The man behind the greatest records

Wolfgang Grünwauld Meureer was born in 1967, in the city of Darmstadt, in Hessen.

His father, a researcher of the Institut fuer Produktionstechnik und Tomsted Werkanchen, of the conceptualized Technische Academy Darmstadt, soon perceived his son’s instinctive interest in sports biomechanics.

Still an adolescent, Meureer carried out experiments with gears and pulleys to optimize his muscular explosion. Applying principals of physics to human physiology, Meureer developed the fundamentals of the sport which today is known as handcranking.

Meureer used himself in experiments with levers, pulleys and cranks and thanks to his perfect and very rare angulations between humerus, ulna and radius, Meureer was able to rotate his forearm in relation to his elbow, at a higher speed than normal. His agility is comparable only to the legendary jazz drummer Jimmy Druppa.

His career as an athlete began in the swimming pools of the Abbergard Club, of the city where he was born. Propelled by the Wolfgang’s handcranking, the swimming team of the club soon became one of the best in the country.

Wolfgang was part of various teams in different countries and helped to break a long series of records. This period became known as Goldenstaten – the golden era of the European swimming.

The evolution from swimming to other sports was natural in Wolfgang’s career. Specialized literature registers his participation in breaking various continental records from weight lifting, cycling, rowing and high jump to running.

Apart from becoming a celebrity, the handcranker does not speak about his personal life. We only know that he is married with an ex-swimmer from Brazil. But when the subject is the controversy which surrounds handcranking, Meureer takes on the airs of a militant politician. When not competing, he travels the world giving lectures to demystify the sport.

The polemics

The polemics

Handcranking was always surrounded by controversy as it was considered by purists as an anti sporting practice. But the biggest debate on the modality happened during the Games of 1994 when the large television companies decided to digitally wipe out the handcranker in their transmissions of the swimming competitions. The artifice worked for a while. However, the series of records which were broken in assorted competitions soon drew the attention of the specialized press.

Pressured by Wolfgang’s declarations in his television program and by public opinion, the television companies retreated and ended up liberating the complete images of the events. From night to day, Wolfgang became a worldwide headline in newspapers, and handcranking was definitively consecrated.

Biomechanics

“What Meureer does, challenges the laws of physics”. That’s the beginning of the document developed by the Indians Viukram Kemil and Rajan K. Behru, pioneers in the study of the biomechanics of handcranking.

Electromagnetic sensors were put on Meureer’s body, and via special software for this sport, his movements were analyzed. The system registered everything: the rotation of his shoulders, elbows, hips and thighs.

Does this matter? Kemil replies: “it is the perfect synchronism of all the body articulations which result in the ideal force on the crank”.

When the athlete makes a wrong movement, the software makes a small noise, similar to an electronic whistle. In Meureer’s case, in several months of tests, he never indicated any imperfection.

According to the study, Meureer is the first athlete capable of making a perfect Uniform Circular Movement. This signifies that his speed is frighteningly constant in the whole movement, even if the angle varies in function of some external factor.

Thanks to this regularity, Meureer maintains rates of low lactic acid for much more time than other handcrankers. This translates into up to 37% more resistance and 56% more torque.

Such indices were not attained even by the best golfers in the history of the WGG. It is a well known fact that for more that 50 years, professional golfers have been models of regularity in the biomechanics of movement.

Training

Handcranking is a sport which requires physical force and concentration. Each modality requires a technique, which goes from brusque pulls in weight lifting to frequent and continuous movements in swimming events. This explains Meureer’s perfectionism.

For 8 years the athlete has been training with the Belgian duo Tobias Schuneiter and Manfred Schultzer. His daily exercise routine does not change even on weekends. They are composed of 6 hours of muscle building and running, apart from 3 hours of handbike, 5 times a week. A fanatic for this sport, Meureer adapted the structure of the pedals to the handlebar of all the DazSprint bicycles of his collection.

Obsessed with perfection, Meureer lived in Havana for six months so that he could be the assistant of Hector Sanches – the famous Cuban fisher of Blue Marlins. Meureer admits that a great part of his technique for wrist movement was inspired by Hector’s incredible ability to use a fishing reel to bring in fish of more than half a ton into his boat.

In training periods, his diet is normal. Even during lighter practice sessions, the athlete drinks isotonics before, during the practice and afterwards to keep his body hydrated. Despite receiving offers from several brands, his exclusive sponsor is Gatorade.

Questioned by Athleten World Magazine about this fidelity, Wolfgang said: “Gatorade is my only sponsor because it’s great to hydrate my body and it gives me more disposition during training sessions and competitions. Besides, it’s the brand that believed in me since the beginning of my career.”

To maintain balance and be in total harmony with his race partners, the athlete is adept of Yoga and Transcendental Meditation. These practices brought out the virtue of humility in Wolfgang, essential for the success of a handcranker. As Zen-Buddhism says: A prosperous wind comes with no ego.

