What kind of doping did the Russian strongmen take?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Ivan Poddubny, Georg Gakkenshmidt, Ivan Lebedev, Alexander Zass and others are strong men who have gone down in the history of world sports. Their names have become synonymous with Russian strength and spirit, endurance and tirelessness. As with all athletes, one of the most important ingredients for the success of weightlifters is their diet. What did the Russian heroes eat and what did they lean on?

On natural products

The wrestler and athlete Ivan Poddubny, nicknamed the Russian Bear in the West, loved simple but wholesome food. As his niece Maria Sobko recalled, when Poddubny came to the dining room, the first thing he did was ask for rich borscht. After the first portion, he could order the second, and then the third.

The wrestler was very fond of dairy products and eggs. According to contemporaries, the great Russian athlete could eat a dozen boiled eggs at a time. But this is the most important source of protein. Poddubny also laid on porridge, could drink more than three liters of milk per day. Ivan Maksimovich was very fond of cutting a loaf of bread into two parts and spreading a pound of butter on them. Such a diet provided a lot of the calories the body needed.

Vegetables were the most important component of the athlete's diet. And the most favorite of them was the radish. Poddubny even asked his sister to send him a parcel with these vegetables to the United States, where in 1925 he toured with success, shocking the audience with the fact that he easily defeated athletes who were 10, 20, and sometimes 30 years younger than him.

Natural botanicals support the production of testosterone that the athlete needs. It’s hard to believe, but Poddubny, who weighed 120 kilograms, was a vegetarian. He did not recognize meat, although he had a colossal appetite.

No meat, alcohol or smoking

Another Russian strongman, Ivan Lebedev, did not eat meat either. Kettlebell lifter, circus director, wrestler and referee of various competitions, he organized the Russian Greco-Roman wrestling championship.

Strongman always advised his students and other athletes not to eat meat, which, in his words, "brings putrefactive decomposition products into the body." Alcoholic drinks and smoking are also not fond of. But he recommended to lean on eggs and drink more warm milk with sugar.

Without meat nowhere

But for the famous circus athlete Georg Gackenschmidt, who won more than three thousand victories in fights from 1889 to 1908, on the contrary, meat was one of the main elements of the sports diet. The diet for the Russian lion was developed by the St. Petersburg doctor Vladislav Kraevsky, who took patronage over the strong man.

Kraevsky fed the Russian lion with a steep meat broth, for the preparation of one portion of which (one plate) were used 4-5 kilograms of bull meat. On such a diet, coupled with basic training, Gackenschmidt sounded 12 centimeters in his chest in a few months and, in the unanimous opinion of his contemporaries, began to resemble the figure of Hercules.

The athlete himself said about his diet that meat in it makes up only a third part, everything else is plant food. In addition to meat dishes, he recommended consuming large quantities of milk and avoiding spicy foods, and even more so alcoholic beverages (as well as smoking), and instead of sugar, there is dried fruit.

Alexander Zass, nicknamed the Amazing Samson, also gave up smoking and alcohol completely. The athlete was a proponent of isometric exercise, in which the human body resists a stationary object. In England, where he left in 1924, Samson was awarded the title of "Strongest Man on the Planet."

Related article: Alexander Zass: Russian Samson

More cholesterol

Apart from their love of sports, what united these outstanding athletes? They all ate natural foods high in cholesterol. This organic compound is found in abundance in foods such as eggs, cheese, milk, cream, sour cream, butter, cottage cheese and many others. It is cholesterol that helps the production of testosterone, which is directly responsible for the growth of muscle mass.

So, the famous Russian strongman - Sergei Eliseev - made milk and dairy products the main element of his sports diet. He preferred milk porridge and yogurt.

The level of testosterone in the body also increases due to the rejection of alcohol and tobacco. When you smoke, carbon monoxide is released into the bloodstream, which reduces the body's ability to convert cholesterol to testosterone.

The era of synthetics

Thus, conventional products played a significant role in the achievements of the great Russian athletes. Testosterone and other substances necessary for the growth of muscle mass were obtained by the heroes from natural food.

Meanwhile, back in the second half of the 19th century, experiments on the production of synthetic testosterone began in Europe. But the world's first injection of testosterone propionate was not made until the late 1930s.

In 1956, the anabolic steroid Dianabol was created. It was from that moment on that drugs for artificial muscle building became widespread in world sports.