Coffee Table Book of: Weightlifting (Hardcover)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: Weightlifting is a large format book of weightlifting, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: the bar and its plates, chalk and the lifting platform, old gyms, cellars, barns and halls empty from first light to late at night, the kit being made and cared for, the old gear of the strongmen, and a few lifters seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The kit is laid out plain: two bare bars side by side, the knurled grip dusted with chalk, rubber plates of one width in red, blue, yellow and green, small steel change plates, a pair of collars, lifting shoes with raised wooden heels, a belt on a peg, wrist wraps and thumb tape, knee sleeves and straps, a bar on tall wooden blocks and another in squat stands, a bowl and a box of chalk and a wooden stick for learning the lifts.

The making and care follow: molten iron poured into sand moulds, a rubber plate in its steel mould, a steelworks at first light, a heel built on a wooden last, a strip of leather for a belt, plywood and oak stacked for a new platform, a wire brush for the grip, a broom for the chalk and oil for the boards. The past runs from round lifting stones on a hilltop, a riverbank and a village square to wooden clubs, a globe barbell on an empty stage and another on old floorboards, a kettlebell, old iron plates, a cracked leather belt and old shoes with wooden heels.

Short notes run through the book, on the two lifts and their rules, the bar, plates, platform and kit and how they are made, and the history of the sport: weightlifting as a sport has just two lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk, dropped bars shake a building, so many lifting gyms sit on the ground floor of old warehouses, swinging heavy wooden clubs was a popular way to build strength in the nineteenth century, and iron plates were the only kind for decades, until plates coated in rubber came into use.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.