Lionel Strongfort – World’s Strongest Man – Vegetarian – 100+ years ago

A postcard in our Ernest Bell Library.

Lionel Strongfort,

der bekannte Berufs-Athlet, der ein Auto mit 6 Personen über seinen Körper fahren läßt.

(Vegetarier)

Lionel Strongfort,

the famous professional athlete who can let a car with 6 people drive on his body.

(Vegetarian)

Legal name Max Unger – born Berlin, Germany, November 23, 1878. At age 16 was a watch and clockmaker’s apprentice.

Loved sculpture – met Professor Louis Attila. Attended the Attila training quarters.

Age 17 able to do a double-handed lift of 250 lb. Single- handed lift overhead was 130 lb.

Stage career from around 1897. Retired from doing stage performances early 1900s.

Mail order course – “Strongfortism” – advertised worldwide.

Promoted a flesh free diet – did not recommend against consuming eggs & milk.

Full-length physique pose was famous in all his advertisements. Modeled for numerous artists and sculptors.

Lived an active life until he died aged 92 in 1970.

1924 magazine advert

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Baseball Magazine – October Vol. IX No. 6, 1912 – p. 73-74.

How I Became the Strongest Man in the World

A Few Brief Remarks on a System Which Anybody can Try
By LIONEL STRONGFORT

One time a friend asked Blondin, the great tight-rope walker, who walked a wire across Niagara Falls, and found himself famous, how to walk a rope.
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“Well,” replied Blondin, “you take a pole in your hands, get up on the rope – and then go ahead.”
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That is the way about becoming strong – you just take your common sense in hand, begin exercising and go ahead. The best balancing pole you can have in trying to gain strength is common sense. It keeps you from going off at an angle.
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Every week I see some person, who has some wild theory, get up on the rope and tumble down in a short time. The faddists are the first to fall. After all, becoming strong is just going at it on broad lines and plugging away.
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As for myself I did not know that I had strength out of the ordinary until I was fifteen years old. I was a healthy boy who liked sports and the outdoors just the same as any normal boy does. One day, when I was this age, a professional strong man came to my town and gave an exhibition. I went one evening with a crowd of boys out of curiosity; it didn’t seem to me that he was anything out of the ordinary. The following evening I went again, and when the strong man dared anybody to come up on the stage and try to duplicate his feats, I went up at a friend’s suggestion. I equaled him in several of them and exceeded him in others.
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That made me open my eyes, and from that time on I began to practise feats of strength with some definite aim in view. I have always worked on the idea that a “strong man” should be strong all over – that he should not develop a few muscles at the expense of others. Many men are strong in their fingers, or with their legs while in the rest of their body they are comparatively weaklings. They are not strong men; rather they are freaks.
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Being strong is not so much being able to do a few tricks as to have a perfect bodily machine. It is not the outer muscles that count so much after all. It is the inner vital organs. These can be developed and strengthened only by thoughtful exercise that will bring them all into play.
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As a boy I began to study how the human body is put together, its possibilities and short-comings. I began to experiment to find out just what movements strengthened what muscles. I found that there is scarcely a muscle in the human body that can not be got at in some way and strengthened to a surprising degree.
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After I had begun I found that Nature had laid down two rules that must be kept within if one wished to get on her good side. The first is diet.
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Most people trying to become strong men eat too much. Others do too, for that matter. The Japanese soldiers during the late Russo-Japanese war, who could march so far on a handful of rice, were wonders to a good many people who think strength comes in direct ratio to the amount eaten. That would be just the same as saying that the more people you can crowd into a theatre the better the show will be. A small amount eaten and eaten well is better than gorging. It is remarkable the small amount of food that a big healthy man needs. When only a small amount is eaten the body is sure to take all the nourishment out of the food.
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Personally I get along on very little. An outsider, seeing how little I eat, would probably put me down as a dyspeptic.
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I am not a crank, fletcherist or anything of that kind. I have simply found that I can get along with little food, do better work and feel better, and that settles it for me.
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I would rather have a big red apple than a big red beefsteak. I chew my food slowly because I enjoy eating it. I don’t consciously fletcherize. Every mouth full gives me a lot of pleasure. As a result my stomach and digestive organs are in splendid order, and this is health’s cornerstone and strength’s keystone.
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On my menu card there are no fixed foods. I avoid meats and fried foods to a great extent, and then eat about anything I want to, giving fruit the preference. If you eat slowly, chewing well, your system will do the rest. Nature is the best family physician I have ever found. She is a good one to make friends with.
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In my feats in New York of lifting seven thousand pounds I do them on a very slight meal. I have offered to lift a Fifth Avenue motor bus on a wager. If I should be called upon to do this, I would go along in the even tenure of my ways, taking no special diet at all, till the time came when I would step in. I am always in condition.
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The second great law laid down by Nature, is muscular activity. It is not necessary to pay any attention to breathing, except to have pure air. If you will exercise enough, you will breathe just the right amount. Most people overdo deep breathing. They start in by unnatural forced deep breathing, create a lot of new cells in the lungs, and then after a time give it up, or slight it until they are in a worse condition than at first. Moderate deep breathing such as is induced by exercise, is best. Muscular exercise also awakens activity in all the internal organs, thus bringing about improved health and building vitality.

Anybody can become strong if he will just exercise and use some gumption. Nobody can expect to be strong without making an effort for it. Systematic exercise is its key.
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The great secret of body building is to make the muscles do a little bit more each day. When you go into a gymnasium, don’t make the mistake I have seen so many men make of tiring themselves the first evening or two and then letting things sag. Begin slow and get up steam. Don’t exercise until the muscles are fatigued, dog-tired, as we say. Instead exercise until they are moderately tired, then quit. If you overdo them it takes them a long time to catch up. Aim to use up most of the cells in the muscles, but leaving enough to build on.
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A muscle becomes strong by building up new cells. If you use up just about all the old cells new ones will come, meeting the demand. In this way a surprising amount of strength can be added. If you exercise and strain until you are completely worn out you run the risk of losing strength and weight instead of gaining. An athlete’s muscle can be soft, unflexed, as those of an ordinary man.
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It takes work to become a man of strength, just as it does to become a capitalist or a great musician. But the work becomes a pleasure if it is in accordance with Nature and as soon as you see the good results of your ambition you will realize that your efforts are well paid for. Besides strength, you will also gain a degree of health, that is worthy of the name. Health and strength are indissolubly related.

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