The New York Times Obit section has a profile on Henry Wittenberg who just died at the age of 91. He was an Olympic wrestler and one of the first wrestlers to ever use weight training as a part of his prep.
The result? 300 straight wins. I’d call that an unfair performance enhancing thing-a-majigy (sp?). If you were an athlete in the early days, and you lifted weights, you were the equivalent of an athlete on steroids today.
OK, that’s not exactly true. So many athletes are on steroids now that even that isn’t much of an advantage.
Actually, I love these profiles of older athletes who were pioneers in using strength and conditioning to enhance their sport. Because of their “social proof” they’ve changed the way the world approaches sports training.
Thanks Henry.
(Hat tip to Chris for sending me this)
Interesting point but I hope this isn’t the case!
I have a lot of faith that we will be able to keep sport clean into the future and still keep athletes improving and breaking records.