Old School Bodybuilding playlist: kzfaq.info/sun/PLK7oVKkif-qXRDEob5MKbaT0KEZRe9niu TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - Intro 01:32 - Exercise 1 01:58 - Exercise 2 02:50 - Exercise 3 03:36 - Exercise 4 04:16 - Exercise 5 04:48 - Exercise 6 05:49 - Exercise 7 06:29 - Exercise 8 07:14 - Exercise 9 08:25 - Exercise 10 08:58 - Exercise 11 09:35 - Exercise 12 10:20 - Exercise 13 10:59 - Exercise 14 12:13 - Special Exercises 13:27 - Conclusion

If I've learned anything from these old timey dudes who got jacked doing "sub-optimal" programs with janky equipment, it's the hard work and consistency are by far the most important factors in muscle gain. haha

The wisdom at the end is just amazing. "Make moderation in all things your motto. Don't become a slave to barbells or physical culture." These are words to live by, not only for lifters, but for anyone who is prone to obsession and extremes. Thank you for sharing man, looking forward to learning more.

I KNEW HIM!! He used to go to the Hudson Health Club on the West Side in NYC. He was the nicest guy you can imagine; a real gentleman. I took the bus with him up Broadway.. he told me he had a collection of fancy Beer Mugs at home; I'll bet this was a nice collection. At the health club he did some amazing one handed lifts balancing the large barbell with his hand in the middle. no one else could do this. He was a real "Man's Man" a good person and highly intelligent.

These men were genuine and real body builders.

The muscle that you felt get sore in the "oblique" exercise was probably the quadratus lumborum, a very deep low back muscle that is active in lumbar sidebending and extension.

#6 is a variation of 'windmills', normal exercise mostly common among kettlebell users.

Sigmund Klein's personal record was 19 tiger bends in a row! I think that nobody was able to beat this record yet! Just to show, how difficult even one tiger bend is, I must say that I could never do even one rep even though my personal record at wall handstand push ups was 12.

That Tiger bend is insane! I can do a handstand against a wall, but that's it! Though I always thought you had to be able to get a plumb straight body to do freestanding handstands or handstand push-ups, so it was interesting to see that's clearly not the case. My maternal grandmother apparently dragged one foot but could walk on her hands! So maybe I should try harder!

Great job on the demonstrations bro! Proves that building a great physique doesn't require a lot of advanced principles, just hammering basic fundamentals over time 💪

I started doing Exercise 6 and holy - does it feel good. You can literally feel your obliques stretching - definitely putting it in my exercise arsenal. Great content as always.

One of my new favorite channels. Your self deprecating humor mixed with your humility plus the solid content sets you apart from most other channels.

Great video! I love seeing these older workouts.

I appreciate that you demonstrate the lifts. You put a lot of effort into your videos and it shows!

These old school bodybuilders are awsome. Good channel. Keep up the good work.

Love these videos. Great mix of old photos of the legends and good demonstrations

Yes , I had forgotten about the "windmills" which I used to do with the kettlebell. I like the look of the tricep exercise and will definitely give that a go next arm day. thank you for all your hard work putting this together

Exercise 6 is used in kettlebell training, it's called "windmill". Exercise 8, pistols, is also done in KB training.

Great video. Very informative. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Wow! This has been an awesome video. Hard work and lots of research done there. Thanks. 👍💪

Loved this! I recently started going to the gym and one of my current goals is to build a body but also capabilities based on a similar training from the bronze and silver era of bodybuilding, i think that some things were amazing back then. Thanks for making this video, it was really interesting!

Tesó, nagyon király a videó, kösz a megosztást!

Really love what you’re doing man. Bodybuilding is about health and wellness! Keep going!

Quality content as usual!

cant wait for similar next video , keep it up bro

Good video! Please keep making them!

Awesome video thank you! Please do more like this

I'm glad you covered the curl first, as it is the most important exercise in any body building program. What I like about these exercises (and I think the lesson to be taken away) is that they used compound movements to build mass. Even suboptimal versions of them clearly are able to build amazing size. Great video as always keep them coming man!

Interesting video. Some of the exercises I’ve never seen before and some others have survived and are still being done today.

Thank you! I love your channel!

excellent video and some inspirational exercises to try

I love all the bronze era stuff the exercises are interesting- I'd like to see more about their diet!

Sigmund Klein was my grandpa's cousin...thanks for doing this!

Thank you for this honest way to make those Kind of Video 👍

Stunning! Thanks very much!

Love your videos

Great job. Thank you.

Very interesting! Thank you so much!👍🏽👍🏽💯💯

The advice at the end... beautiful👌

Excellent video

The Tiger's Bend was the coolest one to watch of all these exercises, and I appreciate you including your attempt, too! Learning that Klein was around my size (I am currently 145lbs, very short) makes me feel very inspired! Also, I have done something similar to the 7th exercise in your vid, the barbell triceps exercise done behind your body. But I have done it with a typical double-overhand grip on the bar, just having it behind me, and I bend at the hips to create a bit more ROM. I really feel this in my lats and rear delts, like going beyond the end ROM of a cable lat-pullover. I jokingly call them "Naruto Runs," because the end ROM at the top creates that position lol so far, I can only use 55lbs on it before my form suffers and I start "kipping."

i;m some what new to your channel, but i;ve truly enjoyed all your content so far! keep up the good work!

