Georg Gakkenshmidt: biography and career of an athlete

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Georg Gakkenshmidt is a well-known German B altic man in the 20th century, who developed the muscles of the body to such qualitative characteristics, thanks to which he was able to set the first world record, including in the history of Russian sports. He squeezed a weight with one hand, weighing 116 kg. In 1911, George's book was published, which describes the very system that promotes he althy physical development and longevity. Hackenschmidt believed that 20 minutes of daily exercise maintains a body that can resist disease.

Childhood

According to the new chronology, the Russian lion, as the public later called him, was born in 1877 in Dorpat, the modern name of this Estonian city is Tartu. In the family of a German and an Estonian, he was the eldest child, brought up with his younger brother and sister.

The parents had an average physique, but the maternal grandfather, who,By the way, I had never seen Georg, he was different in height and strength. In his biography, Gakkenshmidt recalled that the mother spoke for the similarity of her eldest son with his father, only the latter was even higher.

Being the strongest among his peers, the boy was considered the leader of the children's army. In addition, starting from an early age, Georg Hackenschmidt was fond of physical exercises. He understood that having a distinctive appearance, he was superior to his comrades in many ways, so sports were necessary for him to maintain strength.

Passion

At the age of ten, the guy went to study at the Derpt General Educational Institution, which at the time was called a real school. Georg immediately liked the subject of physical education, especially gymnastics, and in 1891 he became the winner of the competitions held among the students of the school. This victory was immediately published by local newspapers.

Gakkenshmidt wrote that at that time he was the best player in the towns, he could overcome in a jump 1.9 meters in length and 1.4 in height, with his right hand 16 times, and with his left hand 21 times to squeeze a 13 kilogram dumbbell. A distance of 180 meters to run in 26 seconds. That is, Georg Hackenschmidt, whose biography is filled with victories and recognitions, already in his youth had the prerequisites to become a champion.

Revel and the first sports membership

After graduating from a seven-year school, in 1895 the young man moved to Revel (modern Talin), where he came as an apprentice to a machine-building plant to get a profession. Georg was supposed to work as an engineer,taking care of your physical he alth at the same time.

However, having joined the ranks of the athletic and cycling club, the guy was seriously interested in sports, and even received several prizes in cycling races. In the cold season, Georg paid attention to heavy weight training and wrestling. If in the first hobby the young man was successful, then in hand-to-hand fights he was inferior to his comrades.

First defeat

In the autumn of 1896, Gakka met Georg Lurich, at that time already a professional wrestler. In a sports club with a newly arrived athlete, everyone could test their strength in hand-to-hand combat. Naturally, the outcome was the defeat of the Reval fighters. Georg Hackenschmidt, whose training focused on lifting weights, also entered the competition with his namesake.

In his autobiography, the Russian lion mentioned this fight and shared his feelings with the reader, saying that Lurich could easily put down a technically unprepared opponent, although he was not inferior to him in terms of strength characteristics. Publicly, at the Officers' Meeting, Georg Lurich immediately put Georg down in the first fight, and in the second it took him 17 minutes for Hackenschmidt's shoulder blades to touch the floor.

The novice athlete's hurt pride contributed to intense hand-to-hand training, as a result of which the wrestler soon laid down all the members of his sports club.

Influential Acquaintance

Somewhere in 1897 a guy got onmachine factory injured hand. “This made me seek the advice of a doctor,” writes Georg Hackenschmidt. "The Way to Strength and He alth" - a book later published by the athlete, contains a whole chapter dedicated to the St. Petersburg doctor Kraevsky, the very person to whom the young man turned with pain in his hand.

Vladislav Frantsevich Kraevsky was a supporter of weightlifting and the founder of a similar sports club in St. Petersburg. The fifty-six-year-old doctor, when he first saw George's preparation during an examination of a diseased limb, immediately predicted the athlete's professional future, and offered to move to St. Petersburg with him. Having learned that Vladislav Frantsevich trained Lurich and that Georg had the prerequisites to become the strongest fighter, he, without thinking twice, set off in 1989 to meet his dream. How Dr. Kraevsky introduced Gakka to the rest of the athletes in St. Petersburg was described by the historian Olaf Langsepp. "Georg Hackenschmidt" - a book about the life of an athlete - contains an excerpt about a lean body, without fat, with 45 cm biceps and an incredibly wide back. None of the athletes of the St. Petersburg club could boast of such muscles.

