico, she set a two-person record in the deadlift of more than 1100 pounds. In the late 1970s and 1980s, she appeared on dozens of TV shows, including The Tonight Show, I’ve Got a Secret, CBS Sports Spectacular, and several Guinness World Record specials.
This photo was taken after a meet in
St. Louis, Missouri, The backstory in the book, however, adds deeper meaning to her accomplishments. In 1973 Jan accompanied her husband, Terry, to his workout in a Texas gym. There, by chance, she saw a young woman weighing about 115 - the only other woman in the gym - work up to a deadlift of 225 pounds. Jan had grown up when women culturally did not do sports or exert themselves with great force. That day in the gym gave her a glimpse of what a woman could be, and when she thereafter achieved her first Guinness World record for the heaviest deadlift by a woman after only 18 months of training, she realized that "almost all the fears we have and the barriers we set for ourselves as women are in our minds," she wrote. "I felt so free." Being strong can be transformative. This book highlights and honors Jan's many-faceted life as women's weight training pioneer, coach, administrator (involved in starting women's powerlifting), author, and academic (a professor and department chair in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at The University of Texas at Austin), and is a wonderful contribution to women's sports history, telling her story and revealing her thoughts as she made her way down a path no woman had taken. In a short book commentary such as this there is no way to touch on all the other positive aspects of this ground-breaking book (or other profiles). The publishers add a summary paragraph: "Stronger shows muscle and weight training in a whole new light. With warmth and humor, Michael Joseph Gross blends history and firsthand reporting in an inspiring narrative packed with practical information based on rigorous scientific studies from around the world. The research proves that weight training can help prevent or treat many chronic diseases and disabilities throughout the lifespan, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and depression. Stronger reveals how all of us, from elite powerlifters to people who have never played sports at all, can learn to lift weights in ways that yield life's ultimate prize: the ability to act upon the world in the ways that we wish." After reading the book people who have never lifted will be encouraged to try it. And people who already train, as they read, will have moments of great resonance with the material. Here is one of mine: Long-time trainers have passed through many phases in pursuit of muscle. For me, it was beginning to train as a youngster because I wanted to become stronger (like my dad), training to pursue a goal (winning the State Pentathlon Championship), or enter a sport (Olympic weightlifting), pivoting at mid-age to pursue another weight-trained sport (bodybuilding), or apply my weight-trained body to other sports such as rowing and bicycling. Focus was always "forward." This book in its retelling of the history of how we came to understand what muscle is and does reminds us to stop and look backward for a moment. It invites us to think about the runner standing on the Greek track and sense our commonality: athletes searching, through their physical practice, to feel their potential (in Greek thought touching the limitless and divine potential of the gods). We need that reminder as we train through the days and years of our lives. We, as well as the ancients, are searching for our ultimate potential, whatever our age. A motivating thought. April 1, 2025 Comment on this article: FEEDBACK Ripped Enterprises, P.O. Box 51236, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87181-1236 Home | Products Index | Ripped Bks | Lean Adv. Bks | Lean For Life | Recommended Bks | |Consultations | Tapes | To Order | Feedback] Copyright © 2025 Clarence and Carol Bass. All rights reserved.
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