One of these really seemed injury inducing and I feel invested in your growth after watching you for so long, found myself crying out "no bro no!" Lol

Never seen exercise 7!! Great video, bro 🔥🔥

I love that brick wall, it would make a great background for live stream talk shows.

You motivated me for doing natural bodybuilding thank you bro and at last please make a video for home workout by doing with no equipment

definitely gonna do some of these!

another gem!

I’m a Calisthenics athlete and handstands are my bread and butter. The tiger bend push up took some time…cool thing is, there are many progressions or regressions to build up to the handstand. Pike push-ups, Hindu push-ups , deep decline push-ups. You need to utilise your finger strength to control your balance in the handstand,,,this will also protect your wrist for hyper extending during handstand push-ups against the wall. Parallel bars or paralettes will help a lot in making that mind muscle connection to controlling your body to stay upright. Also for tiger bend you will need to be able to do deep handstand push-ups so if using the wall for balance, use paralette bars or even two chairs to place your hands onto to get deeper.

Cool workout! The muscle you are describing in the back of your obliques is your quadratus lumborum. Definitely a muscle that needs to be engaged in your modern society because we sit so much.

His body mechanics proficiency in muscle strength and development way back-when, are an amazing time capsule...Good health to you!

Old school body builders rock!!

the fifth exercise you demonstrated, That was part of the yolk training program with barbells and dumbbells set I had when I was 18

Bro I'm gonna try a few of these exercises some of them look so fun to do 🤩

I love this history and time period very much, thank you Natty for making these videos and I have to say you definitely look like josh hartnett, just saying bro, but keep up the good work on these videos I definitely like the part you show us all these workouts

One of my favorites

Pretty cool stuff thanks for sharing. My high school coach taught us progressive overload. We progressed towards a new max each month and started each new month from there. I didnt know thats what it was called but it worked amazingly for strength. As a seniour I weighed 170lbs benched 305lbs and could leg press 1040lbs 8 times easily. I dont remember my squat max back then but it was hefty as well. I always got compliments on my legs but I was also heavy into Taekwondo then as well. Also we used narrow grip reverse curls to develop forearms it worked amazingly.

Really really cool

Exercise 6 is a well-known exercise within kettlebells called the windmill. You got the twist down quite well! Try to keep your arm straight while bending 😃

Best body building era so far

at 1:19 the photo on the left is an amazing photo, what a great physique. He looks bigger in the photo on the right, but that photo on the left is so badass. Also, that exercise 6 is pretty common for people who do kettlebell stuff, therefore with a kettlebell instead of dumbbell, and windmills I think they call them.

hey bro, if you want to do handstand pushups for size you should face your stomach against the wall. This way you can regulate difficulty (by leaning) while eliminating technical demands (no balance)

That is some cool staff ! I can do a couple of clumsy pistol squats, when holding kettlebell with my both hands in front of me, using it as a counter-balance. Or just do it the similar way you did...

I think I'll try that oblique exercise today. It looks really unique and I could use some DOMS right now

4:48 is called the windmill. It's still popular amongst kettlebell athletes. Check out Lebe Stark Kettlebell windmill tutorial. He actually did a video which you'll be interested in. He goes into the history of kettlebell.

*Teachable Moment🤔*

It would be amazing if there could be like a site or archive where all of these old school excercises of all different strongmen were listed together, idk if it's very many tho 😂

I still do Leg Curls similar to this, I use a 35 kg dumbbell instead. Gym is very far from my home, so I workout in my home. I also used to do Bench Presses on floor while using two chairs as a rack. Now I custom made a rack and a wooden bench so I don't have to do all those stuffs.

Excercise #6 is a somewhat common exercise among kettlebells enthusiasts. They call it the windmill. And I find it’s actually much more comfy to do it with a kettlebell

Consistency and hard work

The"Tiger Bend" clip, is how to do a cheat TB, the correct way is to press straight up, not rock forward and then press up. Klein's favorite exercise equipment was "The Roman Column," that today is considered too dangerous for public gyms, because it was easy to get hurt. Klein had the last known publicly available "Roman Column" in his NYC gym, but in the early 1960s, it was converted to a Lat Machine, to avoid law suits.

I love your videos as always and you are outstanding in the fitness field , the only thing i dont like in the videos is how slow you talk it makes the video very slow Thank you for the content

Awesome content and channel appreciate all the vintage greats of physical culture who in my opinion had much better physiques then these juiced up monsters in the modern era

I recently graduated to weighted pistol squats ( holding a ten) and it's surprisingly easier. The increased load is offset by the change in center of mass.

Exercise 6 is very similar to the kettle bell windmill maybe an older variation of it cause it's touching the opposite toe. Just tried and it's much more difficult even with a wider stance.🤣

5:45 i actually have been doing this for years now. started at home with kettlebells, now i do it at the gym, most recently with a 70 lb dumbbell. i think it does get some strange looks...

