After Alexander Zass moved to England, his name was almost forgotten in the USSR - such a change of citizenship was not considered a worthy act and they tried not to talk about the strongman, despite all his talents. As a strongman, meanwhile, Zass was very talented; By promoting a non-standard training system, he achieved truly impressive results.

Alexander Zass is a Russian strongman, professional wrestler and trainer. He was best known under the pseudonyms "Samson", "Iron Samson" and "Amazing Samson". According to some sources, he is considered the first pre-revolutionary Russian heavyweight champion.

Alexander was born in 1888 in Vilno, then part of the Russian Empire. While still very young, he demonstrated extraordinary physical abilities; among other things, Zass trained by “bending living branches.” Zass spent his childhood and youth in the Penza province, in the city of Saransk; There he was actively engaged, developing his impressive natural abilities. Zass's strength was unusual, including in relation to his physique and general parameters - for example, with a weight of 66 kilograms, Alexander could do a bench press with a deflection of 80 kilograms with his right hand.

In 1908, Zass made his debut at the circus arena in Orenburg. Zass's external parameters were still not impressive - his height was 167.5 centimeters, and the strongman did not weigh more than 75 kilograms; however, Alexander’s own training system helped him become incredibly strong. The secret of the Zass system consisted of several factors; Thus, Alexander paid great attention to strengthening tendons and traditional work with weights and muscle contraction; he preferred isometric exercises. Physical strength helped Zass succeed in the circus industry, but the outbreak of war forced him to leave the circus.

During World War I, Zass served in the Russian army, fighting against the Austrians.

tsami. During the war, Alexander was captured 4 times - and escaped 4 times from this captivity. Zass did not forget about playing sports even in captivity - the Russian strongman used the bars of his prison cell as an improvised exercise machine. Subsequently, Alexander’s experience in prison training was often cited as an example of the effectiveness of correctly delivered isometric training. On at least one occasion, Alexander used his extraordinary strength in his escape - breaking chains and bending bars. Subsequently, Zass himself quite actively promoted isometric exercises.

So, Alexander was captured in 1914 - while being seriously wounded in both legs by shrapnel. That time the escape turned out to be quite a difficult ordeal; Zass failed twice and was able to gain the coveted freedom only on the third attempt. Having escaped from the camp, Alexander reached the Hungarian town of Kaposvár, where he joined the troupe of the rather famous Schmidt Circus. By the way, it was in Schmidt’s circus that Alexander’s stage name, “Samson,” was first used. With the troupe, Zass traveled all over Europe and became quite famous.

After the war, Alexander got a job in a circus, where he actively demonstrated his abilities. Zass traveled all over the world with circus acts. There were rumors that performing as a circus strongman was only a formal reason for traveling abroad; According to some theories, Alexander Zass was a Russian intelligence officer who used the circus as a cover. However, the theory

that in many respects is quite dubious - so, in 1924, Zass settled in England on a permanent basis.

In 1926, Alexander Zass published his autobiography, “The Amazing Samson: Told by Himself.”

In 1928, Alexander's wife, Blanche, died; at that time she was just a teenager.

In the 30s of the 20th century, Alexander Zass still continued to perform as a circus strongman. Constant training allowed Zass to keep himself in shape; In addition, the strongman attached great importance to the theoretical aspects of training - and demonstrated an extraordinary understanding of them.

Alexander Zass's list of achievements includes an incredible number of impressive demonstrations of strength. During the hostilities, Zass carried his wounded horse; Later, as a circus performer, he seriously refined this act - and now he already carried two lions on his shoulders. He also wore more complex combinations - for example, Zass lifted a piano, a pianist and a dancer at a time. In another number, Zass worked with only a piano - lifting it with only his teeth. Many people remember the act with the gun; Zass did not perform the role of a living cannonball, popular in many circus performances - he caught a woman who acted as such a cannonball. Alexander's strength was so great that he could bend a 13-centimeter steel rod into a horseshoe and, with his bare palm, drive a 13-centimeter nail into a 5-centimeter board.

In England, the strongman who settled there was famous

eats well; the country became his new home and a kind of starting point for new tours. In his homeland, they tried to remember Zass less often - the move to England dealt a rather strong blow to the reputation of the strongman in the Land of the Soviets. However, Alexander’s authority as a strongman and strength training specialist could not be denied. Zass personally invented a new version of the wrist dynamometer and created his own variation of the cannon for the circus act with a live cannonball.

Alexander entered the circus arena for the last time as a strongman in 1954; At that time, Samson was already 66 years old, but the strongman had not lost his former grip. However, Zass did not leave the circus, even ceasing to perform as a strongman - he quickly managed to find a new calling for himself, becoming a very talented trainer. Zass worked with dogs, monkeys, ponies and horses; in zoos, he trained elephants and even lions - and, from old memory, he carried the latter on his shoulders, using a special rocker.

In the 50s, Alexander Zass settled in Hockley, Essex; there he lived in a bungalow with a number of other former circus performers. Alexander lived in Essex until his death; He died on September 26, 1962 and was buried in the parish church cemetery. Later, a statue was erected in Orenburg in honor of Zass; a monument made by A. Rukavshnikov was unveiled in front of the Orenburg Circus building. The opening was timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Amazing Samson and took place in 2008.

This happened in 1938 in the English city of Sheffield. As the crowd watched, a truck loaded with coal ran over a man sprawled on the cobblestone street. People screamed in horror as the front and then the rear wheels ran over the body. But the next second there was a cry of delight from the crowd: “Hurray for Samson!”, “Glory to the Russian Samson!” And the man to whom this storm of jubilation was concerned, stood up from under the wheels, as if nothing had happened, smiling, and bowed to the audience. His real name was Alexander Ivanovich Zass.

DATA

For several decades, the name of the Russian athlete Alexander Zass, who performed under the pseudonym Samson, has not left the circus posters of many countries. The repertoire of his power routines was amazing: he carried a horse or a piano around the arena with a pianist and dancer located on the lid; caught with his hands a 90-kilogram cannonball, which was fired from a circus cannon from a distance of 8 meters; he tore a metal beam with assistants sitting at its ends from the floor and held it in his teeth; having threaded the shin of one leg into the loop of a rope fixed under the very dome, he held the platform with the piano and pianist in his teeth; lying with his bare back on a board studded with nails, he held a stone weighing 500 kilograms on his chest, which was hit by those from the public with sledgehammers; in the famous attraction Projectile Man, he caught with his hands an assistant flying out of the mouth of a circus cannon and describing a 12-meter trajectory above the arena.

The performances of Alexander Zass were very popular. This is explained not only by the original athletic numbers, but also by the fact that he was not like many strongmen of that time, who had massive figures and heavy weight.

His height is 167.5 centimeters, his weight does not exceed 80 kilograms, his chest circumference when inhaling is 119 centimeters, his biceps are 41 centimeters. He liked to say that big biceps are not always an indicator of strength, just as a big belly does not mean good digestion. The main thing is willpower, strong tendons and the ability to control your muscles.

Very often Samson had to answer the question of how he achieved such power. Usually he answered that this was the result of purposeful work. If you trace the entire life path of Zass, you can see that it consisted of continuous, purposeful work and a strict regime, which allowed him to constantly maintain high performance under conditions of colossal physical exertion.

CHILDHOOD

Zass was born in 1888 in the city of Vilna into a large working family. My childhood and teenage years were spent in Saransk. Once Alexander visited the circus with his father. He looked with admiration at the riders, acrobats, and trained dogs. But he especially liked the mighty strongman, breaking chains and bending horseshoes. At the end of his performance, the artist, as was customary at that time, addressed the audience, inviting those who wanted to repeat some of his tricks. Several brave men entered the arena, but not one of them was able to bend a horseshoe or lift a ball barbell with a very thick bar off the ground. The daredevils returned to their places amid laughter from the audience. There were no more people willing. And suddenly, Alexander’s father, Ivan Petrovich Zass, rose from his seat and, stepping over the barrier, entered the arena. Alexander knew that his father was very strong. Sometimes he demonstrated his strength to the guests. Usually, with his hands on the wheel of a chaise drawn by three horses, he held it in place while the cheerful guests drove the horses. But he saw no other examples of strength. And so, the strong man handed the horseshoe to his father. And to the surprise of his audience and the athlete himself, the horseshoe in the hands of Father Alexander began to unbend. Then Ivan Petrovich tore the huge barbell off the platform and, straightening his torso, raised it above his knees. The audience applauded and shouted Bravo! The strongman was embarrassed and nervous. Then he called the uniformist over to him. He ran backstage and brought a silver ruble. The strong man raised his hand with the ruble and said: And this is for your feat! And for a drink. The father took the ruble, then rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a three-ruble note and, placing the ruble on it, handed it to the athlete, saying: “I don’t drink!” Here you go, but only drink tea!

Since then, Alexander fell ill with the circus. In the backyard of the house, with the help of adults, I installed two horizontal bars, hung a trapeze, got hold of household weights, and made a homemade primitive barbell. And so, little Alexander began to train with incredible persistence. I tried to repeat what I saw in the circus. I mastered the sun on the horizontal bar, a large rotation, began to fly from one horizontal bar to another, did backflips not only on the floor, but also on a horse, and did pull-ups several times on one arm. But all these activities were unsystematic. Alexander wanted to become a real circus performer, and most of all, a strongman.

He organizes home performances in front of his loved ones, and the idea of ​​​​becoming a circus performer became increasingly stronger in him. Alexander convinced his father to order books on physical development from Moscow. And soon a book by the then famous athlete Evgeniy Sandov arrived: Strength and how to become strong. The author in it talked about his athletic career, about his victories over the famous athletes Samson and Cyclops. About their records and even about the fight with a huge lion, which was given a muzzle and special huge mittens on its paws before the fight.

The lion rushed at Sandow several times, but he threw him off each time. Then came eighteen dumbbell exercises. This was exactly what Alexander dreamed of. But the most surprising thing was that this athlete was not naturally endowed with a powerful physique. And only thanks to systematic and thoughtful exercises, mainly with weights, was he able to achieve excellent physical development and acquire great physical strength. Here are some of this athlete's performances: he did a back somersault, holding one and a half pounds in his hand, and literally stood with his feet on the handkerchief from which he made the jump. I squeezed 101.5 kg with one hand. On the platform that lay on his chest, he held three horses. In a lying position, I did two hundred push-ups in four minutes. Sandow became Alexander's idol.

