All the Weights of the World

The idea of being able to lift heavy things is something that has been present way before our time on the planet, the ancient Greeks who contributed so much to our modern day ideas and ideals. They also introduced the modern day idea that is lifting. The Greeks would hoist boulders and rocks and mules and just about anything that they could lift and try to prove themselves as the strongest men on the planet. They went as so far to wrestle each other they would go to wrestling gyms and cover themselves in olive oil and tie up there foreskin then they would wrestle in pits of dirt. They strived to jump the farthest and be the strongest, the argument can be made that it was much more competitive back then there was no second or third place. You were either the victor or the ignimonus loser. Today the paradigm has shifted from being the fatsest and strongest to looking the best and being the fastest and the strongest. The Greeks have set forth a precedent that has been totally devalued and discredited; the athletes no longer train the same anymore, they eat different and most would say that technology has advanced the way athletes think but if you ask me I think it it just general wits that have progressed is so far, the Greeks may have made bold proclamations about what they could hoist and heave but there is no way to actually prove they did so without a doubt. Today we have cameras, videos and replays which allow us to confirm amazing and one of a kind human feats. I believe that what this book attempts to do is give us perspective on what the ancient Greeks attempted to do and how the precedent was laid for athletes to follow. As idiotic as their method seems and how distasteful their training regiments may seem there is no denying that the example they set was one that all athletes build off of today. Furthermore the Greeks left a lot to be desired in terms of performance and means that they went through to achieve that performance. Modern day science has refined and retaught so many backwardsand generational malpractices in sports that it has left an entire generation with a host of health issues and bodily malfunctions.