Ultimate farmer's walk?

[Roark]

In the Kings of Strength by Desbonnet there appears this

interesting passage- translated by David Chapman about

Matheiu and his companion Rouge (female) whose hands were

covered in warts:

'At one point things got so difficult for Mathieu that he was

forced to sell his canvas tents and even the carriage that allowed them to follow the fairs with his weights. He was then forced to walk with Rouge carrying two 20-kilo weights on a plank and with Mathieu following with the large barbell on his shoulders. It sounds incredible, but they were known to have journeyed to all the ancient fairs in southern France this way. Mathieu and rouge often walked twenty and thirty kilometers like this, going from country to country and from fair to fair."

How do you interpret this? Were the two-20 kilo weights

attached to the plank, or did Rouge carry the weights by the

handles?

This I believe was circa 1880 or earlier.

[Nathan Say]

Maybe the real explanation was lost in the translation. Desbonnet wrote it in french & then the translator interpreted what Desbonnet wrote but left out that detail. I've heard of it happening a lot with old math texts. The original text, written in german or french, might treat something really well, but the translator, not being a mathematcian, doesn't do a good job with the translation because they only understand the language & not the concepts. Charles Poliquin notices the same thing with physiology journals. He gets the original german ones because the translated ones are written by someone who doesn't know anything about physiology.

[Roark]

You would have a point if I were not aware of Chapman's

extreme interest in detail, making me sure he translated what

was there accurately.

In another passage he encountered a word with which he

was not familiar, and which was not in the several French

dictionaries he checked, so he submitted the issue to (as I

recall) some French language experts in pursuit of the

truth.

Perhaps Desbonnet did what writers tend to do- assume

that their readers are as aware of the details as the writers

are, and thereby leave out important details?

[AP]

my guess would be that the weights and plank would be on her shoulders just like mathieu... that's what it sounds like anyway...

[Guest Luke Reimer]

It struck me the same way as AP. When I got done reading it,

my first thought was, "Where's the part about farmer's

walk?"  I visualized the plank across the shoulder right away.

what else could the plank be for?

Cheers,

Luke