By now most everyone with an interest in fitness or strength and conditioning has seen the photos circulating the internet of Otto and Ewald, the German identical twins. Identical, that is, except for their physiques. Among the reasons given for their physical differences are that Otto was a distance runner and Ewald was a thrower. There is usually more than a little derision aimed at Otto for being "unhealthy" looking while Ewald is held up as an example of what healthy should look like. Interestingly both Otto and Ewald were track athletes until the age of 18 when Otto stuck with his love of running while Ewald took up the sport of Olympic weightlifting. The picture below shows the twins in 1969 at age 22.
Interestingly, there are no sources ever cited in other blog posts about where the information on Otto and Ewald came from. This post aims to correct this situation.
Tommy Kono and the Spitz Brothers
I first read about Otto and Ewald Spitz (surprise, they have a surname) 11 years ago in Tommy Kono's book Weightlifting Olympic Style. As far as I can tell, this is the original and only authoritative account of Otto and Ewald because Kono actually knew these guys. It's a far more interesting story than Otto was skinny (and unhealthy by implication) and Ewald was muscular (and again by implication healthy) because he exercised with weights. It is also high time Kono gets credit for the photos taken of Otto and Ewald that circulate the web without attribution. I've included a few more photos that most of you probably haven't seen. In case you don't know already, Tommy Kono was one of the greatest American weightlifters ever and one of the greatest in the history of the sport. A Japanese-American detainee in a U.S. WWII American detention camp, he began weightlifting because he had been a sick, asthmatic kid and hoped it would improve health. Despite lacking obvious raw talent, ideal equipment or training conditions, Kono excelled, epitomizing the concept of mind over matter. He was undefeated internationally from 1952 until the 1960 Olympic Games where he took Silver. He set 26 world records in 4 of the 7 extant weight classes. Concurrent with his success in weightlifting he also competed successfully in bodybuilding, winning the 1954 Mr. World and the 1955, 1957 and 1961 Mr. Universe. In other words, no one else has ever accomplished what Tommy Kono has accomplished.
Tommy Kono stands atop the podium at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia.
Kono in Germany
In 1969 Kono was coaching for West Germany where he met the other Spitz brother, Lothar, who helped Tommy with the junior weightlifting program. Lothar's younger brother Ewald was on the weightlifting team. Neither Lothar nor Ewald mentioned to Kono that they had another brother, Ewald's twin, Otto. Some months later during a coaching trip to Baden Baden expecting to see Ewald, Kono was shocked to see his lifter at the hotel pool some 25lbs lighter than when he had seen him two weeks earlier. "What happened to you?" Kono asked thinking it was Ewald, "You've lost so much muscle size!" "I'm Otto, Ewald's brother." Kono writes that Otto and Ewald had both been track athletes until the age of 18, when Ewald decided he wanted to take up weightlifting and compete in the sport. Otto stuck with running. By the time Kono met Ewald he was 22, had been lifting for four years, had grown from 55kg bodyweight to 67.5kg bodyweight and could clean and jerk 135kg. Everyone has seen the "before" pictures of the twins together, but check out the "before and after" pictures of Ewald.
Kono was intrigued that a set of identical twins could have physiques that differed so much and decided that it would be an interesting experiment to attempt to prove that weight training and nutrition actually did influence physical development. He enrolled Otto into participating. He persuaded the German government to provide a small grant, got the Schnell Barbell Company to provide a barbell and dumbbell set and other equipment and he got a pharmaceutical company to provide free vitamins and protein supplements. The experiment lasted 13 months when Otto decided to hang it up. He had made very good progress but had apparently had enough.
The Moral of the Story For Kono, the story of Otto and Ewald Spitz isn't a commentary on who is "healthier"; a runner or a weight lifter. It is instead a story about the desire and motivation required to achieve a goal. Otto stuck with the experiment for 13 months, made good progress and then lost the desire to go further after which of course he stopped progressing. Ewald, motivated by his brother's progress, worked even harder to"stay ahead". During the experiment he added another 4.5kgs of body weight and his lifts improved to a 174kg clean and jerk and a 125kg snatch. Having good supplements, equipment, government support and expert coaching were all important factors, but without the desire, focus and enthusiasm to achieve, progress stops. From Weightlifting Olympic Style, "A desire, determination and commitment to succeed are essential parts of the motivational, psychological side of training and Olympic Lifting. Improvement in the physical body is a natural process if the mental side of training is catered to and nurtured by a positive environment and reinforcement."
