“How much can you bench?”
The bench press has been a default measure of strength in many parts of the world for nearly half a century, said Conor Heffernan, a lecturer on the history of sports and physical culture at Ulster University in Ireland and author of “When Fitness Went Global.”
“It’s a shortcut for a whole cultural idea of strength: upper-body power, muscular masculinity, gym credibility and a number that can be understood by lifters and non-lifters alike,” Heffernan said.
But in centuries past, many other tests of strength were more practical: Communities needed to identify and train their fittest members for military service or employment. “Some tests of strength were just job interviews,” Heffernan said.
Many of these strength tests are still practiced around the world, and some are more accessible than lifting at the gym. The equipment is often publicly available in parks or in nature, and sometimes all that’s required is your body or an opponent.
Mallakhamb
Think of the most challenging yoga pose you’ve ever held. Now imagine attempting it at the top of a smooth wooden pole, 10 inches wide and 8 feet tall, polished with oil, and you’ll be getting close to mallakhamb, an ancient sport in India that combines yoga, gymnastics and martial arts.
“Mallakhamb is a sport where you have to play against gravity,” said Ravi Gaikwad, a trainer and the founder of Mallakhamb India, an organization that teaches and promotes the sport.
Sometimes called “the mother of all Indian sports,” mallakhamb tests grip strength, total body stamina and balance, and was once used as a training regimen for soldiers and wrestlers.
It trains your body “from top to bottom,” said Abhishek Prasad, 26, a mallakhamb athlete in Mumbai.
In a mallakhamb competition, athletes have 90 seconds to perform. They are judged on five categories, including acrobatic feats and poses they perform on the pole, catching the pole after performing a skill in midair and balancing during static poses. Athletes can compete individually or as a team, with multiple people on the pole at once.
The sport is part of the curriculum in many schools. Vinayak Dhamne, 40, a former athlete, learned about it as a student when he was 14.
Not everyone is cut out for mallakhamb, Dhamne said. “You get rashes. Sometimes it burns your legs.”
Highland Games ‘heavy events’
May through September is the Highland Games season in Scotland, when bagpipe players, dancers, runners, cyclists and strength athletes gather to take part in a 1,000-year-old tradition.
More than 60 annual Highland Games take place across Scotland each year. The “heavy events” are a centerpiece of the games. The most famous events are the hammer throw and the caber toss, in which athletes flip a long wooden pole (which can weigh up to 175 pounds) end-over-end. Depending on the contest, entrants may also have to toss a 20- to 26-pound stone, throw a 56-pound metal block backward over a high bar or use a pitchfork to pitch a burlap sack stuffed with straw.
Anyone can participate in the games, regardless of their skill or strength level, but participants often spend months training, said Elizabeth Elliot, 46, who lives near Glasgow and has been competing for 20 years. Many athletes will spend their offseason in the gym building power and endurance, she said.
Technical prowess is also important. “You can be very strong and pick up a caber,” Elliot said, “but you might not be able to do anything with it.”
The Highland Games began in the mid-to-late 11th century as a way for King Malcolm III to find his messengers and bodyguards, said Alan Pettigrew, an official with the Royal Scottish Highland Games Association.
Long after Malcolm’s reign ended, the tradition continued. “We weren’t going to war as much, but they kept the games,” Pettigrew said.
Today, most of the festivals across Scotland also include cultural practices like Highland dancing and bagpipe playing. The games have now also expanded to other countries, including the United States and Canada, as well as Australia and New Zealand, said Pettigrew.
Arm wrestling
Arm wrestling may be one of the simplest ways to settle a debate over strength. “You just go to the table and then you pull,” said Charles Osei Asibey, president of the Armwrestling Federation of Africa.
Becoming a competitive arm wrestler takes a bit more work. Grace Minta, 41, who in 2024 became the first African woman to win a gold medal at the World Armwrestling Championship, trains using dumbbells to build wrist and shoulder strength, squatting to build lower-body strength and running to build stamina.
Minta is a member of Ghana’s national team, the Golden Arms.
She is one of a growing number of athletes in Ghana to specialize in competitive arm wrestling, Asibey said. The sport is a pastime that has long been part of the country and the continent’s culture, and it was often used to decide who was the strongest in the community or in school, Asibey said.
Arm wrestling “doesn’t have an established birthplace,” Heffernan said, and versions of the practice have existed around the world for centuries in places like North America, Eastern Europe, Japan and Brazil.
In May, Ghana hosted the Africa Armwrestling Federation Championship with 450 athletes from 22 countries. Their team placed first.
Stone lifting
When Yuta Sakamoto wants to build strength, he doesn’t head to the gym. Instead, he goes to his local shrine. There, he selects a chikara ishi, or a “power stone,” weighing around 200 pounds, lifts it from the ground and hoists it up to his shoulder. For Sakamoto, the practice is less about getting fit and more about reconnecting to a long-forgotten cultural practice.
Stone lifting has been used as a measure of strength around the world for thousands of years. In Japan, stones were lifted in community rituals, religious ceremonies and performances of strength, by everyone from samurais to laborers, Sakamoto said. Around 200 years ago, one’s ability to lift a stone weighing 132 pounds -- roughly equivalent to a bale of rice -- often determined whether they were strong enough to work in manual labor, he added.
Stone lifting was a significant part of Japanese culture, but after the Industrial Revolution, the practice largely disappeared from daily life, said David Dunlap, director of Tenka Musou, Japan’s international strongman federation.
Thousands of lifting stones now sit largely dormant in shrines across Japan, he said. Many are engraved with the names of the men who lifted them.
Tenka Musou holds annual strength competitions in Japan to help carry on stone lifting traditions. At this year’s event, in March, about 70 athletes from 12 countries hoisted stones that ranged from about 75 pounds to 350 pounds.
Sakamoto said he continues to lift stones to connect with his ancestors. He hopes that by documenting his journey on social media, he can help breathe new life into the practice.
His goal is to have more people lifting these ancient stones, he said, and “also lifting up Japanese history.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.