WORLD OF POWER

Soon Alexander felt that exercises with dumbbells alone could not develop the strength that a professional strongman needs. He was constantly looking for new ways to improve his physical capabilities. He turns to famous athletes Pyotr Krylov and Dmitriev-Morro for help. I received methodological recommendations from Krylov on training with weights, and from Dmitriev-Morro on training with a barbell. A new stage in Alexander’s training has begun. The mill alternately squeezed two-pound weights, pressed them upside down, and juggled them. I performed the following exercises with a barbell: pressing the barbell from behind the head, twisting the barbell, one-arm press with the body tilted, as if crawling under it. In this exercise, Alexander achieved a result of 80 kg with his own weight at that time being 66 kg. With the same weight I performed the so-called full term.

This exercise requires great strength and good coordination of movements: with one hand the athlete lifts a weight or barbell up, then, without lowering it, squats, takes another weight from the floor with the other hand and, straightening up, lifts it up. Having clearly recorded the full weight, he lowers it to the floor. The famous Estonian athlete and wrestler Georg Lurich lifted a 105 kg barbell with his right hand, held it at the top, took a 34 kg weight from the floor and also lifted it up.

But still, Alexander was most attracted to the power tricks that he saw in the circus. Therefore, his first sports props began to include horseshoes, chains, metal rods, and nails. And then he discovered that repeated attempts to perform a trick - breaking a chain or bending a thick metal rod - brought tangible results in the development of physical strength. But these were the now widely known isometric exercises. Thus, purely empirically, based on experience, Alexander came to the conclusion that greater athletic strength can be developed by combining dynamic exercises with isometric ones in training. In the future, he will publish a system of isometric exercises with chains.

CIRCUS

Once in the circus, Alexander acquired professional skills in many genres: aerial gymnastics, horse riding, wrestling. At one time he worked as an assistant to the famous trainer Anatoly Durov, then he was an assistant to the athlete Mikhail Kuchkin, from whom he received his first practice, and he often said to the young athlete: Someday, baby, you will be a very famous strongman, I have never seen anyone before, who would be as strong as you, having such a small height and weight. These words came true. Zass worked in the circus for about sixty years and performed athletic acts for almost forty years. And in 1924, in the English magazine “Health and Strength”, portraits of Alexander Zass and his idol Evgeniy Sandov were printed side by side on a special color spread. ...

So, Alexander is given the first independent athletic performance: he lifts three people with one hand, threading the shin of one leg into a loop of a rope fixed under the circus dome, holds in his teeth a platform on which two heavy wrestlers are located; breaks horseshoes, breaks chains with his fingers, hammers nails into a board with an unprotected hand, then pulls them out, grabbing the nail head with his index finger; does stretching with horses; resting his heels on one chair and the back of his head on another, he holds three people on his chest. All these numbers enjoyed exceptional success with the audience.

BEHIND GRATES BLUE SKY

But in 1914, world war broke out. Alexander was drafted into the army in the 180 Vindavsky cavalry regiment. One day an incident occurred that amazed even those who knew well about Alexander’s extraordinary strength. One day he was returning from another reconnaissance mission and suddenly, already close to the Russian positions, the enemy noticed him and opened fire. The bullet shot through the horse's leg. The Austrian soldiers, seeing that the horse and rider had fallen, did not pursue the cavalryman and turned back. And Alexander, making sure that the danger had passed, did not want to leave the wounded horse in no man's land. True, there was still half a kilometer left to the regiment's location, but this did not bother him. Alexander shouldered the horse and brought it to his camp. In the future, Alexander will include in his repertoire carrying on the shoulders of a horse.

In one of the battles, Alexander was seriously wounded by shrapnel in both legs. He woke up in an Austrian hospital. Doctors were going to amputate the legs. Miraculously, amputation was avoided. Maybe the doctors felt sorry for the young, beautifully built soldier, and they decided not to rush. Alexander hoped that he would get back on his feet: he believed in the miraculous power of therapeutic gymnastics, which he developed for himself. And he recovered. Soon he, along with other prisoners, was sent to heavy road work. One after another, he makes several unsuccessful escapes, after which he is severely punished. The third escape was remarkable. Having escaped from the camp, Alexander found himself in the city of Kaposvár in southern Hungary, where at that time the Schmidt Circus, known throughout Europe, was touring.

Presenting himself before the owner of the circus, Alexander frankly told him about the escape, then told him about working in Russian circuses. The stranger's story interested the director, and he asked the Russian to demonstrate his abilities by breaking the chain and bending the metal rod. Alexander was not in good athletic shape, but he coped with the task easily. Taking the chain links with his fingers, he began to twist them, as he always did.

It took about a minute to break the chain. Then Alexander bent the rod and gave it to Schmidt. Schmidt set aside two weeks for rest and rehearsals, after which Alexander’s first performance took place. Posters were ordered and posted throughout the city. On them, Alexander was called Samson. Missing the arena, Alexander demonstrated his favorite tricks with great enthusiasm. The news of the amazing athlete spread throughout the city. And one day the military commandant came. After watching the performance, he became interested in why such an excellent young athlete did not serve in the Austrian army. Naturally, it turned out that Samson was a Russian prisoner of war. Zass is subjected to the most severe punishment. But the strongman's iron will was not broken. He is placed in the basement of the fortress, a damp, dark room.

However, Alexander makes a new escape. The heroic strength came to the rescue this time too. Alexander broke the chain connecting the handcuffs, broke the bars and broke free. Soon he ended up in Budapest, where he got a job as a loader at the port. But the thought of the circus did not leave him. And here he is again in the arena. He was helped by the famous wrestler, world champion Chaya Janos, whom Alexander met back in Russia. This good-natured, powerful Hungarian treated Alexander warmly. He took him to the village to his relatives, where Alexander’s strength gradually recovered. And then one day Chaya Janos brought a stranger with him. It turned out to be the famous Italian impresario Signor Pasolini.

THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD

It turns out that he was well aware of Alexander’s athletic capabilities and immediately offered him a contract for a fairly long period with payment of 20% of the fee. Alexander had a hopeless situation, and he agreed.

Tours begin in the cities of Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland. On posters he is called Samson. And now we're on tour in England. Alexander's first performances caused a sensation.

Famous athletes began to come to his performances and try their hand at repeating the tricks that Alexander performed. But all the power tricks were only possible for Samson. And so, reviews began to appear about the amazing Samson.

Mr. Pullum, director of the famous Camberwell Weightlifting Club and editor-in-chief of the sports magazine Health and Strength, wrote about him: Directly into the heart of England arrived a man capable of performing feats that common sense refuses to believe. If he had been a huge fellow, his performances might have been perceived as more believable. True, the expansion of his chest and the expansion of his muscles are colossal (the excursion of the chest is 23 centimeters, but this is not striking). After Samson's semi-official performance at the Camberwell Weightlifting Club, he gained enormous popularity. I say that he is not only a man of extraordinary strength, not only a great artist, but also a superb athlete who uses his mind as well as his muscles.

And here is a poster of the famous Alhambra Hall, where in 1903 the Russian lion Georg Hackenschmidt defeated the famous strongman Karkis. The poster is dedicated to another Russian strongman - Alexander Zass: In Manchester during construction work, the poster reports, Samson, suspended with one leg from a crane, lifted an iron beam from the ground in his teeth and was carried to the top of the building by a crane, while the crowd, she stood below with her mouth open. If Samson had opened his mouth, the crowd would never have been able to tell what they saw.

Posters and newspapers did not lag behind. Daily Telegraph: The gentleman who calls himself Samson is the strongest man on earth. You can believe this when you see how he ties iron rods into knots. Manchester Guardian: According to advertisements, he is the strongest man on earth, and after seeing him for ourselves... this statement can be considered irrefutable. Health and Strength magazine: In Samson we have a real strongman, whose achievements are completely open to verification. Seeing is believing. It truly seems like his muscles are made of steel. And so on. Alexander goes on tour to different countries.

He constantly updates his repertoire, carefully studies the work style of other athletes, always trying to complicate any of the tricks he sees.

In 1925, the book The Amazing Samson was published under the editorship of nine-time world champion Pulum. The book was published in London. It tells about the amazing fate and athletic career of the Russian athlete Alexander Zass. Alexander Ivanovich Zass published several systems of physical development, invented a hand dynamometer, designed and manufactured a cannon for the Projectile Man attraction, and knew several European languages. Samson died in 1962. He was buried near London in the small town of Hockley.

“The duty of every person is to take every possible care not to become powerless, weak and weak-willed, to ensure that his body is worthy of his spirit!” /GeorgLurich/

Alexander Ivanovich Zass, stage name “Amazing Samson” or “Iron Samson” (1888, farm near Vilna, Vilna province, Russian Empire - September 26, 1962, Hockley, near London, Great Britain) - strongman, circus performer.

The sensational nature of Samson's performances is well known: a man lifts a heavily loaded car by the wheel; catches with his hands a 90-kilogram cannonball fired from a cannon; having threaded one leg through a loop hanging under the circus dome, he holds in his teeth a platform with a piano and a playing musician. And so on... But
Much less attention was paid to the sporting side of his performances. But at the beginning of our century, the strength circus and weightlifting were practically not separated. At that time, weight lifting competitions like today did not exist. The only place where strongmen performed was the circus. The brilliant successes of Russian wrestlers and weight lifters in circus arenas are included in the golden fund of the history of sports. This article will show the training of Iron Samson.
He grew up in a large serf family, worked in the fields, trained independently on “simulators” created by his own hands, and ran away to the city in his youth to attend circus performances. His childhood idol was Evgeniy Sandov. His dream was to “defeat” the circus strongmen, and Sandow himself. His biography also included military service, wounds, being captured and escaping. Subsequently, he met the Italian circus impresario Pasolini and, under a long-term contract with him, performed under the name Samson. He toured in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, England, and Ireland. Since 1924, he lived permanently in England, from where he went on tour to different countries. In England he was awarded the title "The Strongest Man on Earth." The last public performance as a strongman took place in 1954, when the artist was 66 years old. Subsequently, he worked as a trainer, he had several horses, ponies, dogs, and monkeys. He also trained elephants and lions at the zoo, and during performances he carried two lions at once on a special yoke. A.I. Zass died in 1962. He was buried near London in the small town of Hockley, where his home was.

