Dimensions

• Height: 5ft 8in
• Weight: 365 lb
• Wrists – 8.2 inches
• Chest – 60 inches
• Waist – 47.4 inches
• Thighs – 33 inches
• Calf – 23 inches
• Neck – 22 3/4 inches
• Biceps – 21 1/2 inches

Notable Lifts

• One-handed snatch: 188 ¹⁄₂ pounds (85.5 kg)
• One-handed press: 273 pounds (124 kg)
• Back lift: 4,336 pounds (1,967 kg)
• One finger Lift: 553 lb (251 kg)
• At 19 years old, he lifted a rock from ground up to his shoulder, officially weighted at 514 pounds

Louis Cyr is considered by many to be “The strongest man who ever lived”. From a young age he demonstrated legendary feats of strength that mimic those of biblical legend Samson. Louis’s career had started early in his life, and only grew as he got older. Though he died at a relatively young age, he was still able to best all the strongmen of the time in various feats of strength, and was the undisputed strong man of the 19th and 20th century.

(A young Louis with his famous Cyr dumbbell, which weighed nearly 274lb)

Cyr was born in Saint-Cyprien-de-Napierville, Quebec, Canada. He began developing extraordinary strength at an early age. While Louis’ father was of average proportions, his mother was almost Amazonian, recorded as weighing 265 pounds at 6’1″. From the age of 12 Cyr worked in a lumber camp during the winters and on the family’s farm the rest of the year. Discovering his exceptional strength at a very young age, he impressed his fellow workers with his feats of strength. Louis started his strong man career at the age of 17, after some publicity came about due to an incident when the young Louis was reported to have lifted a farmer’s heavily laden wagon out of the mire in which it had become stuck. He was matched in a contest against Michaud of Quebec, who was recognized as Canada’s strongest man of the time. Cyr beat him in tests of lifting of heavy stones by hoisting a granite boulder weighing 480 lb

(Louis (center) poses in a photo with his wife Melina(right) and his daughter Emiliana(left), 1894)

In 1878 the Cyr family immigrated to Lowell, Massachusetts in the United States. In Lowell Cyr changed his name from Cyprien-Noé to Louis, as it was easier to pronounce in English. Again his great strength brought him fame. At 17 years old he weighed 230 pounds (104 kg). He entered his first strongman contest in Boston at age 18, lifting a horse off the ground; the fully grown male horse was placed on a platform with 2 iron bars attached enabling Cyr to obtain a better grip. The horse weighed at least ³⁄₄ short ton In 1882, while working as a logger, Louis married his girlfriend Melina. The following year he and his wife returned to Lowell, hoping to capitalize on his fame there. A tour of the Maritimes was organized, and while it may have benefited the organizer, Cyr gained no profit financially. He then began touring Quebec with his family in a show they called “The Troupe Cyr”.

(Louis preparing to restrain two of Queen Victoria’s horses as part of a demonstration in Ottawa, 1891)

Perhaps his greatest feat occurred in 1895, when he was reported to have lifted 4,337 pounds (1,967 kg) on his back in Boston by putting 18 men on a platform and lifting them. One of his most memorable displays of strength occurred in Montreal on 12 October 1891. Louis resisted the pull of two draught horses (two in each hand) as grooms stood cracking their whips to get the horses to pull harder, a feat he again demonstrated in Ottawa with Queen Victoria’s team of draught horses during her royal visit. Cyr was also credited with side pressing 273.75 lb with one arm (the right), a lift witnessed by Britain’s great champion Tom Pevier, who described it more like a ‘Jerk Press.’ The dumbbell, a huge thick handled one, was lifted to the shoulders with two hands, before the single-handed overhead move. Cyr’s dumbbells were often so unwieldy that many respectable strongmen were unable to lift them off the floor, let alone lift them over head.

(Monument of Louis in Montreal, Canada)

By 1904 Cyr’s health began to fail due to excessive eating and inactivity. At the time, he weighed 400 pounds. He slimmed down as best he could for his last contest of strength, with Hector De Carrie. Cyr retained his title and retired unvanquished. Cyr died on November 10, 1912, in Montreal, of chronic nephritis and was interred at St-Jean-De-Matha. Great homage was paid by all of Canada, with immense crowds attending the funeral and floral tributes coming from all over the world.

Work Cited

Weider, B. 1976. The Strongest Man in History: Louis Cyr, “Amazing Canadian.”” Translation of Louis Cyr, l’homme le plus fort du monde. Vancouver: Mitchell Press.

Debon, Nicolas. 2007. The Strongest Man in the World: Louis Cyr. Toronto: Groundwood Books.