Kraevsky regime

After moving to St. Petersburg, the guy settled with his friend and mentor Vladislav Frantsevich, who, in turn, lived alone in a huge house on Mikhailovskaya Square. The gym was equipped with strength machines, dumbbells and barbells.

One of the rooms was hung with portraits of famous athletes, and wrestlers,Those who came to St. Petersburg always visited the hospitable house of the famous doctor. At the same time, each of them was subjected to weighing, measurement and research. Perhaps such an extensive study of different people with physical development served as the basis for the creation of Kraevsky's own training system. The accumulation of athletes in one house and the public weigh-in contributed to the development of the desire for each of the athletes present to become better than the others.

Georg Gakkenshmidt, whose photos are an example to follow of how a he althy and beautiful male body should look like, never touched tobacco and alcohol. He drank exclusively milk. Georg trained with Vladislav Frantsevich after taking bathing procedures. Without drying themselves, they lifted weights together until they were completely dry. The main rule for a he althy person, established by Kraevsky, is eight hours of sleep.

Achievements

In 1989, Gakka pushed out a barbell of 110 kg with one right hand, and lying on his back with both hands - 151 kg. In the spring of the same year, Georg Gakkenshmidt won the title of "Champion of Russia" in weight lifting. With outstretched arms above his head, he held a weight of 114 kg, which is 1 kg less than the world record set by the Frenchman Bonn. Then, at the competitions in St. Petersburg, he defeated the French wrestler Pavel Pons in 45 minutes, and laid Yankovsky on the shoulder blades in 11 minutes.

The preparation of the athlete for the European Championship begins. To get used to the public, Kraevskysends Georg, as a wrestler and athlete, to perform at the Riga Circus. After training, a team of athletes from St. Petersburg, headed by a doctor, goes to the European Championships in Vienna. The result of the competition was the title and gold medal for G. Hackenschmidt.

1899 Georg won the Finnish championship, overcoming 20 opponents. In the same year, he became the winner of the Russian Championship.

Physical and mental trauma

In every sport, injury is inevitable. While training to lift weights, the guy injured a tendon in his right shoulder. This failure was accompanied by years of pain. But, despite the injury, Georg Gakkenshmidt went at that time to the championship in Paris. He undeniably won two fights, one in 18 seconds, the second in 4 minutes. Then, in one of the preparatory training sessions, Gakka had a shoulder dislocation. As a result, the right hand is weakened. Georg survived two more fights, and then decided to withdraw from the championship.

A French doctor warned a young man: "We need rest for 12 months." Georg treated his hand for six months, and in the spring of 1900 he began to exercise again. In the summer, the wrestler won two titles: "Champion of St. Petersburg" and "Champion of Moscow". More than one victory was taken in the history of the athlete, including at the world championship in Vienna.

Dr. Kraevsky died in 1901, and this was a huge shock for all the athletes who trained according to the method of Vladislav Frantsevich.

After the traumas experienced, the guy took a short break from wrestling and left for Germany. And already in 1902 he became a world record holder, lifting 187 pounds behind his back with bent knees. Later withjumped over the table 100 times with bound legs.

Georg Hackenschmidt: books

In 1908 the book "How to Live" was published, a year later "The Way to Strength". After retiring, the man became interested in philosophy. In 1936, the world saw the book "Man and the Cosmic Antagonism of Mind and Spirit", the author of which was a professional athlete. Among the listed literature, George published books: "Three types of memory and forgetfulness", "Consciousness and character".

In 1950, Hackenschmidt changed his citizenship, becoming a citizen of England. After 18 years, being of sound mind, he died at the age of 91.