Ep 305 - What is Strength? (w/Drs. Adrian Kind, Conor Heffernan & Walter Veit)

Who is the strongest? Is it the person with the biggest Powerlifting total? Weightlifting total? The current Worlds Strongest Man/Woman Champion? Or, perhaps, the current Arnold Strongman Classic Champion? It’s an oft-debated question, typically occurring around the proverbial fitness water cooler. However, recently Dr. Kind, Dr. Veit, Dr. Heffernan, and our very own Dr. Helms made this debate into a multidisciplinary academic paper. Specifically, they asked the question through the lens of history, what has strength meant in society since the dawn of physical culture, what is strength philosophically, and finally, what is strength objectively, as measured in sport and exercise science? Join us as we discuss why asking this question is important, and how these very different disciplines turned out to be quite complementary in providing an answer.   The MASS crew records Iron Culture LIVE on YouTube, every Monday night at 7pm eastern time. Be sure to join us for a future episode and say hello in the live chat!   If you'd like to submit a question or topic for us to address on an upcoming episode, please use this link:   https://massresearchreview.com/office-hours/   Time stamps: 00:00 Welcoming back Dr Conor Heffernan from the Obelisk 2:35 Adrian and Walter (re)-introduction Kind 2023 Is bodybuilding a sport? https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00948705.2023.2234978 6:26 What is strength? Kind 2024 What is strength? https://sportrxiv.org/index.php/server/preprint/view/467 14:21 Who in society decides what strength is? 29:45 A philosophical breakdown of the definition of strength 36:54 Strength measures of interest 56:02 Skill, efficiency, and intentionality Bauman 1926 Observations on the Strength of the Chimpanzee and its Implications https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article-abstract/7/1/1/866743 1:06:03 Eric’s tirade on sports science and exploring different strength variables 1:12:36 Categorising strength feats 1:18:46 The final sign-off (more plates, more dates?)

Om Podcasten

Iron Culture was started by Eric Helms and Omar Isuf, now currently hosted by Eric Helms and Eric Trexler with Omar as a returning guest, as a means of exploring the world of physical culture and attempting to distill a unified philosophy of lifting and to help listeners find greater meaning from the iron. The lifting community has become fractured over the last ~70 years and this Podcast will attempt to explore the fundamental threads that unite these different tribes. The Podcast focuses on dispensing practical, useful information to the listener, bouncing from history, to philosophy, to contemporary lifting culture issues, to science. This can range from teaching the audience about lifting, programming, nutrition, supplements/PEDs and the history of lifting culture. The format includes casual conversations between the two hosts on a variety of topics, discussions with a panel of experts and interviews with authoritative figures in the lifting community.