I started doing the bench press with just a box with both my legs and head off of it and let me tell you, I had a neck pump from benching. 100% would recommend

#6 is a variation of the windmill, a common exercise in kettlebell training.

If you hold a staggered stance, and also keep your lower arm in line with the leg on the same side (instead of the leg on the opposite side), you will probably get a better feel of the windmill exercise (exercise 7).

Another interesting thing I've tried is a "compensatory acceleration" technique with dumbbells. You quite literally throw and catch the bells, the added force needed to get them airborne and slow them back down makes them "heavier" than they actually are. So for lateral delt raises you'd swing your arm up fast enough that you can let go of the bell at the top and it will "hover" there for a blink. Then you grab the handle again and have to decelerate the bell on the way down to keep it from smashing your thigh. Obviously you do this one side at a time. It can be applied to other lifts as well. I've even heard of people doing it with the bench press.

Some of those exercices looks like a meme tiktok exercice from an enhanced influencer, the last ones were closer to a grandma swinging her pink dumbells at home tho. It's like every exercice was pick randomly in the entire fitness realm, i love it.

The 'windmill ' press was very common back in that era. Only the practitioners of these archaic movements ,and some wrestlers dabbling in these obscure methods , still perform them today. The best way to perform this , I found it, is with a KB. Starting it off as a clean n press motion. Then proceeding with the windmill execution, while stiff arm'd holding the KB right above. Gets intense when you hit the 40, 50+pnd realm. The true advanced method is with a loaded BB. That requires ample space , bit of coordination and true strength. The challenge here is that the bar rotates around once it's pressed stiff.. You'll know what I mean when you try it.

I forgot to say Thanks for uploading these fascinating videos. Ah, Steve Reeves is my favorite, Cecil B. Mille was wrong He could of been Samson he proved it on the 2 Hercules movies he did too bad none of the body builders played zeus. I'm a bit of a history nerd and this would be under my category of Miscellaneous History. Doesn't make it less important this makes history for me Fun! I used too lift weights after a exercise class started out with weights that were 10 lbs I think I did that one for 2 week's then bravely tackled 20 lbs weight's. I'd lift the weight to no.10 did the 10lbs. For 2 weeks. Then i attempted the 30 lbs did too no. 10 (I was a bit more cautious my mom let me know that hernias run in the family and I was born with a hernia) so that's why I only did each weight up too 10. I wanted to be healthy not stupid. Before i moved from my birth State I was on 60 lbs and woulda started 70 lbs and when I moved to the New State, I wasn't able too get in a good decent exercise program. I know if I take up weight lifting now I'd have to begin with the 10 lbs and then continue my way up I was so happy that I nearly reached 70 lbs.

Legends

Hell yeah I can do proper weighted pistol squats! Used them as a main leg exercise when I didn't have access to a gym. I've done them in all kinds of fashions. Holding some weights down to the sides like a deadlift. With people sitting on my shoulders. In a back squat position with a barbell. In a front squat position with a barbell. In a front squat position with dumbbells. At some point, I could do a pistol on each leg with a 130 lbs person on my shoulders! And with assistance, similar to how you did in that video, I used to do sets with a 160 lbs friend sitting on my shoulders.

Yo! You should write your own book on your content of nats during this time and link it to how to use it today.

This old school low bench press is the best since it teaching bracing

Literally me

I did a bunch of pistol squats back in the day, managed a Pr of 70 pounds for one rep. it takes a lot of brute strength, but the hard part for me was always keeping my other leg straight out in front

please make a guide on how to do that leg curl at home set up pal

Siggy,the man who drooled all over his table for The Monarch of Body-building Edit: The obliques barbell one is really clever and I'll honestly try to fit it in my abs day!

Exercise number 6 is somewhat common in the kettlebell world. It's called Overhead Windmill, and you're doing one of the variations where you bend over to the front, the other and more common one being bending to the side. Despite its looks the main target of this exercise is the shoulder joint and its stabilizers. The objective is to maintain the weight directly over the shoulder vertically, so you must use a weight heavy enough that penalizes any deviation from the vertical (you are doing it somewhat wrong, but hey, not hating). It's excellent for shoulder health, but is useless for hypertrophy.

That high windmill for the obliques could also be hitting the quadratus lumborum.

The tiger bend exercise looks a lot like sher dand, which is one of the old school Indian wrestler exercises. Coincidentally sher means tiger in Hindi.

That triceps exercise #7 is all cramp.. and effective.

He was simply a different breed. How come a lot of what we consider great today is overshadowed by the greats of the distant past?

ive been following natural bodybuilders and I am one myself for 45 years...They never really bulked the way we do today...Reeves himeself said he hated gaining excess fat and that it had to be real muscle every year....this is a huge key!!

Only one I have not seen before was the one where you turn the bar in that circular increment mode, where do you feel that one?

Any idea what there diets were like? For some reason I always imagine eggs redmeat butter and dairy buy not actually sure?

Nice home gym