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The official website of Charles Atlas

charlesatlas.com

77 points by gregalbritton 2 years ago · 28 comments

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freedomben 2 years ago

Without re-igniting the "should you use tables for layout" debate, this is a great look at masterful use of tables for layout. It also reminds me how much we used to use images as part of a great website. Been a long time since I've seen map and areas used for nav bars! It manages to be both glorious and terrible at the same time. It's probably just nostalgia warping my memories, but man I miss the early web.

  • codetrotter 2 years ago

    I wonder if people who are used only to modern website looks will even recognise this page as having any clickable elements :^)

OfSanguineFire 2 years ago

Reading Marvel Comics in the 1990s, Charles Atlas was still just enough part of American culture that parodies appeared of its classic advertisement about a bully at the beach "Hey, quit kicking that sand in our faces!"[0]. I recall "Hey, quit kicking our faces!" and "Hey, quit kicking Sandman in our faces!" Long shot, but if any HN readers have an encyclopedic Marvel Comics knowledge and could find those two parodies, I’d be grateful.

[0] https://www.pinterest.com/pin/406168460114811471/

lucasfcosta 2 years ago

It’s quite impressive how the muscularity standard for men has increased over time.

  • I_Am_Nous 2 years ago

    Yeah, the photos on the homepage just show a very fit, normal guy and it's true that nearly anyone can look like that. Compare it to Arnold Schwarzenegger (who later admitted to using steroids) and it's nuts.

  • User23 2 years ago

    It’s pretty much an open secret that every Hollywood actor that needs to be muscular for a role uses some kind of anabolic androgen. You see stories like “he put on 30 pounds of muscle for this role in six months” and it’s obvious what’s going on. Also the signature overdeveloped upper traps and that trenbalone “dryness.”

    All that being said I’m still curious about the activity efficacy of the dynamic tension method. My understanding is that you basically flex to make your opposing muscle groups work against each other as a training stimulus.

    • shrubble 2 years ago

      Dynamic tension is almost like isometrics, except with an isometric hold you don't move the limbs and thus only hit the muscle at one angle. This is OK because muscles get stronger such that they have more strength 30 degrees each way from where you place them under stress.

      The simplest way to demonstrate DT for yourself is to straighten your arms, cup your fingers together and pull the arms/shoulders outwards; then, move your straightened arms in an arc from waist to above your head. You should feel it in your shoulders and back.

  • dale_glass 2 years ago

    Depends on by whose standard you go.

    Being a mountain of muscle will mostly get appreciation from other dudes in the gym.

  • kleiba 2 years ago

    Or the availability of PEDs.

_the_inflator 2 years ago

Great one. This is what it still was like to surf the net with an iPhone around 2010.

ilrwbwrkhv 2 years ago

Dynamic tension is a great form of exercise. And Charles Atlas was a legend.

ProxCoques 2 years ago

This prompted me to check whether the other website of this nature was still around. And it is! http://www.llapgoch.org.uk/

bdcravens 2 years ago

Where's the classic "sand kicking" ad?

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