The Mystery of the Iron Samson: The Life and Training of Strongman Alexander Zass

I have been training exclusively with isometrics for sometime now and the concepts in Zass's training are spot on. The biography part of the book alone is awesome. It's great to get insight into the way he trained and to be able to apply them to your own training.

This is a highly informative book. It has a lot of practical information about how to build a strong body without spending a lot of money. It is also a great look into the life of one of the true strong men of the 20th century. Much recommended!

Very interesting account of the life of Alexander Zass. The training section alone is worth the price.

Alexander Zass was a fascinating person. By any measure he was a renaissance man who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While he is best remembered as a strongman he lived a very adventurous and exciting life and in the process mastered many life skills. He was a strongman, animal trainer, circus performer, physical trainer,intelligence agent and the "father of modern isometrics" - an early day James Bond.This is a great book that gives a full account of his very exciting life and some great ideas and methods to increase your own personal strength.

Zass lived a full life! If this was a movie, we wouldn't believe this character could really exist! This is a fun biography of Zass. It is easy to read and has a good pace. I appreacited the part at the end that gave examples of Zass' workout techniques. The illustrations are very easy to understand

I stumbled into this one and got sucked in from the start. The stories of how things were in old rissia was teally cool. Highly recommend checking it out

Alexander Zass the "Iron Samson" was someone I always heard about when I was researching my book  Strength Endurance: Reflections on the Legacy of Dr. Leonard Schwartz – creator of “Heavy Hands”, “Panaerobics”, “Longstrength” and “IsoTonOMetrics” . One thing this book helped me do was see Zass' life OVERALL. I'd always heard of him as one of the early proponents of building muscle through "isometrics". That's only half true. He started out as an all around athlete and strong man before ever doing any isometrics. He built his body doing gymnastics, lifting the weights of the day and doing the "physical culture" work others did.Captured during the war, his only possible exercise in prison was to pull against the bars! That's where the isometrics came in. He DID fall in love with them and subsequently marketed his own chain based exercise devices to continue to exercise in what we now call "isometric" fashion. This was a wonderful read and I suspect if you're a fan of Zass, you'll like it too. Would I like to know more definitely! WIll I without learning Russian? Probably not.

The story of Alexander Zass 'The Mystery of The Iron Samson' is very similar to the story of the 'Mighty Atom' Joseph Greenstein, both small men but very much stronger than bigger men, both were circus strong men too, both were from Eastern Europe, must be something in the water. I will keep my eyes open on Amazon. com for more books of a like kind. K Fitzgerald.

It's the king of old method training.It's simple,natural, and keep the health body.The force is in you.By.MF

Learn and explore from this book about the life of strongest man in the world. Development of great strength is possible with no expensive gym membership and equipment.

An excellent insight into the life of this extraordinary man. It is not a book with details of his exercises but you get a good sense of what the strongmen were like and their attitude towards training. It is an inspiring read.

In an age where we are bombarded with the latest or newest innovation it is refreshing to read about men that had been doing it a century ago. There is nothing new under the sun and this book reinforces that premise. The nuances involved in strength training have almost been forgotten yet thanks to books like this, they are being kept alive. Recommend for any reader that understands that strength is not a new fad.

As a long time student of old time strong men I found this to be a good tale. However, there are a number of inconsistencies in the narrative. I could not figure out who really wrote this book. I also did not like the layout and felt that the book to be grossly overpriced. If you want to know about "The Amazing Samson" I suggest you read Alexander Zass autobiography of that name with a forward by W A Pullum, originally published in 1925 which I note has now been reprinted.