Strong Men I Have Known – The Good Brothers Around 1967 I saw a classified ad in Popular Mechanics magazine offering a free catalog of barbells, weightlifting equipment, training courses, etc. I answered the ad and in about a week I received an envelope full of weightlifting information from the Good Barbell Company. I read about The Good Brothers, Harry, Bill and Walter Good, their humble beginnings in Pennsylvania and their humble beginnings in weightlifting when they were teenagers. Harry, the oldest, began lifting weights in 1924 with a set of Alan Calvert’s Milo Bar Bells and instruction courses. He made such remarkable gains in size and strength after two years that both of his brothers started training along with him. Later, Harry became known as The World’s Strongest Professional Strongman. Bill became known as The World’s Strongest Amateur Strongman. Bill Good was probably the most famous and arguably the strongest. After just five years of training, he won the AAU National Light-Heavy-Weight Championships. He was a member of the original York Oil Burner Weightlifting Club, York Barbell Club, finished 4th in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and 7th in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. He was America’s Strongest Man from 1930 to 1936 and considered by some to be the strongest man in the world for his body weight. In 1936, he was the first man to lift 350 pounds over head and to continental clean and jerk 400 pounds. When the world famous Coney Island Strongman, Warren Lincoln Travis, put some of his stage equipment on the auction block, The Good Brothers purchased a rather ornate, 2,150 pound dumbbell, later advertising it as “The World’s Heaviest Dumbbell”. Harry managed to harness lift the bell three times with additional human weight totaling a whopping 3,000 pounds! Bill celebrated his 70th, 75th, and 80th birthdays by harness lifting this famous 2150 pound dumbbell for each year he was born. At the age of 70, Bill lifted the dumbbell 100 times in less than an hour! Then he added the weight of two bystanders to the bell making it 2510 pounds and lifted it 4 times! I recall seeing him lift his dumbbell on television about five or ten years ago. You could tell by his face that he was up in years but still in remarkable physical condition. I have several of the Good Barbell training courses and wall charts depicting each of the brothers performing some astounding feat of strength with barbells and body weight. I carried on lengthy correspondence with all three of the Good brothers over the years. We had telephone conversations from time to time regarding their methods of weight training. I purchased several high quality products from their catalogs including barbells, benches, etc. Walter owned Reading Barbell Company out of Reading, Pennsylvania. Harry ran Good Barbell Company and even tried his hand at publishing with a magazine called, “Health & Physique” from 1938 to 1940. He retired in 1974 after 37 years. Both the Harry and Walter put out high quality instruction and equipment, especially the barbell plates. Harry L. Good passed away on this day in 1998. Walter Good passed away on July 8th in 2001. William L. “Bill” Good passed away on April 19th 2007. The end of an era in the world of weightlifting. Until the next time… Yours for greater strength, Bill Hinbern P.S. Another famous “Harry” at York Barbell Company was Harry B. Paschall, commercial artist by profession and writer for "Strength and Health" magazine. He had a monthly column called "Behind the Scenes" which covered all the latest goings on in the world of weightlifting. He embellished these articles with lively renderings of his alter ego, Bosco. To learn more about Paschall go to this link now: superstrengthtraining/harry_paschall.html
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 17:23:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015