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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
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2 6 - 0 7 - 2 0 0 5 Museum a history of strength
By PAMELA LEBLANC AUSTIN, Texas — Jan Todd yanks open the door of what she calls "The Nightmare Room," pushing aside a heap of cardboard cartons in her quest to uncover a 1920s-era exercise bike.
The bike, with leather straps attached to a huge dial and a system that allows two cyclists to race one another, looks like a horse-drawn buggy in a world of Lexus sedans. And it's just one gem in the sprawling Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection, a quirky jackpot of fitness-related artifacts tucked in the basement of Anna Hiss Gym at the University of Texas. Terry Todd, Jan's husband, began gathering books, periodicals and research materials related to weightlifting in the 1960s, when he was working on his college dissertation. That grew into a collection that today spills out of his office, a classroom-sized room down the hall from an indoor archery range, and threatens to take over his life. Rooting through it is like panning for gold. But it's a tour best taken with one or both of the Todds to guide you, because it's the stories behind these oddities — kettle balls used by weightlifters of ages past, posters advertising circus strongmen and wrenches bent by hand as if they were made of Silly Putty — that really fascinate. "This is a lifelong interest of mine," says Terry Todd, settling into a chair behind a desk stacked high with antique books with titles such as "Big Arms," "The Big Chest Book" and "Manly Exercise." "It dovetails with our athletic backgrounds and academic careers." From somewhere across the room, where she is sorting through stacks of memorabilia, Jan Todd adds to the thought. "What fascinates me is trying to tell stories that haven't been told," she calls out. World's Strongest Jan and Terry Todd are pretty fascinating themselves. Terry, a former champion weightlifter, and Jan, once known as "The World's Strongest Woman," keep tabs on the burgeoning collection. Both also teach in UT's Department of Kinesiology and Health Education. Married in 1973, the couple's love of sport is as strong as their love for each other. Terry Todd played tennis at UT, in the days before weight training was an acceptable part of conditioning. He was big for a tennis player, and when he started lifting — on the sly, against his coach's will — he got even bigger. Eventually he quit tennis and focused on lifting. He'd learned from Bob Hoffman, founder of York Barbell Co. in Pennsylvania, that lifting could help an athlete improve at his chosen sport. It was an unpopular idea at a time when most people thought lifting would just bulk you up and ruin your flexibility. "I realized (Hoffman) was right," Terry Todd says. "I felt stronger, quicker, and had more control. Now (weightlifting) is required. That's a very substantial cultural change." At his peak, Todd weighed more than 300 pounds and could squat 800 pounds, bench press 525 pounds and dead lift 800 pounds. Considered one of the strongest men in world, he set more than a dozen national powerlifting records, and was named National Intercollegiate Champion and Junior National Champion in 1963. The fifth-generation Texan went on to earn his doctorate degree in the history of sports, then taught at Mercer University in Georgia, where he was known as "The Weightlifting Professor." Later, he wrote for Sports Illustrated and worked as a network television sports commentator. He even started a TV game show that pitted football players against each other in a strength competition. Jan Todd, a solidly-built woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, was a swimmer and fast runner in high school. (She also won the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow award, but that's another story.) While she was dating Terry, and the two visited the Texas Athletic Club in Austin, that her career as a lifter began. She watched a petite woman dead lift 225 pounds and decided to try it herself. Just like that, she hoisted 225 pounds. Under Terry's tutelage, she gained strength quickly. Soon, she was breaking records in bench press, squat and dead lift. At her peak, she squatted 545 pounds — more than most of the players on the UT football team could lift — and dead lifted 480 pounds. Todd became a pioneer in lifting, letting other women know that strength is not just the province of men. In 1977, Sports Illustrated called her "The Strongest Woman in the World." According to the "Guinness Book of World Records," she was the first woman in history to lift a combined total of more than 1,000 pounds in the three classic powerlifting events — squat, dead lift and bench press. She could bend bottle caps with her fingers and pound nails with her bare hands. She even appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." She's also a cancer survivor, beating ovarian cancer in 1989. She retired from pro weightlifting at 35. Room of oddities The Todds wanted the physical culture collection housed at UT because the university's weightlifting program has grown into one of the biggest and best in the country. Poking through the collection is like sifting through a flea market — no telling what you'll find: Here's a 160-pound barbell owned by Siegmund Klein, a strongman who made a career out of running a New York gym and posing as a model of physical perfection. There's a handmade wooden barbell from the 1940s that could be opened and filled with lead shot to change its weight. Worn-out weightlifting belts used by the field's biggest stars. Indian clubs, wooden bowling-pin shaped weights that were twirled for exercise. Photos of old-time strongman Stout Jackson, known for breaking ropes and hoisting pallets of bricks. Much of the stuff came directly from people who were famous in the game. Some was donated; the rest was hunted down and purchased by the Todds. The couple won't reveal how much the collection is worth, other than to say it's rare and valuable. They also use interest from two major endowments — the Roy J. McLean Fellowship in Sport History and the (Muscle & Fitness magazine publisher Joe) Weider Fund — to help pay for preservation, phone calls and travel related to the collection. The collecting started when Terry Todd, while researching his dissertation about the history of strength training, discovered there were no archives dealing with health, longevity and weightlifting. He got encouragement from his UT weightlifting coach, Roy J. McLean, who also coached wrestling and cross-country, to assemble whatever materials he could. Todd then met Ottley Coulter, a small-time circus strongman who had a whopping collection of books and other materials related to physical culture. The two became friends, and after Coulter died in 1975, the Todds purchased his collection. Like nearly everything in the Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection, there's a funny story behind how the Todds got that collection to Austin. Jan Todd traveled to the former strongman's two-story home on the Eastern seaboard, where boxes of memorabilia were jumbled into every corner of the attic. While carrying some of the 385 boxes of booty to a waiting truck, she stepped on a patched hole in the attic floor, crashing 12 feet through the ceiling onto a TV that the family was watching. (Thankfully, no one was injured.) They forged on. "We already had the sense that this was an important thing to do," Jan Todd says. "Something needed to be established. We realized we needed to try to add to the culture collection, update it." Over the years, others who had gathered items related to physical culture took notice and began to give their treasures to the Todds. Today, the collection is bulging like a bodybuilder. In addition to the stash at Anna Hiss Gym, the Todds have more items, including a life-sized copy of the statue known as the Farnese Hercules, at their 1850s-era home on the San Marcos River near Prairie Lea. They live there with a 2,500-pound draft horse (big and strong is an enduring theme. . .) Doing their best to collect all publications related to the field, the Todds subscribe to 75 different magazines and journals. The scope of the collection has broadened, too. There are more than 150,000 pieces — including towering stacks of scrapbooks, photographs, programs and booklets. They've also gathered private papers and memorabilia from many of the major figures in the field of physical culture. "The collection begins to have momentum of its own. It begins to roll, accumulate. You feel like you're just guiding it along," Terry Todd says. The Todds already have given much of their personal collection to UT. They dream of the day the university will have enough space to properly display it, so students and researchers can more easily access it. "We have no children. This is a legacy we can leave," Terry Todd says. Researchers from all over the country, along with producers and writers working on films, television documentaries, radio programs, magazine articles and books, have delved into the collection. UT students use it while researching class papers, masters theses and doctoral dissertations related to physical culture. Knowing they — and future generations — have someplace to learn about the historical roots of such an important aspect of our culture have made compiling the collection worth the effort, the Todds say. Call it one more notch on the weight-lifting belt of one of the world's strongest couples. |
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