In the first years of the circus, Alexander Zass's day began with a three-kilometer run. Then there were trainings with iron rods - he bent them on his knee, tied them in a knot, curled them in a spiral. He learned to break chains in two movements: take two adjacent links, squeeze them with his fingers, turn back and forth until it stops - and the chain breaks.
A lot of time was spent on exercises to develop the pectoral and back muscles. Having loaded the platform placed on his chest with stones, the young athlete took several deep breaths, then rested, after which he stood on the “bridge” and flexed. The morning classes ended with a series of exercises with a bag. The bag was shaped like a sofa cushion and was filled with sawdust. The “pillow” weighed 7 kilograms. Every day Shura poured out a handful of sawdust and added a handful of sand. When all the sawdust was replaced with sand, he began to pour out the sand and add shot. In the end, he trained with a bag filled with lead, weighing about 70 kilograms.
Recalling these trainings, Samson later wrote that large biceps are not a criterion of strength in the same way that a large belly is a sign of good digestion. However, it was the bag exercises that helped him develop more muscle mass. This mass was needed not so much for performing routines as for acquiring a “marketable” appearance - after all, according to the owners of the circus, a wrestler could be “sold” to the audience only when his muscles made a threatening impression.
Of course, Samson never denied the role of muscles, and never considered dynamic exercises with a bag or other weights to be useless. On the contrary, always, at all stages of his career, he emphasized the need for exercises of this kind.

A characteristic feature of the “system” of Iron Samoson, his isometric exercises, is muscle tension without contraction, without movement in the joints.
Think about these words, reader: “without movement in the joints.” For a long time, people have been accustomed to associating sport with movement: the rapid jerks and heavy presses of weightlifters seemed to be the most complete embodiment of human physical strength. It seemed natural that the training would be closer to real competition conditions. And during training, the steel projectile goes up and down, up and down, dozens of times. Fans of strength, in the hope of rapid muscle development, lift colossal weights again and again. Force and movement seem inseparable. And suddenly - strength without movement.
Alexander Zass was one of the first to discover that isometric exercises have a significant effect in strength training. Meanwhile, muscle contraction under load was considered the most traditional way to develop muscles. Iron Samson was convinced that moving pounds of iron from place to place during training was not enough. If a person, straining his tendons and muscles, tries to bend a steel rod (although he may not succeed), such apparently unsuccessful attempts will be very useful for developing strength.

DYNAMIC AND ISOMETRIC EXERCISES SAMSON

The cornerstone of Samson's system of physical development is the development of tendon strength - the connecting link between bones and muscles. The epigraph to his system can be the caption under the photograph where Samson carries a horse: “Muscles by themselves will not lift a horse, but tendons will, but they need to be trained, they need to be developed, and there is a way to increase their strength.”
Samson's system is based on a combination of dynamic and isometric exercises.

DYNAMIC EXERCISES

For exercises, a weight is used - a bag (in the form of a pillow), which can be made of leatherette, oilcloth, leather, etc. The bag is filled with sawdust, which, as training progresses, is gradually replaced by sand, and later by shot. After two weeks of training with an initial weight of 4-7 kg, a handful of sawdust is removed from the bag and replaced with a handful of sand. In the future, this replacement is made every 3-4 days. There is no need to rush to increase the weight of the weight. Concentrating on doing the exercise is half the success. The exercises should be performed morning and evening daily.
After each exercise, you need to do several breathing exercises to relax those muscles that bore the greatest load. Breathing exercises are done from a starting position standing, heels together, toes apart, arms along the body: a) taking a deep breath, raise your arms through your sides to a position slightly above shoulder level while simultaneously lifting onto your toes. Return to the starting position - exhale; b) the starting position is the same. Taking a deep breath, raise your arms forward (palms inward) and spread them to the sides. Return to the starting position - exhale.
When performing exercises with a bag, special attention should be paid to proper breathing. Inhalation should coincide with the most favorable conditions for expansion of the chest and with the least effort required when performing exercises. Such conditions are created by straightening the body and spreading or raising the arms.
For exhalation, the most favorable position is to bend the body, bring or lower the arms.
The pace of movements when performing exercises should be slow at first, and as training progresses - average.
It should be said that this is the initial stage of training; later training takes place according to individual schemes recommended by Samson.

ISOMETRIC EXERCISES SAMSON

“Muscles by themselves will not hold horses pulling in different directions, but tendons will, but they need to be trained, they need to be developed, and there is a way to strengthen them.”
He believed that lifting pounds of iron was not enough to develop the athletic strength necessary for a professional strongman. Something else needs to be added. If, for example, you try to bend a thick metal rod or break a chain, these attempts, with repeated repetitions, will be very effective in developing the strength of the tendons and muscle strength.
This is an example of isometric exercises, in which the muscles, although tense, do not change in length and there is no movement in the joints.

The duration of isometric exercises depends on the degree of muscle tension and fitness. Maximum muscle effort should last 2-3 seconds. As you practice, it can be increased to 6-8 seconds. Each exercise should be repeated 2-5 times. The workout should not exceed 15 minutes.
When including isometric exercises in your training, you should remember that the strength acquired by this method is maximally manifested only in the position of the torso, arms and legs in which it was “developed”. Before starting exercises, you must do a thorough warm-up. Mainly - for the muscles and joints that will bear the greatest load. Otherwise, injury may occur.
At first, the exercises should be performed with little tension, and only after a month of training can you move on to maximum effort. Maximum effort is not applied with a jerk, but with a gradual increase in tension. Exercises are performed while inhaling. After each exercise, walk for a minute and do breathing exercises. Relax the muscles where the greatest load was directed. Isometric exercises will give a good effect if you combine them with dynamic exercises (with kettlebells, dumbbells, expanders, blocks, etc.). And in combination with running, swimming, and hardening procedures, they will help improve health and increase performance. For people with a weakened cardiovascular system, suffering from hypertension and having problems with excess weight, isometric exercises are contraindicated.
Samson's isometric system consists of exercises using chains. Handles are attached to the chains, which, depending on the exercise, interlock, thereby shortening or lengthening the chain segment. For some exercises, belt loops are attached to the ends of the chain.
And here are the exercises with chains, which are demonstrated by the author of this system, Alexander Zass (Samson). Those involved in athletics can include certain exercises in their training, and anyone can make sports equipment (a chain with two handles).

9. Stretch the chain alternately on the right and left thigh.
10. Stretch the chain, change the starting position of your legs, arms and torso. (Tilt to the left leg, then to the right.)
11. While lying on the floor, stretch the chain, tensing the muscles of the shoulder girdle and triceps. Keep your body tense.
12. In a handstand, stretch the chain by tensing the muscles in your arms, back, and neck. When balancing, transfer the load to your fingers.
13. Use two loops for this exercise. While stretching the chain, tense the muscles of your neck and back.
14. When performing exercises to develop the muscles of the arms and quadriceps, change the position of the arms and legs.
15. For this exercise, use two loops. As you stretch the chain, tighten your hamstring muscles. Using the same chain, stretch it by moving your leg to the side. Change the starting position of your legs.

ZASSA TENDON EXERCISES

“Some people with thin legs are stronger than people with thick legs - Why? Because the power lies in the tendons, in those invisible hard tissues that are second in density only to bones. Without tendons, a person would turn into jelly. But the tendons need to be trained. From my experience, one can be convinced that a large man does not necessarily have to be strong, but a man of modest build does not have to be weak.
I don't believe in big muscles unless there's real big tendon power next to them. You can see physical fitness enthusiasts who have quite large muscles. But what good are they if there is no powerful foundation - developed tendons. They are unable to fully utilize the strength of their muscles during an actual test of strength. And therefore their power is only an illusion.
Tendons increase their strength best when their power is applied to some almost immovable object. They become stronger from resistance than from movement.”
Alexander Zass, or Iron Samson, created an ingenious system for developing strength.
Here the supporting part of his system is presented: the development of tendon strength.
“I never strived for big muscles, believing that the main thing was strong tendons, willpower and the ability to control my muscles. When I started performing in the circus as an athlete, my biceps were only 38 centimeters. But the public needs a look, and I had to increase them to 42 centimeters through exercises with dumbbells and self-resistance exercises” (from a letter to Yuri Shaposhnikov).
“Big biceps are not a sign of strength any more than a big belly is a sign of good digestion.”
Alexander Zass achieved phenomenal strength density with the help of tendon exercises. Short, weighing 66 kg, at the beginning of his wrestling and athletic career, he caused confusion among the spectators with his exploits: he defeated huge opponents, tore chains and horseshoes, tied metal rods with a bow, restrained horses rushing in different directions... Because of this confusion, it was necessary Zassu needs to gain muscle mass to rid viewers of suspicions of deception. However: throughout his entire circus career, his weight never exceeded 80 kg.
Tendon exercises have been generally known since ancient times. People's strongmen lifted and carried huge stones and large animals, practiced bending and unbending metal rods and horseshoes, dragged tree-boats-carts behind them, restrained rushing bulls and horses... In ancient Rome, athletes dressed in iron robes weighing 200- 300-400 kg and so climbed onto the platform...
But it was Zass who was the first to be lucky enough to recognize the system in the phenomenon and present it to the world.
This happened in 1924.
“We need to develop what underlies the muscle, especially the tendon, not the volume of the muscle.”

In the early 60s, naive Americans rediscovered the Sass effect, calling these exercises isometric and static. Since then, tendon exercises have become part of active sports practice: to develop strength, to overcome dead spots, to form new trajectories of power movements. But here they remain separate, isolated exercises. But the system already exists!
Alas. The authorities of sports and science prefer to keep this fact in the shadows and - as a result - are forced to fool the average person. After all, the tendon system is phenomenal in many ways: it can be practiced with a minimum of space, equipment, and time and with excellent effect. It is no coincidence that the circus strongmen of our time - Gennady Ivanov and Ivan Shutov - used the Zass system as the basis for the development of strength.
That's why experts have to look for sunspots. They will announce that isometric straining is harmful to the heart, blood vessels, and nerves, especially those who are unprepared, such as young people or amateurs (this is not true); then they will tell you how dynamic training (complex!) surpassed isometric training (simple!); then they will remember about potentially all kinds of micro and larger tears in muscle tissue and other irreparable dangers of maximum strain.
Another way: mix concepts. They say this is the same as Anokhin’s volitional gymnastics. Here's a good home isometric complex without projectiles. Only 4-6 seconds and only after a year you can increase the voltage time to 8 seconds. And 12 seconds or more is a direct threat to health. Listen to yourself: if you get a headache, quit this disastrous business immediately. Stress only while inhaling. Train for no more than 15 minutes!
The usual thing is the opposite. The real blemish is the recent history of isometrics. In the early 60s, Bob Hoffman organized the release of miraculous power racks for isometric exercises and in his magazine “Strength and Health” he touted with all his might the cool achievements of Bill March and Louis Riquet, who added several hundred pounds to their all-around competition in six months. Many have made decent progress, but no one has been able to repeat the fantastic breakthrough of March and Rike. And finally it turned out that there was another reason for their rise - steroids. The scandal simultaneously and permanently damaged the reputation of isometrics.
Nevertheless: this was the first large-scale experiment. Equipment was plentiful, and a few years later a scientific study of 175 athletes doing isometrics showed an average weekly 5% increase in strength. Wow!
It was at this time that isometrics became firmly established in world-class sports practice, but at the same time remained narrowly focused, boring and far from ordinary amateurs.

