Broad Shoulders - Bob Hoffman

FOREWORD
(1946)

Broad shoulders are the most outstanding characteristic of a real man. Throughout the ages, broad, well-muscled shoulders have constantly been admired. Proof of this is the fact that all men wear coats with padded shoulders. The advice and instruction this book offers will assure you a broad, manly pair of shoulders, if you exercise as instructed.

This is by far the most complete book ever written on the development of the shoulders. It will provide the answer to those thousands of body builders who seek the ultimate in strength and development. If you already have good shoulders, the instruction in this book will aid you to obtain still more impressive ones, and if you are a beginner, it will help you to build a pair of broad, wide sweeping shoulders which will make your appearance more impressive, make you stronger, more forceful, more capable and confident.

This book contains all the good, tried and proven shoulder building exercises with many that are unknown or little known. It includes all the exercises which are practiced by the famous men of might and muscle who make their homes in York, Pa., in the Strength and Health center of the world, in “Muscle town” as it is known throughout the world. These men who have been coached by the writer have won every world honor for their strength, development, and all around physical ability. The York Barbell Club team has been national team champions since 1932, world team champions since 1937, year after year they have won all or nearly all of the national weight lifting titles. Complete unknowns came to York, and in a year or two they have been national or world’s champions.

The York champions who have proven the superior results which will be gained by practicing the exercises and advice offered in this book have held all the United States records in the three international lifts, at one time, they have established many world’s records, have won five out of six of the last Mr. America contests. The writer, who has coached all of these champions, and scores of thousands of other outstanding physical specimens throughout the world, is the world’s leading physical director, the editor of Strength and Health magazine, the world’s largest health and exercise magazine in point of circulation. He was selected as trainer for the U. S. Olympic team in 1932, in 1936 and was to have coached the team in 1940, until the war intervened. He is offering you exactly the same advice and instruction which have brought the members of his own team, and his pupils throughout the world, outstanding physical success. You, too, will succeed, will build the broad shoulders every real man should crave, if you will follow the broad advice and instruction offered in the following pages.

Broad shoulders not only look well, but they are a great help in all kinds of work and athletics. They provide favorable leverage which permit the broad shouldered man to outperform all others. The exercises which lead to broader shoulders will build superhealth and all desirable physical qualities. When a man has broad shoulders it is certain that he has a big chest, broad, deep, round, roomy, with plenty of space for a healthy, powerful heart and capable lungs. More than half of the men who leave this world meet their ends through failure of the heart and the circulatory system. The very exercises which build broad shoulders invariably build a bigger chest and while building this bigger chest, they build a stronger heart and lungs. One which will serve better, and longer. So when you practice shoulder building exercises you are not only adding to your manly appearance, but building the expectancy of a long, useful and happy life.

When you build broad shoulders, and the roomy chest which goes with it, you are bigger all over, not only bigger and stronger in the limbs, but you will have a well muscled, shapely midsection to house and protect superior operating organs, glands and processes. Therefore, a reasonable amount of specializing in shoulder development will mean superior all around health, and physical ability.

Throughout the book you will notice that we urge you to always practice an all around body building program which will develop all the muscles, then to specialize on broadening the shoulders, strengthening and improving all of the muscles which are interconnected with them. The general body building program which we recommend will produce a strong, symmetrical body without a single weak spot, strength inside and out, and the body builder who follows our advice and instruction implicitly, who trains conscientiously, will receive as a reward very broad, striking appearing shoulders.