Handcranking in other sports

Handcranking has already been adopted by more than 47 types of sport throughout the world, and was adapted in accordance to the specific bio technique necessary for each of them.

In swimming, for example, the handcranker is positioned at the opposite end of the swimmer of your team. Apart from pulling your companion the length of the pool, the handcranker must arrive at the other extreme of the pool before the swimmer, moving frenetically during the whole competition.

The events of pole vault are much more complex, as they require the construction of a platform 2, 5 m above the bar. The platform is so small that there is hardly any space for the handcranker’s equipment. In rowing, the ends are submersed, fixed at the extremity of the competitors’ oars.

In weight lifting, two ends are fixed to the extremities of the central bar in a way that the traction obtained by the handcranker is distributed in a homogeous way throughout the movement.

The fundamental rule applied to all modalities, imposed by the International Federation of Universal Sports – is that it requires that the handcranker is responsible for the maximum of 35% of the performance of the official athlete – the one whose name is on the docket of the competition.

Meureer in the media

Meureer defines himself as an “eternal self motivator”. His inflamed speeches thrill even those who are not sports fans.

After memorable lectures in universities such as Voldweg-Maxmilians-Universität and Vourdgan International Graduate School of Social Sciences, the athlete was called to present a program on Radio Manox-FM, in Vienna.

The program was called “The Anonymous Champion” and it was Meureer who chose the people to be interviewed. On the radio, Meureer had the opportunity to speak to people who, like himself, stood up in their areas, but who in the name of a collective idea, were not recognized individually. The high points of the interviews were the interviews with Steve Ferrish and Fred Lowtell, the true voices behind the pseudo singers of the group Nilly Vamilli and an anthological chat with ghost-writer Jack Nimpsei – the man who created various famous speeches for assorted North American presidents.

Meureer in the media

Successful on the radio, Meureer was invited to present a program on live TV, with the same name and content. The program went very well until the athlete decided to speak openly about the polemic decision of the broadcasters to digitally wipe out from the sports transmissions the cables used by handcrankers.

The broadcasters alleged that ex-champions of various types of sport were upset by seeing their records being broken. And also claimed that handcranking unsporting.

With his image tarnished, Meureer lost important contracts in this period and gave up his career as a presenter. The only company which maintained his sponsorship was the brand Gatorade. A correct decision, as history shows that Meureer was merely ahead of his time.

Today, discussion in the media is about the swimsuits developed by NASA to help swimmers to break records, running tracks with special surfaces which improve the performance of the athletes and titanium racquets which fire tennis balls at more than 200 km/h. But handcranking came back to be unanimously acclaimed by sporting bodies and public opinion.

Origins of handcranking

Origins of handcranking

The first trace of human beings using cranks are in antique sculptures found in Chinese tombs constructed during the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD). At this time, cranks were used to roll silk, by farmers in improvised ventilators and in the manipulation of buckets in wells. From there, the crank appeared at various moments throughout history: mills, phonographs, film cameras, pencil sharpeners, the motors of old cars, music boxes, handles for opening car windows etc.

On the other hand, it is not so clear when handcranking became a type of sport. We know that cycling was the first sport to use a crank – the first bicycle to be moved by a crank with pedals appeared in 1860.

However this date is not officially recognized by the International Federation of Handcranking as the crank in question was directly powered by the cyclist himself.

The first records of traditional handcranking – together with other sports – are of 1906, in the English Games. At the time, the tug of war was an official sport and the medalists of the event were, respectively: the teams of the police of London Police, of Liverpool and the Metropolitan. Rumors that the winning team had external help appeared with the discovery of a rope fixed to the belt of the last London policeman. The image was registered by an amateur photographer and came out on the front pages of the principal English newspapers of the time. This photograph mysteriously disappeared in a fire in 1911.

Wolfgang Foundation

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" – with this phrase, Sir Isaac Newton recognized that his discoveries were only possible thanks to the genius of mathematicians, philosophers and physicists who lived before him.

For Wolfgang, this is the essence of handcranking. More than an athlete turning a crank to help others to break records, handcranking is the consecration of team spirit. It is the idea that behind every great victory there exist anonymous heroes who make it possible.

Anonymous heroes like the editor of the teleprompter of TV newscasts, the singer who records the playback for a famous artist or the ghostwriter who writes the speeches for a president.

That’s why Wolfgang created his foundation, to take the ideal of handcranking beyond sporting arenas. Over the last years, the handcranker have promoted workshops for puppet masters, stunt men of action films and voice dubbing artists of American TV series.

Because Wolfgang believes that the success of talented people sometimes depends on just a little help. Or, as Sir Isaac Newton said, a shoulder to reach your dreams.