Some moments:

Complex tendon training includes not only statics, but also “pumping” by tensing the entire joint volume. That is, the development of the tendon spring, the development of the connection of the tendons with the joint and with the muscle, the distribution of the tendon force density over the entire motor range of motion, the development of accompanying balances-regulations-controls. And it’s natural to use different modes of tendon training: for example, emphasis, carrying weights, standing as a “pillar” or “rider” or just like that, holding a barbell with your body... warming up, mobilization, maximum...
The danger of straining for health is directly related to disturbances in energy and physiological regimes: first of all, nervous and incorrect breathing, then a disruption of the processes of prompt and long-term recovery, and finally, this is a practice of narrow-private use leading to distortions in the overall energy exchange. All these syndromes can be reproduced without isometrics - in any activity, and even more so in sports.
Gymnastics Anokhin lives next door and some of her exercises can very well complement tendon gymnastics. But!! - volitional gymnastics is muscular gymnastics. Its closest relatives are Hermes gymnastics, hatha yoga, and stretching.
However, a direct close relative did appear. This is Vladimir Fokhtin’s autonomous gymnastics, self-resistance gymnastics. She, too, has a hard time with experts: they will either declare her to be Anokhin’s gymnastics, or describe her usefulness as tasks for toning up ordinary people or as a temporary means for business trips, or remember the dangers of isometric exercises. Indeed: Fokhtin’s gymnastics develops tendons, develops joints, develops muscles. At the same time, it requires a minimum of space and absolutely no shells. True, the author followed the lead of the experts and somewhat overcomplicated the starting course to 88!!! exercises. It's not even a matter of quantity - it's a complete system, the problem is the structure of presentation of these exercises. Plus, the author carefully distanced his gymnastics from isometrics and self-exertion. But in fact, Fokhtin took the next step in the development of athleticism and tendon gymnastics.
About the 6-second mode, in which the maximum effort is 2-3 seconds. Unfortunately, I don’t know Zass’s own opinion about this. But here's what we know:
a) Zass in prison practiced 15-20 second tensions, therefore, under normal conditions and with normal nutrition, he could use minute tensions.
b) In the first 6-8 seconds, the ATP reserve is burned, then glycogen comes into play and fat is ignited at 40 seconds. The problem is that the isometric way of expending and restoring energy conflicts with the aerobic dynamic way. In general, if you don’t change anything, then you really have to choose “either or”. If you choose isometrics, then naturally 4 modes of tension are revealed: 6 seconds, 15-20 seconds, 1 minute, 3-6 minutes. But they still need to be awakened, treated, developed... Otherwise, it is very easy to overtrain and fall into a viscous pit of distress.

The tendon system of developing strength using chains is original and fresh to this day. The Zass system allows you to quickly increase strength, strengthens ligaments and tendons, creating a foundation for the natural development of muscles.
Note for women: proper performance of tendon exercises does not increase muscle volume, does not enlarge veins, includes subcutaneous fat in the overall energy exchange (promotes resorption and improvement of the skin), improves character and the ability to stand up for oneself. True, you will have to show taste and ingenuity in selecting exercises.
Tendon exercises can be performed using different equipment - a metal rod, chains, a thick cord, a wooden stick. You can use furniture, walls, doorways. Try to bend a thick metal rod or break a chain, squeeze a stick, lift a door frame: muscles and tendons tense, the whole body is involved in a ringing force wave, ripens to maximum density... and smoothly returns back to peace. By repeating these tests several times, we develop and strengthen the force wave and, with it, the strength of the entire body.
Rules for tendon gymnastics
your object is your body, so don’t break the chain - just create a dense body wave, the chain will break itself
breathe calmly, without straining your breathing when making an effort, exercise against the background of calm breathing
the force wave should cover the entire body, from the soles to the working implement; at the same time, as if pressing your body into force - this will increase the volume of the muscle-tendon-joint connection
the wave should be good: smooth-elastic input, amplification without breaks to a fairly maximum density, smooth-calm output
develop the natural power of good nature: minus nerves, minus the result, minus breathing, plus body volume - this way you will avoid all “dangers”, including headaches and protruding veins
we strained our strength - we released it, we listen to the restoration of strength with gain; fat is new energy, you have nothing to understand it, so we focus on restoration + the feeling of uncertainty that accompanies the arrival of strength
perform the exercise 1-5 times with standard pauses from 30 to 90 seconds; with more powerful efforts, you may need longer pauses from 3-5 to 10 minutes (experiment)
if the breathing deepens, the heart is pounding, the power wave breaks or shows bodily discomfort, then it is necessary to stop and calm down, reduce the effort, massage - feel the discomfort with a gentle wave
do not rush, let the total duration, the magnitude of the effort and the duration of the maximum develop naturally; start with short 2-5 second tensions, and enter longer ones more gradually
in a tonic-daily mode, select 5-8 favorite exercises and perform them in 1-3 strains with an effort of 60-90-75% (approximately)
full strength training should be performed no more than 2 times a week and take no more than an hour; here for 5 repetitions you can focus on the following efforts - 75-90-95-90-75% of the satisfied maximum
It’s better to combine daily stress with a mindset for the day or task; strength training is best tuned to the image of the week or goal
Once a week, at the end of a strength training session, I advise you to perform a tonic test: a minute stretch of a stick-chain-towel, with your arms down, with an effort of 95%. After stretching, listen to your hands: if the muscles are healthy, then the hands will rise to the sides and up and hover there for a while (on the side or at the top). The amount of this time - the amount of tonic activity - will indicate to you your weekly progress not only in strength, but also in its quality. If there is no progress, then it means you are doing something wrong: you are not getting enough sleep, you are overeating, you are worried, you are burnt out in business, you have not had time to recover from the previous workout, you have pushed yourself too far in this workout. If your tonic activity is less than a minute, be doubly careful with overexertion. If your tonic activity is above 1.5 minutes, then you can be congratulated: you are doing everything correctly and quality progress in strength is guaranteed to you.

Tendon exercises with chains
The original Iron Samson system consists of exercises using chains. Triangular-shaped metal handles with hooks are attached to the chains, which, if necessary, are interconnected, lengthening or shortening the chain section. To support the legs, belt loops are attached to the ends of the chain. That is, to start practicing, you need to purchase 2 chains the length from the floor to your outstretched arm and make 2 handles for the hands and 2 loops for the legs.
Chains are sold in hardware stores.
Handles can be made like this: take two pieces of pipe of a convenient thickness and thread a wire (or cable) into them, bent at the connection into a hook. Leg loops are very important, as they provide comfort for the most powerful tensions of the body (for example, in the atlas pose). Ask ladies you know about old handbags, try using tarpaulin or material for trunks. But first, experiment with the fabric: step on it with your foot and pull its ends up: evaluate the thickness, width, and comfort of the loop. You can use the loops in conjunction with slippers.
In the initial position, the chain should be tensioned.
Follow the rules of tendon gymnastics.

Alexander Zass was born on February 23, 1888 on an unnamed farm in the Vilna province, part of the Northwestern region of the Russian Empire. Shura was the third child in the family. In total, Ivan Petrovich and Ekaterina Emelyanovna Zassov had five children: three boys and two girls.

Soon after the birth of Alexander, the Zass left the Vilnius region and moved to the outskirts of Tula, and when the boy was four years old, the family moved to Saransk. The reason for the change of place was that my father received the position of clerk. Despite the fact that the landowners' estates, which were managed by Ivan Petrovich, were located between Saransk and Penza, the Zasses lived mainly in the city itself. It is curious that both the town house itself and the bank accounts were registered not in the name of the head of the family, but in the name of the mother, who was a very purposeful and strong-willed woman. It is known that she even ran and was elected to the Saransk City Duma. Ivan Petrovich, skillfully managing the household, involved all his children in work. Later, Alexander Ivanovich recalled: “My childhood was spent in the fields, because our family was essentially a peasant family. There was plenty of food and drink, and yet we had to work hard for everything we had.”

By his own admission, Alexander’s childhood years were not particularly interesting and consisted mainly of hard work. As he grew older, his father began sending him on long trips on horseback with large sums of money, which he had to deposit in the bank into the account of the owner of the estates. In the future, his father wanted to give Alexander a technical education and dreamed of seeing his son as a locomotive driver.

Zass himself did not have the slightest desire to drive locomotives. Traveling around different cities and villages, he had the opportunity to see quite a lot of traveling troupes and tent circuses, for which Russia was famous in those days. The life of a circus performer seemed to him the most beautiful in the world. However, Alexander could not allow himself even a hint of such thoughts - his father was very strict and could mercilessly flog him for disobedience.

One day, Ivan Petrovich took his son with him to the fair to sell horses. In the evening, after a successful transaction, they went to a performance of a traveling circus located nearby. The sight he saw struck the boy to the core: To the music, screams and laughter, people soared in the air, horses danced, jugglers balanced various objects. But he especially liked the strongman who could easily lift heavy weights, break chains and twist iron bars around his neck. Many spectators, including Father Alexander, following the invitation of the presenter, got up from their seats and tried to repeat these tricks without much success. Returning to the inn, father and son had dinner and went to bed. But sleep did not come to Alexander, slipping out of the room, he rushed to the circus tent and, having paid the required amount from his pocket money, went in to watch the performance again.

He returned home only the next morning. The father, having learned about his son’s absence, took a shepherd’s whip in his hands and flogged him. Alexander spent the rest of the day and all night in a separate room without food or sleep, tormented by a fever. Early in the morning he was given some bread and told to go to work immediately. Already in the evening, the father informed his son that he was sending him to a distant southern village for a year as a shepherd. There, a twelve-year-old teenager had to help shepherds graze a huge herd - almost 400 cows, 200 camels and over 300 horses. From morning to night, he was in the saddle under the scorching sun and made sure that the animals did not fight, did not wander off and did not climb into other people's possessions.

