Rizal’s dumbbell

Anyone who has seen me in person will know that I don’t go to the gym. From my body type it is obvious that my exercise consists of lifting, not weights, but spoon and fork, to bring food from my plate to my mouth. It may seem frivolous to be writing about Rizal again when I should be commenting on the rising incidence of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug users and pushers. Perhaps I should comment on the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani scheduled on Sept. 18, a date that comes between Marcos’ birthday, Sept. 11, and the date that some “martial law babies” like myself remember as “National Thanksgiving Day,” Sept. 21, when martial law was “officially” declared. Its actual implementation came after the historic document was signed, or, at best, antedated, to comply with Marcos’ personal numerology that had all significant dates in his life defined by seven, or multiples of seven.

Two historians recently asked me about the exhibits at the Rizal Shrine in Fort Santiago. One was Vicente Rafael, who asked about the hero’s overcoat displayed in a glass case on which is engraved a quote from my 1990 book, “Rizal Without the Overcoat.” The other was Leloy Claudio, who asked if I knew how much Rizal’s dumbbell weighed. I have seen this heavy piece of metal, together with Rizal’s fencing equipment, and never attempted to put it on a scale after reading Angel Anden’s article on the hero’s body type that appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine on Dec. 27, 1959. Lean and mean Dr. Claudio works out at the gym and was curious about the weight of the dumbbell and the manner in which Rizal lifted it. I referred him to the Anden article that stated:

“It was not an ordinary five-pounder such that anyone would use for limbering up; it was an enormous weight almost a foot long and as thick as a young boy’s head at the knobs. From my almost four decades experience in the field of weights, I knew that whoever used those heavy dumbbells was either a very big man or a small man trying to compensate for his vertical deficiency.”

Claudio felt that Anden’s conclusion was unfair and a bit rash in the context of recent academic works on the history of physical culture. I asked Claudio about Rizal’s program of studies for a proposed school that included “Swedish gymnastics” first thing in the morning. I was puzzled by Rizal’s describing these gymnastics as “purely hygienic.” Claudio said these were light exercises that do not make one perspire profusely, and may very well be what we know in schools today as “calisthenics.”

Rizal also made time for: horseback riding, fencing and swimming during the day, and ballroom dancing after dinner. When he was a student at the Ateneo Municipal in Intramuros, his PE equipment consisted of parallel bars, weights, and Roman rings or “argollas,” so it is safe to presume that he would have these in his planned school of boys in Dapitan.

It is not well known that during his exile in Dapitan, Rizal went back to his love for sculpture and made some delightful pieces in clay: a wild boar, a woman cutting grass, etc. He also carved wood reliefs—one a profile of Josephine Bracken and another depicting a man lifting weights. When I showed this to Claudio, he exclaimed: “That’s the bent press!” I didn’t have a clue what this was, so he patiently explained that this way of lifting made it possible to lift more weight: “The bent press is only done for single reps, not like the bicep curl which you do for more than 10 reps. With a bent press, you struggle with it for sometimes as long as three minutes. In terms of his physical attributes, Rizal would have been strong in what Russian physical culturists call maximal strength, as opposed to strength endurance, although we don’t know if  Rizal had good strength endurance as well. But in layman’s terms, his strength would have been more similar to a power lifter’s [than] to a bodybuilder’s. Rizal gained strength with minimum weight gain.”

Although we don’t have a photograph of the adult Rizal without his overcoat, we can guess this from the measurements as noted down by Anden, who actually tried on Rizal’s coat in 1957:

“Here are the exact measurements of Rizal’s coats; shoulder width—16 inches; armpit to armpit—17 inches; base of collar to hem—31 inches; arm length—24 inches. From the snug fit of the coat on my 38-inch chest, I figured that his chest was around 37 inches, quite big for a man only 5’4 or less. His body tapered to a slim waist measuring only 25 inches, almost as slender was a [modern] woman’s. Even a body builder of today would be proud of a 10-inch difference between his chest and his waist. Rizal had a full 12-inch difference.”

Anden couldn’t try on the pants, but noted the following measurements:

“Overall length—41 inches; waist—13 inches (half circumference); hips—18 inches midway—9 inches; cuff 7-3/4 inches. No low-waist pants, these; on the other hand, they extended almost to the sternum, which explains their undue length, based on the arm length of the coat.”

So for those who really want to know what Rizal’s height was, based on his clothing, it is 5’3, and the body proportions were “classical” and near-perfect. It seems there is much more that needs to be researched, not just on Rizal’s physique but on the history of physical culture in the Philippines as well.

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