Farmer Burns

Farmer Burns was a legendary wrestler who made his name during the turn of the century. His record was a reported 6000+ victories against only seven losses. He won the world wrestling title on several occasions including a victory over the much-feared "Strangler" Lewis.

The reason I bring up Burns? Combat conditioning guru Matt Furey has resurrected the Burns' legend in the context of bodyweight conditioning. As a longtime lifter with more injuries than I care to recount, I've become fascinated with using bodyweight exercises as an alternative to resistance training solely with iron.

Ever heard of Hindu pushups? Hindu squats? Divebomber pushups? Wall-walking? Reverse press-ups? Bearcrawls? Furey covers all of these in his (relatively expensive) courses. But there are also a variety of free resources on the web to learn the basics.

Among other things, Furey sells Burns' original conditioning and wrestling course. But it's also available free, online, courtesy of the folks at SandowPlus. When it was introduced in the early 20th century, the course cost the equivalent of several hundreds of dollars (at least). And it was quite popular, due to its useful illustrations (groundbreaking for their time) and practical advice.

SandowPlus: Farmer Burns