All the time spent away from home, Alexander did not stop thinking about the circus and its wonderful life. He learned to shoot well - more than once or twice the shepherds had to fight off wolves. Communication with animals also gave a lot to the future circus actor. He tried to teach horses the same tricks that he noticed from riders in the circus, and improved in horse riding and vaulting. Soon the boy began to feel as confident on the horse’s back as on the ground. However, what especially surprised the shepherds and what Alexander himself considered his main victory was his friendship with the guard dogs. He managed to find a common language with six huge, ferocious and ruthless wolfhounds, who then accompanied him everywhere.

After returning to Saransk, Zass began collecting magazines and various instructions “on improving the figure and developing strength.” Reading them, he tried to understand the intricacies of sports and circus terminology, learned athletic exercises, learned about famous wrestlers, gymnasts and strongmen. Alexander's favorite hero was the outstanding athlete of the nineteenth century, Evgeniy Sandov.

Zass's early day now began with gymnastics and jogging. He spent his free minutes in the backyard of the house, devoting them to performing various exercises. He didn’t have dumbbells or weights, so the guy tied stones of varying weights to wooden sticks. In addition, he carried cobblestones, trying to hold them only with his fingers, and jogged with a calf or foal on his shoulders. Zass also trained with thick tree branches - he tried to bend them without support with just his hands. Later, he made two horizontal bars for flying from one bar to another.

The first successes came as a reward for hard work - Alexander felt his body getting stronger and filled with strength. He learned to “spin the sun” on a bar, do one-arm pull-ups, and catch 8-kilogram stones thrown from a throwing board. There were also injuries. One day he failed to hold a stone projectile and fell with a broken collarbone. After spending a month with his arm in a sling, he started all over again.

Many years later, having already become famous, the circus athlete, based on his childhood experiences, will create an entire training system, the basic principles of which will be recognized throughout the world. These are so-called isometric exercises. Their characteristic feature is muscle tension without contractions, without movements in the joints. Alexander Zass argued that it is not enough to make do with only traditional methods of muscle development, namely muscle contraction under load. Seemingly futile attempts to strain tendons and muscles, such as when bending a steel bar, are very useful for developing strength. Time has completely confirmed his point of view.

Having become older, Zass turned for help to famous athletes of that era - Pyotr Krylov, Dmitriev, Anokhin. They all reviewed the young man’s letters and sent him their methodological recommendations. By training according to their exercise systems, Alexander Ivanovich further developed his abilities. None of his peers could do what he did. Weighing 66 kilograms, the young man confidently twisted 80 kilograms with his right hand and juggled 30-kilogram weights. Rumors about his extraordinary strength quickly spread throughout the surrounding villages and villages. They began to invite him to various parties and celebrations, where people were not averse to measuring their strength with him. However, for all his outstanding abilities, Alexander Ivanovich grew up as a surprisingly calm and not pugnacious person; in the summer he took care of his father’s affairs, and in the winter he attended school.

The turning point in his fate came in the summer of 1908. Despite Alexander’s timid protests, Zass Sr. sent the twenty-year-old guy to Orenburg to the local locomotive depot to study as a fireman, or, if he was lucky, as an assistant driver. And at the beginning of October, Orenburg newspapers announced the arrival in the city of “the first-class Andrzhievsky circus with its huge troupe.” Alexander, of course, came to watch the performance. A couple of days later, Zass, having mustered up his courage, appeared before the director, to whom he told about how he was attracted to such a life. Dmitry Andriyuk, and this is how Andrzhievsky was actually called, was himself an excellent trainer and wrestler, and performed athletic performances. To Alexander’s great surprise, he said: “Do you want to work in the circus? Well, okay, you can join us as a laborer. You will help where needed. But life here is difficult, no doubt about it. You will work long hours, and it may happen that you will have to go hungry. Think carefully." However, Alexander did not hesitate.

At first, the young circus performer really had a hard time. In addition to various “menial” labor such as cleaning animals or cleaning the arena, he helped the athlete Kuratkin during his performances. Over time, Kuratkin became attached to the young man - he taught him the various intricacies of circus strongmen, and trained him in balancing with heavy objects. And a few months later, Alexander received his own, small act - demonstrating strength, he threw a huge stone over his head from hand to hand. He wrote to his family that he was diligently studying to become a locomotive driver. This was only partly a lie - Zass really put his whole soul into the hard work of a circus performer.

Andrzhievsky's circus tent operated for six months in Orenburg and nearby settlements, and as soon as the fees began to fall, the troupe got ready to go. Zass had to make a difficult decision - to go to his father in Saransk and inform him of his choice of life path or to openly continue his circus career. Andrzhievsky, having learned about this, ordered Zass to return home, repent and trust in his father’s mercy. He refused all the young man’s requests to take him with him.

However, Zass did not go home at all. He took the train to Tashkent, and upon arriving in the city he immediately went to the circus of the famous entrepreneur Yupatov. He had heard a lot about Philip Afanasyevich. Yupatov kept his circuses in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara; his troupes included the most famous “stars”, each of them an unsurpassed specialist in his genre.

The performance of the Tashkent troupe made a huge impression on Zass. After the Andrzhievsky Circus, the performances performed amazed us with their unique technique, brilliant invention and purity of execution. When the performance ended, the young man went to the ringmaster to talk. Introducing himself as an artist from the Andzhievsky Circus, he explained his desire to get a job with Yupatov very simply: “I want to earn more.” Half an hour later he was already invited for negotiations with the director of the circus, who, barely looking at Zass, announced that he was ready to hire him as a laborer on the condition that he pay a “deposit of integrity” of 200 rubles. Alexander did not have that kind of money, and he was given a week to get it.

The very next morning he wrote a letter to his father, saying that he had found a promising job with a good salary. He wrote that a large enterprise offered him training, but required him to pay 200 rubles as proof of integrity. Four days later, the required amount of money came from his father along with congratulations, and Zass became a full participant in Yupatov’s performances.

Initially, he became an assistant to the legendary trainer Anatoly Durov. After six months of working on his team, Alexander was unexpectedly transferred to the cashier position. The salary in this place was higher, and Zass even managed to repay the debt to his father, who now did not particularly delve into the essence of his son’s “profitable” work. And soon he was returned to the arena, but not to Durov, but to the troupe of horse riders. As soon as Alexander got comfortable in this friendly and cheerful company, he was transferred to the aerialists. This is how Philip Afanasyevich raised young circus performers. In order to identify their true inclinations, and also to have replacements if necessary, he “passed” them through many specialties. Zass, despite the fact that he liked the work, did not stay with the trapeze gymnasts for long and was sent to a group of wrestlers led by the 140-kilogram giant Sergei Nikolaevsky.

Some time later, after numerous discussions, a plan was born for Alexander to perform independently, not related to wrestling matches. The basis was strength exercises, in which Zass was especially good - breaking chains with the force of the chest and arms, bending iron rods. These tricks were complemented by less difficult numbers, but also very effective. For example, demonstrating the strength of the pectoral muscles, Alexander lay on his back, and on his chest there was a platform that could accommodate up to ten people. Alexander could also successfully hold the platform in his teeth on which the two heaviest wrestlers were sitting.

People flocked to Yupatov's performances, and the box office was excellent. However, the happiness of circus performers is short-lived. One dark August night, the circus menagerie caught fire. Perhaps the matter was not without competitors, but it was not possible to find out. The damage from the fire was catastrophic - most of the animals were burned and property was lost. There was nothing to pay the artists, and the troupe disbanded. Horse riders left for the Caucasus, Durov went to St. Petersburg, and Alexander Zass, along with six wrestlers, went to Central Asia. Along the way, athletes earned their living by performing, and the arena for them was, at best, the central square of the village, and more often a street or road. Thus, the emaciated and weakened strongmen reached Ashgabat, where they got a job in the circus tent of a certain Khoytsev.

With the advent of Yupatov’s artists, Khoytsev’s circus became mainly a wrestling circus, since against their background all other genres were losing. Performing in various cities and villages as an ordinary wrestler, Alexander continued to train intensively. His day began with a three-kilometer run, then there were exercises with breaking chains and with iron rods - he bent them on his knee, curled them in a spiral, and tied them in a knot. He devoted a lot of time to developing the back and pectoral muscles. Having finished the morning training, Zass rested and trained for the second time in the evening. During these classes, the athlete practiced horseback riding with vaulting, practiced balance, developed jaw and neck strength by lifting 170-kilogram steel beams from the ground.

Such activities helped him gain more muscle mass, which was necessary not so much for performing various tricks, but for obtaining a “marketable” appearance, since Zass was not taken seriously in the arena for a long time. Indeed, in an era when in world athletics 150- and 170-kilogram heroes were considered the embodiment of physical power, the short and thin Zass with his 168 centimeters of height and 75 kilograms of weight had a hard time compared to them. Later, Alexander Ivanovich will write that “large biceps cannot be considered a criterion of strength, just as a large belly is not a sign of good digestion.” He argued that “a large man does not have to be strong, and a modestly built man does not have to be weak, and all the strength lies in the sinews, which is what needs to be trained.”

During a tour of the Khoytsev circus, Zass finally found a summons ordering him to report for military service. Recruits were called up according to their place of birth, and Alexander had to go to Vilna, where he was from. There his forehead was shaved and he was assigned to serve in the 12th Turkestan Infantry Regiment, located on the Persian border. During his three-year service, he worked as a gymnastics instructor and also continued to practice wrestling and horse riding. After its completion, Zass went to Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk), where he was offered a position as a coach of women athletes, and after some time he moved closer to his family in the city of Krasnoslobodsk, where he and his father purchased a cinema. However, things didn’t work out for him, and he was forced to turn to weightlifting again. Zass began performing solo performances, and at the same time developed new unique power tricks. The first job offers came from a number of circuses, but then the First World War began.

Mobilization took place hastily, and Zass ended up in the 180th Vindavsky Infantry Regiment, which was transferred from Saransk to Lublin at the beginning of the war. Alexander Ivanovich was enlisted in regimental reconnaissance and, as part of a small group, carried out horse raids on enemy rear lines. A pedant and an ardent “regime official” in peaceful life, at the front he turned into a stern and dashing warrior. It is known that he was promoted to rank for his bravery in combat. There is also a legend about how, during another sortie, the stallion Zass was wounded in the front leg. The athlete did not abandon the animal in trouble; after waiting for night, he put the horse on his shoulders and went out with him to our trenches.

