Heenan punching the bag with 50 pound dumbbells

I disagree in so far as what the evidence is pointing to. No drama though - let’s put it to a jury of our peers if we can get one together -

 

OK, I was warming up on incline bench today with two 50 pounders and remembered this thread and gave it a try when no one was watching.

Uh, no.

I'm in about 280 pound bench shape (my best was 340), and I'm generally more country strong than gym strong, and no, this wasn't anyone's workout. I could do it a few times each arm but it was more destructive than constructive. Then again, I'm an old fart, so maybe this is a young man's game.

 

I’ve always been sure the bag was suspended per the evidence I described but I thought I’d see if I could find anything else to prove this - I did find this article which describes the bag as being suspended: -

https://www.coloradohistoricnewspap...--en-20--1--img-txIN|txCO|txTA--------0------

 

How to punch the bag - by Young Corbett, 1904
The genesis of the present air inflated apparatus was a large canvas bag filled with sand or excelsior, rags, chamois or pieces of waste leather, and hung by a long rope from a cross bean or a hook in a ceiling. ... As a rule, it weighed from twenty to eighty pounds.

 

Couldn’t tell you if they were common or necessarily used today Mel but it would take quite a bit of pressure off. If I read anything more on it in my general travels I post same.

 

There's another picture here of Jeffries pushing his sandbag around. In this case at least it's clearly suspended from the ceiling.

https://ibb.co/mhVRKk8

 

Thanks Solomon. I hadn’t seen that photo before - fantastic.