History barely remembers the bitter rivalry between the two great muscle entrepreneurs of the second half of the twentieth century.īob Hoffman of York Barbell had the initial advantage. America for the second straight time, in 1941 (a day after competing in weightlifting), “he stood so far ahead of the others that a rule was adopted preventing previous winners from entering the contest,” according to John Fair in Muscletown, USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell. What he was good at, and what he apparently loved, was the slower lifts, and the muscle he gained from doing them.Īs a bodybuilder he was undefeated, winning six titles between 19. Related: The 6 New Bodybuilding Rules Every Man Should Memorize He also had no interest in gaining the kind of bulk that would’ve made him a world champion-at 195 pounds, he was usually the lightest heavyweight-and when he dieted down to the next-lowest weight class he lost too much strength. Grimek had no real love for Olympic weightlifting, and little interest in training for it. John Grimek, America’s heavyweight weightlifting champion, was barely a footnote, finishing a distant ninth. ![]() The 1936 Olympics are best known for Jesse Owens showing up his host, Adolf Hitler, by winning four gold medals. Neither the exercises nor the advice were thought to be original at the time, but Atlas, thanks to his charisma and the marketing chops of his business partners, made it his own.Īlthough he died in 1972, his course is still available at. That year he went into business selling a routine of body-weight exercises combined with health and lifestyle advice. Siciliano was a well-known weightlifter by 1922, when he won the title of “America’s most perfectly developed man” and changed his name. Related: The Workout All Skinny Guys Have Been Waiting For It was the original fitness infomercial, and for generations of skinny boys it was their only hope of a more muscular future. ![]() Was any of it true? Nobody knows, and nobody cares. It’s a story every guy growing up in the second half of the twentieth century knew by heart, thanks to the full-page ads in the back of our comic books. Nobody capitalized more on the standard he set than Angelo Siciliano, who, like Sandow, invented a manlier name to advance his career.Ītlas claimed to be a former 97-pound weakling.Īfter getting sand kicked in his face, he remade his body, using his Dynamic Tension system, and became so big and intimidating that no bully dared mess with him again. Sandow at his peak was one of the most famous people in the English-speaking world. Kasson), and to this day Sandow’s image is used on the Mr. Sargent declared him “the perfect man” (the anecdote is from a book called Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man, by John F. ![]() Related: What and When You Should Eat to Build Muscle With little apparent effort, he stood up, keeping his arm straight, and set Sargent down on a table. Perhaps to make up for being smaller than advertised, he knelt down and asked the 175-pound Sargent to step onto his open palm. (Like many bodybuilders since, Sandow claimed to be both taller and heavier than he was.) Sargent measured Sandow at a somewhat ordinary 5-foot-8, 180 pounds. Dudley Sargent of Harvard, himself a pioneer in exercise science. In 1893, at the height of his fame, he agreed to a physical examination by Dr. ![]() After his stage performances in New York, wealthy women paid for the chance to go backstage and feel his muscles.īut he was, first and foremost, phenomenally strong. When he staged the first bodybuilding contest in 1891, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the guy who created Sherlock Holmes, was one of the judges.
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