Alexander Ivanovich did not fight at the front for long - during the next battle, a shell exploded next to him, hitting both legs of the Russian hero with shrapnel. He woke up in an Austrian hospital. There he was operated on, but the first operation was unsuccessful, and soon Alexander Ivanovich underwent a second and third. The wounds did not want to heal properly, and doctors warned the athlete that he might have to lose his legs. Left to his own devices, Zass used some of the principles of his passive exercises. He continued to work hard every day until all fears of losing his legs completely disappeared. Full recovery did not come immediately. At first, Alexander Ivanovich learned to move on crutches and helped care for other prisoners. And when he was able to move without crutches, he was transferred to a prisoner of war camp.

In this “institution” everything was different. They fed poorly, forced to work a lot - from morning to evening, prisoners were busy building roads and temporary hospitals for the wounded on both sides, who continued to arrive in countless numbers. Zass spent about a year in this camp. The place was well guarded, the barracks were surrounded by barbed wire. Together with another prisoner named Ashaev, Alexander Ivanovich began to prepare to escape. With great difficulty, the friends managed to get a map of railway tracks without roads and a small, almost toy compass. They also managed to save some provisions. The last barrier to escape was barbed wire, completely hung with hundreds of bells and tins. Straining their brains in search of a way out, the prisoners very soon came to the conclusion that they had only one way beyond the wire - to make a tunnel. On moonless nights, Zass and Ashaev dug a hole, and when it was finished, they escaped.

By dawn, tired and exhausted, they ran to the forest and took refuge under the shade of trees. There was no chase. The goal of the fugitives was to reach the Carpathians, where, in their opinion, the forward posts of the Russian army were located. However, these plans were not destined to come true; on the sixth day they came to the attention of a field gendarmerie patrol. They tried to escape, but they were caught up and, after being brutally beaten, they were taken to the nearest commandant’s office. After interrogation, Zass and Ashaev, to their surprise, were not shot, but were sent back to the camp. There the fugitives were brought before a military court, which gave them a relatively “mild” decision - they were sentenced to thirty days of solitary confinement on bread and water. At the end of the punishment, the prisoners were returned to their old duties, but were transferred to another, more guarded part of the camp. Here Alexander Ivanovich stayed for several more months, and then, due to a lack of male strength, he was sent to Central Hungary to an estate that was breeding horses. Life here turned out to be much easier, and after a couple of months, taking advantage of the carelessness of the guards, Zass and a Cossack named Yamesh left this place. This time the Russian athlete was much better prepared, had a reliable map and compass, and enough money. They remained free for two and a half months, until a patrol caught them near the Romanian city of Oradea. The friends were placed in the city prison, and when it was revealed that this was Alexander’s second escape, he was put in a dark underground casemate for six weeks. After this, he was transferred to a regular cell and was engaged in minor prison work. And then he was transferred to street work, which prompted Alexander Ivanovich to make another attempt to escape. This time, having already learned from bitter experience, he did not try to break through to the Russian units. Zass reached the Romanian town of Kolozsvar, where the famous Herr Schmidt circus was located and asked to meet with the owner.

Alexander Ivanovich openly told the director of the troupe about his troubles, as well as about his activities in Russian circuses. Fortunately, Schmidt's program did not include any strength athletes or wrestlers. Zass's stories about the tricks he could show convinced the owner. Schmidt was pleased with the first performances of the Russian hero, who, by the way, was not in his best shape, helped him buy new clothes and paid him a huge advance. However, Alexander Ivanovich's luck was not destined to last long. Circus posters announcing the appearance of "The Strongest Man on the Planet" attracted the attention of the local military commandant. Curious why such a fine fellow did not serve in the Austrian army, he arrived at the circus, and by the evening of the same day he found out that Zass was a Russian prisoner of war. Taking into account that Alexander Ivanovich did not kill or maim anyone during his escapes, the military tribunal limited himself to imprisoning him in the fortress until the end of the war. Zass was placed in a damp and cold basement, into which air and light penetrated through a tiny window located at a height of six meters and overlooking a moat with water. The legs and arms were shackled, which were removed only twice a day during feeding.

Escape seemed impossible, but the Russian hero did not lose heart. Pulling himself together, he began to train. Shackled in arms and legs, he worked hard - he did goose steps, backbends, squats, tensed his muscles, kept them “on,” and relaxed. And so many times a day. The ostentatious humility and obedience somewhat changed the conditions of his detention. Three months later, Zass was allowed a daily half-hour walk around the territory of the fortress, and after a while, knowing about his circus past, he was offered to train local dogs. Alexander Ivanovich agreed, thereby freeing himself from the leg shackles and gaining some freedom for his hands. This turned out to be quite enough for him. After some time, the Russian strongman successfully made his next, final escape.

He successfully reached Budapest, where he got a job as a port loader. Zass stayed at this job for quite a long time, gradually regaining his strength. And when the Beketov Circus came to the city, he turned there, thinking of getting a place as an athlete or wrestler. But the circus director, who was experiencing financial difficulties, refused him, nevertheless giving him a letter of recommendation for the famous wrestler Chai Janos, who had his own troupe. This good-natured Hungarian treated Alexander Ivanovich with attention. After listening to the Russian hero and testing him in a duel, he took him into his team. For three years after this, Zass performed in the wrestling troupe of Chai Janos, alternating fights on the carpet with acts with dogs. He visited Italy, Switzerland, Serbia. Zass did not return to Soviet Russia, believing that, as a soldier of the tsarist army, the path there was closed forever. In the early twenties, tired of wrestling, the athlete moved to the circus of his old friend Schmidt, where he began performing athletic tricks that later brought him world fame. At the director’s suggestion, he took the stage name Samson, under which the European public knew him for many decades.

In 1923, Zass received an unexpected offer to work in Paris. He signed a contract, but did not stay long in the French capital. A year later, at the invitation of the head of British variety shows Oswald Stoll, he went to England, where he lived until the end of his life. It is curious that Stoll’s representatives, who met the famous strongman at London’s Victoria Station, at first did not pay any attention to the inconspicuous, stocky man who did not know a word of English. However, soon photographs of the Russian athlete took over the front pages of local newspapers. He visited Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh... His fame grew, and his performances aroused fantastic interest.

Zass was truly unique; common sense refused to believe in the numbers he performed. To demonstrate the gigantic load on his shoulders, he built a special tower. Being at the top, he held suspended platforms with people on his shoulders. In one of the photographs, Zass holds thirteen people on his shoulders, including Winston Churchill. Zass developed another unique number, “Projectile Man,” from a trick shown by other strongmen. They were catching a nine-kilogram cannonball fired from a cannon, but the Russian hero chose a ninety-kilogram projectile for himself. Then, together with foundries and blacksmiths, he developed a particularly powerful cannon capable of throwing this cannonball so that it would slide along a given trajectory over the arena. By the way, Alexander Zass’s technical studies brought him considerable benefit in the future. Many years later, he developed the wrist dynamometer, first as a competition device and then as a training device. Successful performances with cannonball catching were not enough for him; Zass knew well how to conquer the audience. After much thought and calculation, a miracle gun was created that fired not with cold metal, but with girls. Flying eight meters across the stage, they invariably fell into the hands of the athlete.

Working with a jack, Alexander Ivanovich easily lifted trucks off the ground on one side. He generally had a craving for cars - in one city or another in England he loved to organize “road shows”. The strong man lay down on the ground, and cars full of passengers passed over him - along his lower back and legs. In public, Zass also practiced stretching with horses. At the same time, he held back two horses rushing in different directions.

Putting future karatekas to shame, Zass broke through concrete slabs with his fists and bent iron beams into a pattern more intricate than on the gates of Westminster Abbey. Alexander Ivanovich’s traditional performances were: hammering huge nails into a thick board with the palm of his hand, flying under the circus dome with a 220-kilogram beam in his teeth, carrying across the stage with a 300-kilogram horse on his shoulders. Many famous British athletes tried unsuccessfully to repeat Zass's tricks. And the Russian hero challenged anyone who was ready to knock him down with a punch in the stomach. Professionals have also participated in this more than once. There is a photo of the world heavyweight boxing champion, Canadian Tomi Burns, trying to knock down the Russian hero.

In 1925, Zass met the dancer Betty - she became a participant in one of his numbers. The athlete hung upside down under the circus dome and held in his teeth a rope on which a platform with a girl playing the piano was suspended. After a short time they began to live together. In 1975, 68-year-old Betty would say: “He was the only man I truly loved.” But Alexander Ivanovich was always popular with women and reciprocated. Betty forgave him a lot, and only after ten years of marriage in 1935 they decided to break off the relationship and remain friends. Later she married Zass's best friend - clown and circus rider Sid Tilbury.

With the outbreak of World War II, Alexander Zass, who never renounced his Russian citizenship, had problems. To avoid being interned, he stopped performing public power shows and began training lions, elephants and chimpanzees at Chessington and Paignton zoos, and gave numerous interviews about working with animals. As soon as the war ended, Alexander and Betty resumed performing together. For many years, she hovered over the arena and played music, until during a performance in 1952 at the Liverpool Stadium, the noose to which Zass was suspended by his leg broke. The entire structure, along with the athlete, the fragile woman and the piano, collapsed. Alexander Ivanovich escaped with only a broken collarbone, but Betty injured her spine. After spending two years in a hospital bed, she was able not only to get back on her feet, but also to return to the circus as a rider. However, a second misfortune soon happened - she was thrown by a horse. Since then, Betty has been confined to a wheelchair forever.

Shortly before the war, Alexander participated in filming in the small town of Hockley, located a forty-minute drive from London. Here he saw a site on Plumberow Avenue that he really liked. In 1951, Zass, Sid and Betty purchased this house for three. Alexander Ivanovich lived there on short visits, during breaks between tours. In 1954, Zass worked as the chief administrator of the New California Circus in Wokingham, and also performed with his famous Scottish ponies and dogs. On August 23 of the same year, the BBC television company organized the athlete's last public performance with power tricks. And although he was already 66 years old, the numbers shown were impressive. After this, Zass continued to work tirelessly, but as a trainer. Nevertheless, he liked to include strength numbers in his programs as entertainment for the public. For example, at the age of seventy he carried two lions around the arena in a special yoke.

