(Newswire.net — September 3, 2015) — Los Angeles, CA–When you consider he pioneered virtually every aspect of what we describe today as an active, fitness lifestyle, it wasn’t hard for writer Alistair Donaldson to pitch his profile of the inventor of bodybuilding, and fitness industry magnate, Eugen Sandow.
Men’s Essentials Magazine bills itself as the Thinking Man’s Guide to health, fitness, money women & life, so it was the obvious choice to publish a new profile of Sandow, said Donaldson.
Sandow was at the peak of his celebrity in London, 1893, when he opened the first of many Institutes of Physical Culture – the first membership gyms of their kind. By 1903 he had graduated over 300,000 pupils and certified dozens of trainers in the Sandow Method. While it is an extraordinary number of pupils to have attracted at that time, the fact Sandow had certified dozens of instructors is even more impressive. Certification in the Sandow Method took 10 years.
“Sandow took health and fitness very seriously,” says Donaldson in the introduction to his epic feature.
Highlights of an Extraordinary Life
Donaldson lists some of Sandow’s major contributions to the fitness industry, though the list is by no means complete, he says. Here is a partial list of Sandow’s impressive achievements:
Body Building: he coined the term, and literally wrote the book ‘Body Building’.
Strength Training: he introduced strength training to the masses.
Fitness Supplements: he formulated the first muscle-building powders and sold via mail order.
Universal Machines: he received several patents for multi-purpose exercise equipment.
Membership Gyms: where he also pioneered trainer certification and personalized workouts.
Professionalism: he introduced strength and conditioning to professional sports AND the military.
Advisor to Royalty: he personally advised multiple heads of state as well as European and UK royalty.
Education Advocate: he got physical education onto the school curriculum in several countries.
Core Training: he pioneered the importance of core strength to overall fitness.
Publisher: he published the first health and fitness magazines and numerous books.
International Fitness Celebrity: he went on lecture tours of the United Kingdom, Europe, North America and Australia.
Donaldson points out in his piece that people of the Victorian era were simply not used to seeing such muscularity as Sandow would display during his live performances to packed houses. In fact, after photographing and examining him at Harvard University in 1903, Professor D.A. Sargent said “Sandow is the most perfectly developed man the world has ever seen.”
The strongman initially made his living by entertaining audiences with his strength and posing routine, and by exhibiting his musculature in a way that had not been done before.
As Donaldson describes it, a Sandow stage show would have been highly entertaining, consisting of many routines done at pace. A typical performance would start with a posing routine, flexing and showing his muscle control to the audience, in a manner some felt to be slightly provocative. Then differing stunts would be performed including breaking an English penny in half, doing a somersault while holding two 56lbs dumbbells, lifting a horse above his head, ripping a double deck of cards in half and polka dancing across the stage with a piano strapped to his back while someone played a tune.
“Seriously, while it’s difficult to imagine Sandow pulling off these stunts, clearly this was no ordinary show,” he added.
In the course of his long career the Prussian born Sandow amassed a tidy fortune. Not only with his music hall show but his muscle building techniques which he sold through books, exercise equipment and even created and sold his own brand of health and strength building cocoa powder.
Read the full article here: Eugen Sandow is The Man Who Invented Fitness.
This excerpt has been reprinted with permission from the publishers of Men’s Essentials Magazine. Men’s Essentials Magazine is a bestselling iTunes lifestyle magazine published by Media in Motion LLC.