Zishe Breitbart - Strongman

Strongman

Breitbart performed extensively in Europe and America touring with the Circus Busch using a strength act themed to fit his former background as a blacksmith. He bent iron bars around his arm in floral patterns, bit through iron chains or tore them apart, and even broke horseshoes in half. As a showman, Breitbart feats also included holding back two whipped horses, pulling a wagon-load of people with his teeth and supporting enormous weights, such as automobiles loaded with up to 10 passengers, while lying on his back. Stones would be broken by sledgehammers on his chest. He also lifted a baby elephant, and while holding on to the elephant, he climbed a ladder and held a locomotive wheel by rope in his teeth while three men were suspended from the wheel.

Breitbart took one of the most popular feats among the strongmen of the era and made it part of his act. During The Tomb of Hercules, a bridge was built across his chest and heavy animals such as a bull, or an elephant, were paraded over the boards. But Breitbart took it a step further, he would support a motordrome on his chest while two men chased each other on motorcycles inside.

Seizing on the mail-order muscle development course craze of the time, Breitbart authored a book titled Muscular Power and the Breitbart mail-order course. The course was based around body-weight exercises and a special "Breitbart Apparatus", a progressive resistance exerciser made to simulate steel bending movements.