In the summer of 1960, Alexander Ivanovich received a letter from Moscow from his sister Nadezhda. A correspondence began between them. In his messages, Zass asked if he could come and visit his relatives, stay in Russia, get a job there as a coach or physical education teacher. And in 1961, when the Soviet circus came on tour to London, the athlete met with Vladimir Durov, the grandson of the legendary Anatoly Leonidovich, for whom he worked as an assistant in his youth.

Monument to Zass in Orenburg

In the summer of 1962, there was a fire in Zass's caravan. 74-year-old Alexander Ivanovich bravely rushed into the fire to save his animals. In doing so, he received serious burns to his head and damaged his eyes. These injuries broke him greatly. He felt that he did not have much time left in this world, and gave Betty detailed instructions regarding his own funeral. One of the main wishes was the time of burial - “in the morning, when the sun begins to shine.” It was at this time that circus performers used to leave their seats and hit the road. Alexander Ivanovich died on September 26, 1962 in a hospital in Rochford, where he was taken the night before with a heart attack. He was buried in Hockley in accordance with his wishes.

Based on materials from the book by A.S. Drabkin “The Secret of Iron Samson” and the athlete’s memoirs “The Amazing Samson. Told by him... and more"

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Alexander (Samson) Zass. The numbers of the Russian strongman crushed the common sense of the British

For several years we have published essays about the outstanding Russian strongman Alexander Zass. All these manuscripts were kindly offered to us by his nephew Yuri Vladimirovich Shaposhnikov. But the last publication in No. 2 of our magazine did not quench the interest in this fantastic figure, which was the reason for the appearance of today’s memories.

This happened in 1938 in the English city of Sheffield. In front of the crowd, a truck loaded with coal ran over a man sprawled on the cobblestone street. People screamed in horror. But the next second there was a cry of delight: “Glory to the Russian Samson!” And the man to whom the storm of jubilation was felt, stood up from under the wheels as if nothing had happened, bowed to the audience with a smile.

For several decades, the name of the Russian athlete Alexander Zass, who performed under the pseudonym Samson, has not left the circus posters of many countries. The repertoire of his power routines was amazing: he carried a horse or a piano around the arena with a pianist and dancer located on the lid; caught with his hands a 9-kilogram cannonball flying out of a circus cannon from an eight-meter distance; he tore a metal beam with assistants sitting at its ends from the floor and held it in his teeth; having threaded the shin of one leg into the loop of a rope fixed under the dome, he held a platform with a piano and a pianist in his teeth; lying with his bare back on a board studded with nails, he held a stone weighing 500 kilograms on his chest, which was hit by those from the public with sledgehammers; in the famous attraction “Projectile Man” he caught with his hands an assistant flying out of a circus cannon and describing a 12-meter trajectory above the arena; he broke the links of chains with his fingers; He hammered nails into 3-inch boards with his unprotected palm, and then pulled them out, grasping the head with his index finger.

Alexander Zass's performances were triumphant. This is explained not only by the original athletic numbers, most of which could not be repeated by any athlete, but also by the fact that he was not like many strongmen of that time, who had massive figures and great weight. His height is 167.5 cm, weight is 80 kg, chest circumference is 119 centimeters, biceps are 41 centimeters each. He liked to say that big biceps are not always an indicator of strength. Just like a big belly does not mean good digestion. The main thing is willpower, strong tendons and the ability to control your muscles.

Very often Samson had to answer the question of how he achieved such power. He replied that this was the result of purposeful work, enormous tension of all spiritual and physical forces. If you trace the entire life path of Alexander Zass, you can see that it consisted of constant training and a strict regime. In one photograph, where Samson is captured sitting at a table near a samovar, there is his note: “5 minutes of rest,” but he was then 74 years old, and he continued to work, although not in the strength genre, but as a trainer, but often included in their performances are power tricks. So, at the age of seventy, he carried two lions around the arena on a special yoke!

Of course, Alexander Zass had enormous natural strength, which is what distinguished his ancestors in general. Once in his native Saransk he visited the circus with his father. The boy especially liked the mighty strongman who broke chains and bent horseshoes. At the end of his performance, the artist, as was customary at that time, addressed the audience, inviting them to repeat his tricks. Alas, no one was able to bend a horseshoe or lift a ball barbell with a thick bar off the ground. And suddenly Alexander’s father, Ivan Petrovich Zass, rose from his seat and entered the arena. Alexander knew that his father was very strong. Sometimes he demonstrated his strength to the guests.

And so the strong man handed the horseshoe to his father. To the surprise of the public, the horseshoe in the hands of Zass Sr. began to unbend. Then Ivan Petrovich tore the huge barbell off the platform and, straightening his torso, raised it above his knees. The audience applauded like crazy. The circus strongman was embarrassed. He called the uniformist over to him. He ran backstage and brought a silver ruble. The artist raised his hand with a ruble and said: “But this is for your feat and for a drink!” The father took the ruble, then rummaged in his pocket, pulled out a three-ruble ruble, and handed it to the athlete along with the ruble, saying: “I don’t drink! But take it, but drink only tea!”

Since then, his son lived only in the circus. In the backyard of the house, with the help of adults, I installed two horizontal bars, hung trapeze bars, got hold of household weights, made a primitive barbell, and began to train with incredible persistence. I tried to repeat what I saw. Having mastered the “sun” (large rotation) on the horizontal bar, he began to fly from one bar to another, doing backflips not only on the floor, but also on a horse. I did one-arm pull-ups several times. But all these activities were unsystematic.

He convinced his father to order books on physical development from Moscow. And soon a book by the then famous athlete Evgeniy Sandov, “Strength and How to Become Strong,” arrived. The author talked about his athletic career, about victories over famous athletes, and even about fighting a huge lion, which before the fight was given a muzzle and special huge mittens on its paws. The lion rushed at Sandow several times, but he threw him off each time.

Then came eighteen exercises with dumbbells, that is, what Alexander especially needed. And he began to study according to the Sandov system - his idol. But he soon realized that exercises with dumbbells alone could not develop the strength that a professional strongman needs. He turns for help to the famous athletes Pyotr Krylov and Dmitriev-Morro, who did not ignore the young man’s request, and soon Zass received methodological recommendations from these athletes. Krylov recommended exercises with weights, and Dmitriev - with a barbell.

He squeezed two-pound weights simultaneously and alternately (“mill”), pressed them upside down, and juggled. With the barbell I performed mainly bench presses, clean and jerks, and overhead presses. With his own weight of 66 kg, young Zass twisted (press with torso deviation) with his right hand 80 kg. But most of all he was attracted by the power tricks that he saw in the circus. And he visited the circus constantly. His sports props began to be replenished with horseshoes, chains, metal rods, and nails. And then he realized that repeated attempts to perform a trick - breaking a chain or bending a thick metal rod - bring tangible results in the development of physical strength. In essence, these were the now widely known isometric exercises. Thus, purely empirically (based on experience), Alexander Zass came to the conclusion that athletic strength can be developed by combining dynamic exercises with isometric ones in training. He later published his isometric system, and the pamphlet created a sensation.

Once in the circus, Zass at one time worked as an assistant to the legendary trainer Anatoly Durov, then as an athlete Mikhail Kuchkin, and he often told his assistant: “Someday, Sasha, you will become a famous strongman, I have never seen anyone who was so strong , like you, having such a small height and weight.” In general, Zass worked in the circus for about sixty years and almost forty of them - with athletic acts.

In 1914, world war broke out. Alexander Zass was drafted into the 180th Vindavsky Cavalry Regiment. One day an incident occurred that amazed even those who were well aware of Alexander’s extraordinary strength. One day he was returning from another reconnaissance mission, and suddenly, already close to the Russian positions, they noticed him and opened fire. The bullet shot through the horse's leg. The Austrian soldiers, seeing that the horse and rider had fallen, did not pursue the cavalryman and turned back. Zass, convinced that the danger had passed, did not want to leave the wounded horse. There was still half a kilometer left to his regiment, but this did not bother him. Having shouldered the horse, Zass brought it to his camp. Time will pass, he will remember this episode and will include carrying a horse on his shoulders in his repertoire.

In one of the battles, Zass was seriously wounded by shrapnel in both legs. He was captured, and the Austrian surgeon began amputation. But Zass begged not to do this. He believed in his powerful body and the therapeutic gymnastics that he developed for himself. And he recovered! Soon he, along with other prisoners, was sent to heavy road work. He made several unsuccessful escapes, after which he was severely punished. The third escape was remarkable. Having escaped from the camp, Alexander found himself in the city of Kaposvár in southern Hungary, where the Schmidt Circus, known throughout Europe, was on tour. Presenting himself before the owner of the circus, Zass openly told him about his misfortune, as well as about his work in Russian circuses. Immediately the director suggested that he break the chain and bend a thick metal rod. Of course, hungry and tired, Zass was not in good athletic shape, but through an effort of will he coped with the task.

He was taken to the circus, and soon the news of the amazing athlete spread throughout the city. But one day the military commandant came to his performance. He became interested in why such a strong young athlete was not serving in the Austrian army. That same evening it turned out that Samson was a Russian prisoner of war. He was taken to the basement of the fortress, into a damp, dark room. But his strength and will were not broken. He made a new escape by breaking the chain connecting the handcuffs and breaking down the bars.

Now he gets to Budapest, where he gets a job as a loader at the port, and then at the circus arena. The wrestler, world champion Chaya Janos, whom Alexander met back in Russia, helped him. This good-natured, powerful Hungarian treated the unfortunate Zass with sympathy. He took him to the village to his relatives, where Alexander’s strength gradually recovered. He then performed for three years in a wrestling troupe led by Chai Janos, alternating wrestling on the mat with athletic performances.

One day, Janos introduced the Russian strongman to the famous Italian impresario Signor Pasolini, who had heard a lot about Zass’s athletic capabilities. The Italian offered to conclude a contract. Zass's European tour begins, his fame grows. Finally, he comes to England, where his performances generally aroused fantastic interest. Famous athletes such as Edward Aston, Thomas Inch, Pullum began to try their hand at repeating Zass's tricks, but not a single attempt was successful.

Mr Pullum, director of the famous Camberwell Weightlifting Club and editor-in-chief of the sports magazine Health and Strength, wrote of him: “A man has arrived straight into the heart of England, capable of performing feats that common sense refuses to believe. If he had been a huge fellow, his performances might have been perceived as believable. But pay attention at least to the chest excursion (the difference between inhalation and exhalation) of this short man. It is equal to 23 centimeters, which says a lot to specialists. Therefore, I say that he not only has unprecedented physical strength, not only a magnificent artist, but also a man who uses his mind as well as his muscles.”

