Halteres 1 (αλτηρεζ) are hand-held weights that were first used in the standing long jump in the eighteenth ancient Olympiad in 708 bc, and may have been introduced either to make the ...

In the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, long-jumpers would leap while carrying weights called halteres in their hands. From either a standing start or a short run, they swung the weights and leapt ...

Ancient drawings show the halteres being swung for more advantage. Credit: source: Halteres offer a further advantage in the long jump when swung out in front during take-off and then behind ...

But ancient Olympic athletes, it seems, used a more obvious method to improve their results: ... In fact, the halteres only became a hindrance when their weight exceeded about 10 kilograms.

Ancient Greek soldiers used halteres or stone dumbbells to train. Those in Sparta used callisthenics and heavy rocks and those in Ancient Egypt prefeed heavy sandbags, ...