And here is what the poster of the famous Alhambra hall, where Alexander Zass was supposed to perform, testifies: “In Manchester, during construction work, Samson, suspended with one leg from a crane, lifted a metal beam from the ground with his teeth, and was carried to the top of the building by a crane, in while the crowd stood below with their mouths open. If the Russian had opened his mouth, the crowd would never have been able to tell what they saw.”

Posters and newspapers did not lag behind. Daily Telegraph: “Mr Samson is certainly the strongest man on earth. You can believe this when you see how easily he ties iron rods into knots.”

Manchester Guardian: "According to the advertisements, he is the strongest man on Earth, and after we have seen him for ourselves... this statement can be considered irrefutable."

Health and Strength Magazine: “In Samson we have a strongman whose achievements are completely open to scrutiny. Truly, his muscles are made of steel."

Late in his life, my uncle invented the hand dynamometer and designed and built the circus cannon for the Bullet Man attraction. Samson died in 1962. He was buried near London, in the small town of Hockley.

Letters from Hockley from the legendary Samson

Where did it all start? I remember my childhood years. Provincial Saransk, near the station Troitsky Lane... Guests often came to us. My parents greeted them solemnly: they played a gramophone record with some march or an old waltz. Everyone sat down at the table - to the samovar.

Usually the meeting began with the showing of the family album. My mother Nadezhda Ivanovna Zass (married Shaposhnikov) was turning over the pages. First there were photographs of her grandparents, and then she proudly said: “And here is my brother Alexander. He is a circus performer, a strongman!” There were five photographs of my mother's brother in total. There was also his business card with the inscription: “Alexander Ivanovich Zass - athlete-wrestler.” And a circus poster from 1913 listing the power stunts performed by Alexander Zass. I reread the text of the poster many times, trying to imagine these tricks.

My parents and I often went to the circus - by that time we had moved to Izhevsk, I was eight or nine years old, but I remember well the parades of wrestlers, fights on the mat (the wrestling was in the third section). I remember the famous Ivan Vladimirovich Lebedev (Uncle Vanya), Ivan Poddubny, Mikhail Borov, but I, a boy, was especially impressed by the masked wrestlers and athletes with power moves.

There were also two letters from Alexander Zass, dated 1924. They came from England in the name of my grandfather Ivan Petrovich Zass, from them we learned about the adventure-filled fate of Alexander.

In 1914 he was drafted into the army. Front, seriously wounded in both legs by shrapnel. Miraculously, amputation was avoided. He recovered and made several escapes from a prisoner of war camp. The last one was successful. He ended up in Budapest, where he began working in the port as a loader, then joined the local circus. For three years he fought in a group led by world champion Chai Janos, then performed in different countries with athletic performances. In 1924, Zass came on tour to England, and from here he wrote a letter to his grandfather.

Years passed. I continued to play sports, collecting a collection on the history of athletics (postcards with pictures of wrestlers, magazines, books, various systems of physical development). Sports activities were interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. Returning from the army, he entered the State Center for Physical Culture and Physical Culture, graduating in 1953. He worked as a teacher at the swimming department.

One day, it was in 1958, I went to the Central Research Institute of Physical Culture, to the department of foreign sports. There I met senior researcher Georgy Pavlovich Tenno, who is rightly considered the founder of bodybuilding in Moscow, and even in the country. This charming man, by the way, was fluent in English and had encyclopedic knowledge of the history of athletics, and was also an excellent weightlifting coach: his student Alexander Bozhko became a world record holder. Tenno was interested in the story about my uncle and recommended that I look through bodybuilding magazines from previous years.

And so, in one of the issues of the English magazine “Health and Strength” I saw a photograph of my uncle and under it the caption: “The famous European strongman Alexander Zass, known as “The Amazing Samson”, performs a sensational dramatic stunt “Projectile Man”, in which he catches an assistant flying out of the mouth of a circus cannon at a distance of 12 meters.”

We decided to continue searching. Georgy Pavlovich sent an official request about Samson to the editors of the magazine “Health and Strength”, and soon a response came from the editor-in-chief V. Pulum, by the way, a 9-time world champion in the barbell. It said that Samson was alive and working as a trainer. After some time, my mother received a letter from her brother. It turns out that he tirelessly searched for his loved ones. Then I began to receive letters, posters, and photographs from my uncle. Soon the book “The Amazing Samson” arrived, edited by Pulum. The book was published in 1925 in London. It tells about the amazing fate and athletic career of Alexander Zass. I began sending my uncle the magazine “Soviet Circus” and books on circus. I also inquired about his training methods. This is what he wrote to me in one of his letters: “I never strived for big muscles, believing that the main thing was strong tendons, willpower and the ability to control my muscles. When I started performing in the circus as an athlete, my biceps were only 38 centimeters. But the public needs a look, and I had to increase them to 42 centimeters (to a reasonable limit) through exercises with dumbbells and self-resistance exercises.”

One of the magazines I received reported that Samson, during wrestling, increased the volume of his neck to 56 centimeters! On this occasion, friendly cartoons appeared in the press. In 1961, the Soviet circus was on tour in London. Samson met with Vladimir Durov. I told him that in his youth he worked as an assistant to his grandfather, Anatoly Leonidovich Durov. He shared his dream - to come to Russia. Vladimir Grigorievich told me about this after returning from the tour. We were waiting for Samson's arrival. But the letters stopped coming. And soon we were informed that Samson had died.

His wife Betty Jackson, a former animal trainer, continued to correspond with us for some time. She sent sports magazines and photographs of athletes. And one day an unusual gift arrived: Samson’s cane. It was presented to Alexander in 1927 for lifting a barrel of beer with his teeth during the brewers' festival. The barrel was huge and weighed about 180 kg! This cane is adorned with all sorts of metal plaques with monograms and lyrics from artist friends. And here's a new tragic message: Betty died in a car accident. It should be said that by this time she was driving a wheelchair, since she was seriously injured at one of the performances. Samson had a performance in which he, having threaded the foot of his left foot into the loop of a rope fixed under the circus dome, hung, holding a platform with a piano in his teeth. Betty played the piano. And during one of the performances, the mount on the ceiling collapsed and the artists fell. Betty suffered a spinal fracture and spent three years in the hospital. Samson was injured, but returned to work a month later.

Thus the connection was broken. There were no replies to our letters. Years passed... I dreamed of going to Hockley, where Samson was buried. And then one spring Sunday in 1991, during a service in the church of Christian Evangelists in Konkovo-Derevlevo (my wife is a permanent parishioner there, and I, an Orthodox Christian, was her accompaniment) we quite by chance met an elderly married couple. When I learned that they were from England, I said that my uncle lived in Hockley and was buried there. They cried out in amazement, because they themselves lived in this city. And when I told about Samson, they said that they knew his grave very well.

And these nice people invited us to visit them. That same year, my wife Lilia and I came to Hockley to visit the Estalls. The next day we went to the ancient cemetery. Here, next to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, is the grave of Samson. The text on the monument is in Russian and English. Correspondents appeared, and the next day the Evening Echo newspaper published an article and a photograph of Samson carrying a horse on his shoulders. And also our photo at Samson's grave. Everyone who knew my uncle began to come to visit us. They brought old photographs, posters, newspaper clippings, and booklets.

In one photograph, Samson lifts with his teeth (without support on his knees) a huge roll of printing paper. Workers from the Daily Post printing house are standing around. And the booklet reports on the fight between the French heavyweight wrestling champion (140 kg) Gaston Gevert and his winner Alexander Zass from Russia. I also saw a newspaper report, supported by a photograph, dated January 21, 1945. The note is called “He tames “killers” with words.” “Circus strongman Alexander Zass (Samson) met three ferocious three-year-old African lions in a cage. This story is about the 10-pound bet of A. Zass, a strongman from the circus. To win this bet, Samson risked his life. Armed only with a trident, Samson entered the cage. His soft, rhythmic, special words, spoken in Russian, German, French and Hungarian, were met with aggressive, sharp animal movements that made the audience tremble in fear. There were moments when it seemed that his life was hanging by a thread. But Samson came out of the cage alive, and thereby demonstrated his power over the animals.”

Several photographs showed cars with passengers running over Samson. Some - on the lower back, others - on the legs and chest. In the photographs, Samson lifts a car with people by the wheel. Here's an interesting note about a trick that, at first glance, anyone can do. The publication is called “I can’t break a match.” Samson admits that there is one trick that he finds very difficult to perform. He was only able to do it twice. This trick involves breaking a match held between your thumb and forefinger.

And one more message in the newspaper. One day Samson stayed in a rural one-story hotel in southern Hungary. At night a gang of bandits burst in there. The owners began to scream, call for help, and call the police. Samson grabbed the robbers and, without hesitation, threw them out of the window.

In Hockley, of course, we visited the house where Samson lived. The new tenants altered it a little, but overall it remained the same. The accompanying people, who knew Samson, showed us the stable, which Alexander Ivanovich himself made. In recent years he worked as a trainer and had several horses, ponies, dogs, and monkeys.

Samson used to hammer nails into boards with his bare hand, and these famous nails were marked by the owners of the house. In another house they showed us Samson’s weight and several chains that he tore with his hands. The metal cannonball that was fired from the circus cannon has also been preserved; Samson caught it with his hands. The weight of that core is 90 kg! I was only able to move it from its place. Apparently, the core inside is filled with lead.

And finally, we were invited to a performance by Samson’s student, Trevor Barnett. His act is very effective. He performs in Samson's belt, given to him by Alexander Ivanovich. He uses a special Samson table and nails to pierce the board. Barnett would drive a nail into a 3-inch board with his bare palm and then pull it out by the head with his teeth. In his teeth he carried a chair with a seated violinist. He bent thick metal rods into a horseshoe shape (in a competition with the audience), did stretching with 12 spectators (the stage could accommodate that many people). Let me remind you that Zass did this act with 50 volunteers.

Trevor Barnett often comes to Hockley and brings flowers to the grave of his teacher, Samson. It's nice that Zass still has such a good student in England. We also have a person in Russia who considers himself a correspondence student of Samson, since he studied according to his system of isometric exercises. This is pop artist Ivan Shutov. This means that the memory of my uncle, of whom I am infinitely proud, lives not only in photographs and in old newspapers.

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